Springtime In Illinois

I know this blog is long overdue for an update.
The last year and more have been full of mostly amazing changes.
My chemo was completed near the end of last May.  I'm still recovering from the effects of the chemo and the surgery that preceded it. I'm working hard to build strength, but it's a great challenge.
Most other aspects of my life have undergone tremendous changes as well. (My most recent CA-125 was about 5, which is even less than it was at the end of treatment.)
My daughter successfully defended her thesis for her master's at New Mexico Tech. She did so not only with solid knowledge but also with great poise. She accepted a position with Caterpillar in Illinois.
Over Labor Day weekend I came along to help drive the moving truck, although at that point I was still too weak to be of much additional help. We stopped to see a childhood school friend of mine who had put her home up for sale.  I made an offer for her home and returned to New Mexico to prepare for selling mine.  My mind is still boggled from all that happened and how it happened and how quickly it happened, since I had planned to put my house on the market about now and hoped to move this coming summer.
Suffice it to say I'm now happily settling into my home in El Paso, not in Texas; the other El Paso!
The downstairs will be my quilting/sewing/knitting/cross stitching studio as soon as I get it organized.  I do a bit of unpacking and organizing every day, but I still have a way to go to regain the strength I had before the cancer journey.

The only needlework I've done includes finishing stitching of one small piece begun during chemo and some knitting.
My previous post shows a chair of cross stitch floss. (That chair now resides with my daughter.)

 Here's a chair of yarn, although it's just what I have out to make some choices. (This is an antique oak office chair that I happened upon here in Illinois.)

My latest finished project is still unblocked, but it's a shawl using 150 gr. of yarn from Sweet Georgia. It's designed by Tabetha Hedrick, and the yarn pack and pattern are available only from shops.

 As I neared the end of the shawl, I grew very tired of the lace pattern, so I substituted other patterns from the shawl.  I bound off with a picot edge that was not part of the pattern rather than with the contrast yarn.
Here's what I have left.

I've also knit three hats since I moved here.

I realized I love my red sweater, but I do not have a shawl that works well with it unless I wear my deep blue one and go for a patriotic look.  These are yarns I'm considering, but they will be used in multiple shawls, since my swatch is telling me some give different gauges, although they are all fingering yarns.

While all the cross stitch shops are gone, we are fortunate to have two great knitting shops in Bloomington.

We're having another rainy day today; quite a change for me after 30 years in the desert!  I find I love Mondays during retirement.  I try to stay home and do things around the house as well as some knitting. Getting my huge studio space set up is still a goal since I lack the energy and strength I need, and the unloading people mixed boxes marked Master Bedroom with those marked Quilt Studio. The other days of the week get scheduled quickly and include chiropractor visits resulting from my unplanned attempt to fly across some ice at the end of January.  (Yes, I arrived just in time to  unload before the polar vortex descended with wind chills of -50F. In fact, the six guys I hired unloaded everything in less than three hours, and the rental trucks were returned as the snow and ice struck Central Illinois. My home is nice and cozy, so I didn't much mind since I had so much unpacking to do.)

I do miss my friends from New Mexico, and I'm enjoying connecting and reconnecting with people in the area where I grew up.  A lot of things have changed in my community, but a lot of things have endured and/or improved.
My 90+ year old friend Barbara assured me I was headed for a great and fun adventure.  She's right.  My days are filled with joy.

Happy quilting and stitching......

Fistful of Fiber Gorgeous

I want to share more gorgeous yarn from the Albuquerque Fiber Fiesta.

LaDonna Maxwell has been dyeing fiber for four years and lives near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

She names her colorways after places is New Mexico.  I wasn't paying attention to that.  When I got home I saw that she had named the lower one, which has more mossy greens than evident in the photo, for the little town just up the road.

Here's a photo of her card.  She's in the process of setting up her web site for shopping, but is still loading yarns.

LaDonna is very talented--and nice!

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

Spring to Summer Needle Activity

I enjoyed a few days off work, went back for a day of training yesterday, and am now ready to enjoy our short summer break (one day shy of two months).  I'm not sure exactly when teachers got a three month spring break (never in my nearly four decade career), but we did get 10-week breaks in the past.  I hope I can find enough energy to make this one productive in quite a few ways. 

A couple of months ago a dear friend said I needed red socks.  I don't do red socks, so I inquired if fuchsia would work.  I finished the first pair a few weeks ago and posted about them here.

 This yarn is in the Djinni color way from an independent dyer and was purchased last year. Toe up, a basic heel flap I've used for years, and an instep and ankle  pattern lifted from a piece of knitting not originally on a sock.



The rest of these yarns were purchased from vendors at the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta May 17.  I went looking specificially for yarns containing fuchsia.  I've finished one pair so far.

 This color way is Big Girls Don't Cry from Zia Woolz.  Some of her yarns can create a multi-colored set of stripes depending upon how many stitches are cast on and the size of the needles.  I used 2.25 mm needles and may have cast on 32 stitches.  Toe up, one circular needle, short row heel from Arne & Carlos, for which they have posted both Norwegian and English tutorials on their blog and You-Tube.

I forgot to take a picture in the skein, so here's a little bit of the yarn in a ball and the socks.  I loved the way these pooled.  I also made them a bit shorter for summer.  No pattern; I just improvised as I went.

 These are in process and are Honey Bee from Zia Woolz.  Not a lot of fuchsia but lots of colors that appeal to bees when they are in floral form.  I've done a lot of darker socks lately, so these are kind of refreshing--and this is just plain vanilla.  I'll probably do another German short row heel.

More Fiber Fiesta yarns:

 Hot Mama from Zia Woolz.

 Velvet Touch from Zia Woolz. This is 5% gold stellina.

 Bougainvilla from Wooly Wonka.  Another customer had just bought every skein of this when I arrived, so Anne showed me a mini-skein and went home and dyed this one up for me.

Since I had been so focused on fuchsia at the show, and was rushed, as well, I never made it back to her booth to get Sea Dragon, so she died one of those for me too.

 This is more in line with what I usually purchase, but the copper colors in this make it very special.

 Photos don't do it justice.

And this is the drawstring bag with yellow ribbons that I made a couple of months ago and have been taking with me amost everywhere so that I can keep knitting, even when I'm walking.

Despite everything I've tried in order to increase the speed of my knitting, even in the vanilla sock version it takes me two minutes and forty seconds to complete a 64 stitch round English style and three minutes twenty seconds to do it continental style.  However, I'm still likely to switch hands now and then.

As for quilting, it's been several months since I've done any serious sewing!  And summer passes swiftly!  I'm trying to watch knitting vlogs while I knit at home.  Maybe I'll learn something.

Happy quilting and knitting,

Finished Knit

A finished pair of socks.  Traditional Gansey stitch pattern.  No written pattern since I did toe up two-at-time on circular needles with a heel variation. There is a bit of stellina fiber in this yarn.  My concern that it might be a bit scratchy was entirely unfounded.  I don't feel it, but I do love the bit of sparkle.

I started these about a week into April, knowing I was going to have  time merely waiting on other people to do things in April and that, secondly, this is historically a very windy month, and knitting is a good distraction. Therefore, knitting socks allowed me to be productive instead of crazy.

I've decided I need more fuchsia yarn for more fuchsia socks, although mostly I just need more socks because the ones I began knitting about eight or nine years ago are wearing out--not that my early socks fit all that well anyway.  This is a great time to knit socks since there are so many indie dyers doing absolutely amazing yarn dyeing on such a wide variety of bases.

This afternoon I'm tying to finish up another pair of socks that had been languishing since sometime in 2016. This has been a good weekend for knitting since it came with a major cold-front, high winds, and a reported nine inches of snow.  This snow storm was the only major snow storm we've had this winter (aside from quite a few little ones).  It was fascinating to hear and sometimes watch the snow slide off my less-than-a-year-old metal roof. I'm thinking the drip line below my roof is going to be a wonderful place for some blooming plants, since if we have a normal winter with normal snows and a normal summer with normal monsoons, a lot more moisture will be benefiting the soil.

I am still trying to figure out what I'd like to grow as a ground cover. Someone suggested vinca major, so I may try some of that. While I'd love to grow rosemary and lavender, I priced bulk rosemary seed and about fell over.  I had an ever-expanding rosemary patch that was obliterated last year when I lost control of the yard and had to hire someone to mow it while I was at work.  I'm hoping some of the rosemary will reappear this year; if so, I'll begin moving it to a better location. Because of our high wind/desert location, our choices for ground cover are somewhat limited. (Not the my neighbor's invasive sumac and choke cherries have gotten the message that we don't want them!)

Less than a month until the end of my school year.  Two weeks until my daughter  graduates with a Bachelor's in Materials Science & Engineering.  She'll be home while she works in ABQ at her summer internship and then will head back to Socorro for her master's degree.  I'm hoping I can be more productive in the housekeeping and quiltmaking departments this summer.

Happy quiltmaking, knitting, etc.,

Felted Socks - OOPS!

I finished a pair of teal green socks a several weeks ago.


Saturday they came out of the laundry shrunken and felted--despite the fact that they had come through previous laundering under exactly the same conditions with no problems at all.

Sunday I ripped them out and wound them into little yarn cakes.  I decided to make some wristlets--since I'm pretty sure they will be warm.  I've managed only several rows of ribbing so far.



I'm taking it easy because two days ago I had cataract surgery; the surgery itself and my recovery are truly amazing.  Because I chose distance vision, I can see things without my glasses clearer than at any time since I was a very young child.  The cataracts in my left eye were larger than in my right, so my left eye received the attention this week, and my right eye will be done next week.

I've been playing a few Christmas programs on You-tube, thinking I'll reminisce about sweet old television Christmas specials--Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, and more.  But, I haven't gotten much knitting done.  I did finish quilting a prayer quilt I began quilting last winter and then had to un-stitch because the tension was messed up and I hadn't realized it.  The next quilt blessing is January 10, and I'd like to quilt some prayer quilt tops that have been sitting around here for months while I've had no time to quilt.

Stay warm!

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,....

Not Harriet's Fault--a Future Quilt

I could blame part of this on Harriet...

 She phoned and told me to order these when Missouri Star Quilts had Elenore Burns "Zoey" on sale.
However, I'd been eyeing this fabric for a Dora Quilt since I first saw it last fall, and I'd been home to see the Daily Deal, so I'd already placed an order.  I always love it when fabrics arrive and are even more beautiful than they looked on line.

No, I have not decided how it will be made and am willing to let them age for just a few weeks while I finish some Victory Prayer Quilts.

Then, today, after picking these up at the post office, I stopped by Bethel Thrift Store and found this little jewel of a pillow case.  I love how the main part of the design was created with hem-stitching.  I'm thinking this will take almost no time to embroider in a beautiful thread to match the Zoey fabric.

And, if I can't find some tatted lace in my stash of lace I've created in the past, it will take much, much longer to create an edging.

I always wonder if people just lost interest in finishing a pair of pillow cases or if something happened that prevented it.  More often than not, when I come across finished pillow cases, there is only one.  However, I know from growing up on the farm that the guy's pillow case often wore out first. Let's face it, I'm so blessed by single pillow cases that I seldom feel sad that I don't have the pair.

And in reference to the farm where I grew up, today our little town looks much like many of those flat Midwestern prairie towns. We were expecting snow today, but the prediction has changed--so we are just socked in with clouds so that although we are surrounded by mountains, none are visible.  The prediction is for frozen fog--which can be amazingly beautiful if it freezes on the vegetation.  If it does, I'll venture out to take photos! Since it's twenty degrees warmer here than it is in El Paso, IL, for the time being I am quite happy to take that along with the 6000 feet higher altitude and almost 1200 miles farther southwest.

My daughter did return to college yesterday--I was able to knit on a pair of socks while she drove.  We stopped at a little restaurant in Mountainair  called Alpine Alley for a delicious sandwich, and were disappointed that the new bakery was not open. The restaurant is cozy and homey, and if I lived closer, I'd have to round up some knitting friends for a sandwich and knitting. It was a beautiful drive because the roads were clear but there was still snow from last weekend, even in areas that seldom get the benefit of moisture.

I was happy to get back home shortly after dark, work on a quilt, and start my Downton Abbey Mystery Knit Along shawl while I watched the show on PBS.  However, I made some errors and will have rip it out and start over--that's okay, because I do love the colors.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting...,

Still Around; Knitting & Quilting

I'm shocked that I've gone missing for so long.  I took a few pictures but didn't get them downloaded to my computer or uploaded to my blog.

I've pieced two quilts and quilted these:

 All four are prayer quilts.  I'll try to post more photos of them later.  All four of these are prayer quilts Judy pieced and layered for our ministry.

I was trying to focus on knitting because I wanted these socks finished by Easter.  Hopefully, I will still manage that.

I also joined Marly Bird's April Knit along but I'm still working with the gauge swatch.  She used size 5 needles--clearly would have been waaaaay too big.  I'm now trying it on size three.  I'm not making very good progress.

I have been watching lots of quilting videos while quilting.  I did something that I didn't think I'd ever do.  The treadle I use the most (a Necchi BU in 1919 Singer treadle irons) re-oriented itself so that I can see the new TV I placed in our living room.  I really thought I'd never again allow a TV in our living room, but here it is.  And I must say that I love the fact that I can acquire more education while I'm quilting!  I also ran across an inside TV antenna that actually works--and for far more channels than I really want to watch anyway.

School is keeping me very busy; still have more IEPs to complete in the next few weeks. Spring break went by in a flash (back in March), and it's quite possible the next few weeks will march by only slightly more slowly.  We have some trees in bloom, and when I tried to pull a few weeds in the yard today after church, I found one tiny tulip in bloom.  We are having high winds with promises of rain, but the moisture may miss us. Soooooo, onward....one day at a time.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,....

Spring Knitting - Ooops!

Most of us are soooooooo ready for spring, so, of course, I need to do some spring knitting.

I ordered this yarn from Loopy Ewe and waited to see if the yarn would come directly to me or travel around the country first [like the yarn I ordered from Craftsy].  This yarn arrived in two days via USPS--no side trips at all.  This yarn is from their Seasonings line, perfectly titled Spring Blooms.  I've started casting on...and then...I remembered that I want to make toes, heels, and probably cuffs from the 100 yard skein of pink.  Okay, now I get to rip out and start over--and because I'm getting sidetracked with this project, I'm also still trying to decide what to do for the next border of the Jenny Doan Flower Garden Quilt.

I arrived home in time to watch NBC Evening news Tuesday night and was delighted to see the lovely story about the Missouri Star Quilt Company and how the hard work of this one family has transformed their little town of Hamilton, MO.  This family and their employees are such a wonderful example of hard work and dedication paying off--and of people who remain "real" instead of letting success go to their heads.

Weather report:  We are absolutely thrilled to be getting a tiny bit of rain!  Of course, it's not enough to be measured even in hundredths of inches--but it's enough to be sorely appreciated!

Happy quiltmaking, happy knitting.......

New Quilt & Knitting Idea

I'm making Jenny Doan's Flower Garden quilt.  I was inspired by her most recent video updating sashing for this quilt.

 I used a Robyn Pandolph layer cake--so there were multiples of every fabric.  I chose the peachy flowerdy squares and made 20 blocks--using a 1980s solid for the corners to form petals.  I cut my sashing and the setting squares 2-3/4 inches--so each sashing was one-half the width of a petal.  Yes, I could have used jelly roll strips, but loved the two greens from my stash and I don't have any green jelly rolls.  I'm trying to make a decision and cut the borders.  I loved the borders on Jenny's quilts but don't think I want to duplicate hers on this quilt--and with 20 blocks, the quilt has grown larger in size already.  Of course, for me, the quilt is about the quilting at least as much as it is about anything else, so I have more decisions ahead.  I should say that although I love the pattern, these fabrics are not "me", but they are good for stretching my creativity.

I didn't see her original video. You can click the link to find it.

Stop by Judy's blog at Patchwork Times and see what others have on their design wall.  (I don't have a design wall right now.  My quilt top is just tossed over a chair.)

Yesterday I sat in church watching the back of my sweet friend's vest.  The front was quite elaborate with all sorts of cable designs, but it was the back that struck me.

It really caught my interest because it looks like something that would make interesting socks.

I need to find some time to knit a swatch.  It's simple knit and purl, but quite interesting.

I'm loving having a holiday from work today--in no small part because I came down with some kind of bug yesterday.  So, although I'm not accomplishing as much as I would like in the knitting or quilting departments, at least I don't have to take a sick day.  Here the sun has been shining off and on, and we're supposed to reach the 60s today.  As I write this, we are at 59.9, so I'm hopeful. I'm also hoping our warmth will work its way to the frozen Midwest and East.  This may well be one of those memorable winters that people tell stories about when they've grown old.

Happy quilting, and happy knitting.....

Quilting & Knitting Progress

I've made a bit of progress on these socks made with Christmas at Downton Lorna's Laces Solemate.  These colors are not all that accurate on my computer--what looks reddish brown is actually a deep purple.  It's my project for watching Downton Abbey and for watching the Olympics--although I don't know how much I'll be watching the Olympics.  I did watch most of the opening ceremony Friday night--awesome performances, but not as awesome as the amount of money spent on the production.

I was able to get the binding on the Autumn Harvest prayer quilt--and took it to church for my friend to sew down the binding on the back while she spends countless hours at a rehab hospital while her husband recovers from heart surgery.  She also knits; it's a good time to have these skills.

Here are some details from this quilt.  I just love the pattern.  It is so adaptable to so many different styles of fabrics. (I first made a quilt from this pattern back in the early 1980s--and I'd like to make several more.)

All the quilting was done one morning on my friend's sit-down Handi-quilter.

Yesterday I cut all these pieces and  pieced them.

I have four blocks together and hope to get the rest of them together and unite them with their sashing, and maybe some borders, this week.

The colors don't show up very well.  The main fabrics are from a recent Robyn Pandolph line, but the sweet beige solid has been in my fabric collection for close to 30 years and is left over from a pink, beige and white Burgoyne Surrounded lap quilt I made back then and which became a Victory Prayer Quilt.  I'm guessing the only way I will ever find another fabric that color is if I dye it myself.

For others who are loving the quilt-like graphics of the Sochi Winter Olympics,  here's a link that explains how they are the result of sampling many of Russia's crafts and folk designs.

I love the colors they have chosen.  Can you imagine what fun we would have with lines of fabrics in pre-cuts of all these prints?!

Another knitting attempt is to see if I can turn this lace on it's head so I can make this wonderful top-down pattern by Terry Morris from the toes up instead of from the top down.  I'm hopeful.

Of course, I also need to find some sweet and lovely rosy or orchidish yarn to use.

I let Knit Picks know that one of the screws for my recently purchased yarn swift was defective and just kind of crumbled and wouldn't screw in enough to secure it, and they are sending me another.

Our third snowstorm for the week fizzled and went elsewhere.  While we need the moisture, we've enjoyed our two sunny days of mild temperatures--and all the snow at my place has melted for the first time since late November.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting......

P.S.: I've had trouble with parts of this post appearing and disappearing from my blog.  I hope that whatever the issue has been,  it is fixed now.