Procrastination pays off yet once again

Ah...just put the quilt together. If I get it machine "quilted" tonight, great. If not, I'll tack it on the plane tomorrow. This is a Christmas present for my husband's sister and her family- I had to work this past week (and stayed in Chicago) so I got a little extra wiggle room to procrastinate. I bought the panel and half yards of coordinating fabric, and two charm packs for the patchwork.


This is a very quick cheater quilt- using the panel as the center cut down on the patchwork, and instead of binding it I sewed three sides together and tucked the batting in before turning it right side out. There's a little extra on the backing- AmandaJean does this much better than I, but I shamelessly copy her. :)


Faced with the prospect of racing to the fabric store at 8:30p tonight, I was very happy to discover I _did_ have some backing tucked away. It's a white on cream floral print so I put it wrong side out, making it (hopefully) less obvious that I totally forgot about the backing until I needed it. Now off to pack!

Blooming

I read a review of Peace Fleece yarn that said it blooms after washing because the mohair fluffs up. Well, there are mittens in bloom on my blocking board. And blocking seems to have helped those wonky tips even out!

all but the thumbs and a little sewing

Peace Fleece wool yarn, pattern Staghorn mittens from Ravelry.

Can't remember the name technique for machine piecing quilts- nice!

FO

Hat for my FIL. Am making good progress on the second mitten. Haven't started SIL's quilt, but this is doable (right?!)...I don't fly out until Wednesday morning.

Mika

I blame this on the harlot, er, the Harlot. I love this song. Almost as much as I love diet coke. ;)

BigGirl (You Are Beautiful)

On the needles

Do you remember me raving about vintage needles? I think I like vintage aluminum needles, but not so much the polymer/plastic kind. There's nothing like taking knitting with you to entertain yourself on a car ride only to have your needle snap!


The Peuransarvi/ Staghorn mittens are coming along nicely. The cables are easier than I thought, and very entertaining. Rather than drive to work and risk another 2.5 hour trip home in tomorrow's forecasted snow/ice storm, I'll be taking the bus and two trains. At least this way I can sit and knit for a couple of hours instead of sitting in my car having to pay attention!

snow!

Ironic that I should see this truck going by when I went to take a picture- we have the hardest time getting UPS to actually deliver packages to us here. It took me 2.5 hours to get home from work tonight, most of it in first or second gear.


Oh the joy of not having to drive 60 miles outside the city to clinical tomorrow (or ever again)! Let it snow...I have knitting and my sweetie.

Life after grad school

The amaryllis is going wild...five blossoms instead of the usual four!


I'm not bored. It turns out that you can crank out a lot of knitting if you don't have to go to work or school...or today, I found that I can do a lot of shopping. :) My class adopted a family for the holiday season. Since I grew up not celebrating Christmas with presents, it was a little weird for me. I was stressing about choosing clothes for "my" kid- what if he thought they were dorky? What if he, like, totally hated the pants I picked out? I had to remind myself that I'm not going to meet this kid so if he hates my taste in clothes, I'll never know. Anyway- the knitting (is it just me or does the sweater body look surprisingly long and thin?):


And my sweetie got a present today- a mini-spirograph. There have been some verrrrry sad tales around here lately about how "the girls" hogged the spirograph in his afterschool program (yeah, that would be first grade, circa 1981, obviously the scars are barely healed) and my little sweetie didn't get to play with it. I have to say, it's totally gratifying to give the dude a present, though. He loved his new personal spirograph.

Knitting goodness...spreading the joy (and an unknown crafting object)

I went through a little ebay loving a while ago. Late nights + insomnia + stress + a little depressed + online shopping = knitting needles and yarn! My sweetie was a bit alarmed when he realized the volume of things coming in the mail, but I'm better now. And I got some killer vintage needles.


Tuesday night is my final exam, finally, for real- although I said that five years ago when I finished my master's, so it's never over until it's over (this is a post-master's certificate program, and I doubt I'm going back for a doctorate but I might go crazy...we'll see). I'm giving my classmates (a class of six) the joy of knitting as a parting gift. The needles are paired and taped together- next to find some yarn to go with them. *giggle* I think I have some yarn around.


The jacquard self-patterning sweater is soaring along. Perfect thing to do with my hands while studying "Fever in a child aged greater than 3 months but less than 5 years", et cetera.


In one of the bundles of needles, I also received this


described as "something that was in with the knitting bags". Anyone know what it is? I'm kind of guessing lace but it seems too sturdy for that...

New obsession

I have some other stuff to post- knitting from the trip to Maine, new yarn, et cetera. But first, my new obsession.


This was bought on a whim in WalMart where I was trying to find a book to read passing time before class. No luck with the book but I decided to give the Jacquards a try. It's still cheap acrylic but it's really really cute! I am making a size 6 mo and expect I'll get a full sweater out of one ball. If not, I have another in the same dyelot and the leftovers would make some cute easy hats.