Mystery Socks

The other day I was going through my bin of stashed fingering and lace weight yarn looking for yarn to use to make a scarf I will be knitting to teach a class on adding beads to your knitwear for my local knitting guild.  Lo and behold I came upon a project bag with a sock and a 1/2+  done.

 

I'm not sure why I put these socks down being that close to finishing them.  I can tell you the yarn is Koigu KPPPM color P727 but I can't tell you the pattern name although I do think they are from the KnitPurl sock club I belonged to a few years back.

 

 

 

Fortunately my index cards with the pattern rows were still in the bag and I can now proudly say they are finished!

 

 

Since it is the start of summer and a mere 100+ degrees outside I am happy to be putting these in the sock drawer to wait until the fall to wear them.

 

 Now off to do some more stash diving to see what else I can finish.

 

 

 

Never The Right Needles

This week my garter stitch project needed to be finished with some attached I-cord.  The "I" in I- cord stands for "idiot" because I'm an idiot to want to stitch it around an afghan but it finishes it up soooooo nicely.  In making I-cord you use 2 double point needles, dpns.   I started with bamboo U.S. 7's.  They were sticking to the acrylic yarn I was using so I changed to some metal ones I owned.  Along with the fact the needles were longer then I liked, 7 inch, I also didn't like the stitch size I was getting.  I headed to my local yarn shop, lys, for some more dpns as all I had were bamboo.

As seems to be always the case while my lys has lots of different dpns I couldn't get U.S. 4, 5 and 6's in the same style or length. There are differences when knitting with the same size from different companies in different materials but I had a deadline and was in a time crunch. 

 

 I came home with U.S. 4 HiyaHiya sharps, U.S. 5 Knitter's Pride Nova  and U.S. 6 Knitter's Pride dreamz.     The Knitter's Pride dreamz did the trick and were not sticky to work with.

 

Thank goodness I  am an experienced knitter because according to the back of the Knitter's Pride Nova "These should be used with all due care as these may cause injury by an untrained/unfamiliar person."
 

 

 

Only trained professionals.

 

Yes, I'm just knitting.

Caddy Pad Jr.

When I went to Texas last month one of the events I was able to attend was a quilting retreat at the GreenBriar Creative Retreat Center owned by Judy Groom in Eustace, Texas.  Beverly, the owner of the quilt shop, The Needle Niche located in Athens, Texas hosted the retreat and very last minute was able to include me.  To thank her I made her a tote to carry her travel iron.  The tote pattern is by Sisters' Common Thread and is used to take your travel iron to class or quilt retreats and allows you to pack up your warm iron with no worries.

 

 

 It also folds out flat to use as an ironing station. 

 

 

Since I was already at the top of the learning curve I made one for Dru Ann also.

 

 

You can never have too many Caddy Pad Jr.'s.



Garter Stitch

This week I've been knitting garter stitch.

 Lots and lots of garter stitch.

 Hypnotic amounts of garter stitch.

But it is not for me to share as I am knitting a sample for a friend.

 

Instead I will share for you what I am listening to -

The Orphan Train

 

This book is phenomenal and a tear jerker.  The book introduces you to the history of the orphan trains in the 20's and shares with you a slice of the life of the orphans on the trains.  I knitted, cried and was sad to see the book end. It is very well written and the narrator of the book, I am a listener of Audible.com, is great.

 

So if you have a lot of garter knitting or some other mind numbing task I suggest you listen to The Orphan Train by Christine Kline.  It will pass the time quickly.

 

I'm Back!!!!

I'm back from Texas.
 

A month or so ago I was experiencing a bit of malaise and realized I hadn't been to Texas in almost a year. 

That had to be rectified so I booked myself a flight and off I went to Texas - for a few weeks - because I can - and I have a husband that likes to see me happy.

 

I went to Waco with Hagen to see Kelsey and meet her fiancee Mike and just hang out.
 

 

Dru Ann and I went to a quilt retreat in Eustace and weathered the tornadoes. We were blessed to just have some thunderstorms.    I met some very lovely, welcoming women and sewed for four days trying to make a dent in the blocks from Cotton Club by Paula Barnes.

 

If you are ever in Athens, Texas looking for a quilt shop check out The Needle Niche.  Beverly is the owner and she is awesome!!

 

These are the blocks I finished in Eustace.

 

A brief stop back in Arlington to do a bit of laundry and

  then off to our private retreat at Charles and Dru Ann's lake house at Cedar Creek Lake.
 

 

I did managed to finish all 45 blocks for the Cotton Club quilt and get two panels put together.

 

 

 

We enjoyed some wine.

 

 

Cheese.

 

 

 

 And we enjoyed the deck with the dogs.

I also spent some time with Rachel and Brad, Haylee and the Miller' boys.
No, that's not a band, just all our children and their beloved.

 Jim, not wanting to miss out on all the fun, came in Thursday.  We all  had a fantabulous evening on Friday at the Miller's.

 Finishing up with dinner and for me bread pudding from
 Ellerbe's Saturday night before heading back to California.

We also managed to sew 10 pillowcases, bind a quilt and  I have knitted a baby sweater. 

And I think we have snared Kelsey to the sewing world.

All is good in the world!!!