De-Stash De-Tox

Pink Orient is finished! I changed the name to Fan Girl, as it's for my fan girl. Here's a closeup of the border fabric. I just pulled it out of the stash and it seemed to have a place right there. Yay--no extra shopping!
Here's a closeup of the quilting: it's a color-change thread that I had a big spool of just hanging around, wanting nothing more than to be a part of something greater, much like the rest of us.
And the back. I just hosted a De-Stash party with some of the knitters I know. One was moving out of the country and wanted to clear stuff out. So I went through my yarn and separated it into the stuff that could go... ...and the stuff that wanted to stay.But not everything that I was willing to part with was ready to leave the house that night. I have to go through and decide what to reabsorb and what to send to charity.My Nonsense and Sensibility Socks got done: hoop-de-doo! I had to block the cuffs because they're lace. Worked just fine but looks a little creepy in process. Here they are, all done! Am I standing on a book, you ask? Um. Maybe.

Watch for Sailors!

Yesterday, in an attempt to appreciate my home town, I stopped at Spanish Landing and took a little walk in the tiniest strip park along the harbor. It was just lovely. Until about 30 sailors nearly trampled me in a horrible jogging accident. Okay, okay. It wasn't like I walked into the middle of a marathon.* They were going in singles and groups of up to four, it seemed. And they dodge walkers very well. Mostly I looked at sailboats, grass, sky, that one guy... Then I headed over to Little Italy for a caffe latte. I put the final borders on Pink Orient. I wish I knew what that Chinese calligraphy really says. I heard about a scientific journal that accidentally put an ad for a brothel on their cover! I think this will make a nice back. I was digging through my Asian fabrics for something without any success whatsoever. Then a wild hair made me open up the purple box. I had four yards of this scrumtious darling. It should do just fine.And Whisper is finishing up, very scrappy, if I do say so myself. I used pieces from the 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" box to make the final border. The style is called "Piano Keys." I still have to do the other two sides, but I really like it as a good way to increase a quilt's size quickly and use up scraps. Here's a link on how to do a really nice one.


*not like that time we drove into the Cody Stampede. That was an oopsy I won't soon forget... So we were visiting Cody, Wyoming on our first cowboy vacation. We knew there'd be a rodeo and we were looking forward to it. Driving into town to visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, we became aware of about 200 cows and numerous cowboys headed straight for us and not a block away! "Aah! Turn! Turn!" I shouted. The Man of the Place did so and parked. We hopped out and watched the rest like a parade. It ended well. I bought beads.

No, Really. Who Am I?

As I'm working on the Sense & Sensibility socks, I decided to take a quiz and find out which Austen character I am:

Take the Quiz here!

Go figure it's one I know nothing about! Well, that'll be remedied. I plan to read six Austen novels this year.

1. Sense and Sensibility a
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Mansfield Park
4. Persuasion
5. Northanger Abbey (you mean I gotta wait 'til October?)
6. Emma

So, anyway, here's the sock progress:You can kind of see how pretty the chevron pattern is becoming. I'll block it when I'm done, (get it wet and pin it out to dry) then you'll really be able to see it.

I've got a little further on Pink Orient quilt. Stashbuster Alert! I wanted to use up the three fabrics in the blocks, so I cut it pretty close. All the fan fabric (black background and cream background) is gone and I have just enough of the pink to go around with one little 2" border. Measly, I know, but if you look in the upper left hand corner of the photo above, you'll see a little squarish piece of pink: that's all that will go into the scrap bin.

Detail of Pink Orient

Pink Orient

I showed Tiny these three fabrics and asked if she knew anyone who liked Asian prints, as she does, and pink. To my shock, she said that she did know someone: herself. I thought pink had fallen out of favor. But apparently it clawed its way back into her good graces. So I started work on it. For now I'm calling it Pink Orient. I'm just using a disappearing nine patch, as I'm so enamoured of making. Here's a link to my photo tutorial. (It's not as good as another one, but I couldn't find it tonight.)

Then I laid it out in the typical style and showed it to her, just to make sure it was really for her. "It's a little busy, don't you think, Mom?"

I looked at her from under my brows and gave the quick answer: "Have you ever seen the quilts I make?"

She grinned and nodded and that was the end of the exchange. But I gave it a little time and thought about it. I've decided I'll sash the blocks in black to help it settle down a little, like I did with the blue in Everything Groovy. That should do the trick.

Also on the quilting front, I've been working on the binding for Polka Dot Garden. It's moving along, but slowly. I like to hand-sew down the binding. It gives me a chance to fall in love with the quilt.

In knitting news:

I finished the embellishments and put in the interfacing for the Red Herring Purse. I've decided to add dowels into the handle for reinforcing, so I need to wait until I go to the lumber store. But at least it's moving forward. Glacially. Hey, glaciers move! They do. No, they really do. Like a foot. Every year. More with global warming...

And the second Soy Toy sock has turned the heel. Well, it's not automatic, like it knits itself or anything. I actually turned the heel. Wow, that would be cool if it just knit itself right along and I would find it in the morning all done. Like the Tailor of Gloucester in Beatrix Potter's book. Oh, wait, that turned out to be mice that did the work. Never mind.

On Monday, I went to see Kate Jacobs, author of The Friday Night Knitting Club. I really liked the novel and look forward to reading the sequel, Knit Two. She's very articulate and friendly and even acquiesced to my ridiculous request that she pose with my knitting. (I promise, I did try to remove the red-eye effect, but it looked creepy that way, so I just put 'em back to red.)