We spent a good part of yesterday moving the last of the furniture that we needed to move. One piece was big and heavy but we got it down without either of us getting hurt. Downstairs is easier than upstairs so we had that going for us! Now I'm down to getting drawers and cabinets reorganized and then I can start looking for a bed for the former office. Things are getting done! On the crochet front I got a little done this week. It's been a little warm to even think about crochet but I added a few rows to the blue blanket. I also added a few rows to the baby blanket. I think I was able to do 2 nights on each blanket. I almost bought some sale yarn this week but I made myself look at my stash first and that helped me avoid that purchase. In between moving chores I finished cutting batting for the potholders and got 11 of them finished! These come together really fast. I'm binge watching Money for Nothing (a BBC show) on YouTube while I stitch.
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I didn't take my crochet blankets to the river with me so I've only had one night each to work on them. Now I know that I do about 2 rows at a time in the evenings. I'm fine with that progress. These are donation project just dome to keep my hand busy in the evenings. For travel, I generally take my hat bag. I made a lot of progress on the blue hat at the river. Just a few more rows and it will be ready to seam. I have to work on this during the day because it's just so hard to see the stitches with this yarn. I love the look of it but hate working with it. In the evenings there I started a new man's chemo hat. Both of these hat will be ultimately donated and I'll be really happy to see the end of that blue yarn. It's really best for stitches like granny stitches where you stitch into a chain space or other hole. Stitching into previous row stitches is hard for eyes full of floaters.
I made a little crochet progress this week. The orange marker on this one is where I was last week. I got far enough to see what my pattern is going to look like and I'm happy with it. This is going to be a big blanket so it will take a while. I made more progress on the baby blanket. The red marker is where I was last week.
I alternate working on them and it looks like I had more time on baby blanket nights this week. This week I had a little crochet detour. I worked the voting precinct Tuesday. I expected it to be slow and I was right. I took my crochet bag and finished the rust/blue hat and did more rows on the blue hat. That one is folded in double so it's reasonable close to being done. The cool thing was that the other woman working is also a crocheter! We both worked the poll books and got to sit and crochet together all day. She does really cute amigarumi that she sells somewhere locally. I got a few more rows added to the baby quilt. I also added a few more rows to the big blanket. You can start to see the pattern repeat now. There will be a wide navy stripe, small blue stripe, medium white, small blue and then navy again.
I'll probably get in a little more crochet time in today now that my time is more free. Plus it's supposed to be really hot all week so that means inside time for sure. For the last lot of years I've used Saturday for sharing some of the great work of my customers. Well, there won't be any more of that! In fact, the Customer Gallery page will be taken down in the next few weeks because I don't think it's right for me to keep that page now that I'm shutting down the business. So, now would be a good time to take a look at a lot of inspiring projects! Going forward, I'm going to use Saturday for my crochet updates and my first project is this baby blanket. I've finished 1 skein of 4. The interesting thing about this one is that in the first skein the green turned brighter about halfway through the panel. This is a new project that I started. It's going to be about 40" wide and maybe 60" long and will be a donation blanket. It's going to be stripes in dark blue, medium blue and white. I've made this pattern a couple of times before. Here's one of them. It's a fast one!
I haven't posted anything about crochet in a while and that's simply because I haven't done much crochet lately since football season ended. I think I've also been staying away from it because I was a little stuck on my 2 projects. One of them is this donation baby blanket. It's supposed to have a border on it but I kind of messed up the first row so I couldn't figure out how to do the border to get the top and bottom even. I finally decided that I could skip the border and call it done. The blanket finished about 34" square, a nice size for a baby quilt. The pattern is from Yarnspirations and is called Bundle in Blue. I can't find it on Yarnspirations anymore, but I did find it here. The yarn is Sundance Scramble from Herrschner's. I love how this yarn looks but I don't really love the yarn. I have a feeling it's going to pill based on one small washing sample. I used a 5.5mm hook. I do like how the yarn stripes and it worked well with this pattern. I would make this pattern again. The other project I have going on is a summer vest. I'm not in love with it so I'll eventually decide if I'm going to finish it or not. Meanwhile, I've decided to start 2 more blankets.The purple/green print yarn is a 3 weight and I'll make this blanket again. I remember it being easy and fast and being really pretty when it was done.
The blue, white and yellow yarns will be for a bigger donation blanket and I'll probably make it like this one. I've done that pattern twice and it's another fast and fun one. Tuesday was primary day in Virginia so I spent the day working as an elections officer. We have a nice group of people in our precinct so the day is really pleasant even if it's brutally long. We have to be there at 5:00 am and don't get to leave until about 8:00 pm. We had about 25% turnout, which was higher than I expected and it was fun to see some of my neighbors, friends and former co-workers. Since football season ended I haven't been watching TV so haven't been crocheting as much. But I do a little here and there and eventually finished this shawl for donation. This is the third time I've made this shawl using Ice Cream Cotton Blend yarn. It's a discontinued yarn and great to work with. I don't love the color pooling but it's going to be incredibly comfortable for someone in assisted living or a nursing home. I have yarn to make one more. I'm making some progress on the baby blanket too. I like the subtle stripes from this yarn.
We have friends who spend every winter in Tucson and they have been raving about the place for years. I'm not a huge desert landscape fan but this year we were ready to escape the Virginia winter and go anywhere warm. It was time to give Tucson a try and boy was it worth it! The Sonoran Desert is spectacular and it's particularly spectacular in this region where they actually get some regular rain. I am now totally fascinated by the saguaro cactus and I really love that we don't know a lot about them. Supposedly, if they have arms they are over 100 years old, but they don't know for sure. There are no tree rings to count. Before I get into the vacation week I want to tell you about my two celebrity sightings! The first was when we left Richmond on a 6am flight. We were standing in the Delta check in line and we saw a man and woman get in the Sky Priority line. The man looked like an aging rapper and I didn't recognize him at first but as soon as I heard his voice I knew it was David Bromstad from HGTVs My Lottery Dream Home. No one bothered him and he seemed as nice as he is on TV. I assume he was in Richmond filming. The next one was at Tanque Verde Ranch. We went horseback riding one evening and our friends were showing us around the ranch before our ride. I was surprised to see that there was some sort of quilting event going on there. As we walked through one area there were 2 men sitting at table talking with some of the quilters. It was Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably! I had not paid to be at the conference so I didn't feel it was appropriate to speak to them but I thought it was funny since I had just finished the blue quilt top that was from one of his books. In case you are interested, the retreat was sponsored my Madeline Island School or the Arts. They have retreats in Arizona, Minnesota and Maine. Back to the trip. We had 4 absolutely fabulous sunny days with temperatures in the upper 70's and we took full advantage hiking every day. There are so many hiking opportunities in that area. We hiked in the Ventana Canyon, Sabino Canyon and East and West Saguaro National Park. This photo was in Ventana Canyon. That was out longest hike of about 6 miles, straight up and straight down. It was a great workout. The last 2 days were cooler but still lovely and a nice break from gray Virginia. Today, though, Virginia is bright and sunny and almost 60. We went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and got to see the raptor show. There's a hummingbird exhibit there too but we saw more hummingbirds at our friend's condo than we saw in the Museum enclosure. I expect that we were there at the wrong time of day. At the Tanque Verde Ranch we went horseback riding. I haven't been on a horse since I was about 9 at 4H camp so I was a little unsure. I had a chat with Cimarron beforehand to explain that the ride was all on him and that I was just going to focus on not falling off. Laurie had Elvis and he was a little more of a handful so I was grateful for Cimarron. He's very comfortable leading ignormat riders around. It was a beautiful ride and I got over my apprehension very quickly. By the end I was hardly paying attention to the horse and just enjoying the great views. That was the day we saw Kaffe Fassett. During the down times we played a lot of tug with our new friend, Jammer. Jammer is an incredibly well-behaved dog. She doesn't beg or counter surf but we learned that she apparently has a jones for ear plugs. I sleep with earplugs and I put them on a little tray by the bed in the mornings. One night I noticed one missing but didn't think anything of it. I assumed it got accidentally thrown out, but just in case, I tried to keep the bedroom door closed. I opened a new pack and then I had 3 earplugs on the tray until the day we came home and all three were gone. I had accidentally left the door open. Then we were pretty sure that Jammer had developed an addiction. I was worried that it would cause her trouble. Bill and Laurie were not. Sure enough, over the next 2 days were were relieved by reports of fluorescent orange poo pellets. While we were there we also visited Biosphere 2. I didn't get any photos, the weather was awful and, frankly, I didn't think about it. The whole Biosphere 2 experiment fascinated me when it was going on and when it all collapsed so I was excited to actually see the place. If you are interested, the Wikipedia article on it is pretty darned entertaining. Today it's owned and managed by the University of Arizona and there's one significant experiment going on there, Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) where they are studying how volcanic rock evolves into fertile soil. All of other experiments referenced in the tour seemed to be halted. You can actually download the Biosphere app and take the tour virtually. What struck me the most about it was the size. It's not nearly as big as I expected and the idea of putting something like a dozen different plant and natural ecosystems inside, in essence, 3 buildings seems ill-advised in hindsight. Of course, we know it didn't really work but I'm sure there were good lessons learned for science anyway. The tour really glosses over the Biosphere experience for the residents and doesn't actually reference any real research that they were doing while living there. I think they were having enough trouble surviving and producing food. It was worth the trip though. I've always wanted to see it. The drive around Oracle was beautiful and we stopped by Catalina State Park. We would like to hike that area someday too. I did get to visit a local quilt shop and a yarn shop. I bought some cactus-themed fabric to make some memento placemats. I forgot to photograph the fabric but I'll get it later this week. During the flights and little down time, I worked on chemo hats. Hats are the perfect travel project and I finished the 4 chemo hats on the front. The dark blue one is a hat I finished a couple of weeks ago when I was at a doctor visit with Mom. All of these are made with a really soft polyester yarn, Feels Like Butta by Lion Brand and whatever the Hobby Lobby equivalent is.
It's good to be back home and to have humidity again! I've never been so constantly thirsty and dry but we really enjoyed it and are looking forward to going back. I thought I'd schedule in a quick post of the status of all of my crochet projects as of Saturday, before we left. This is the donation shawl and you can see that I'm at the point where the shawl falls straight from the shoulders. I've finished 2 skeins and am ready to start a third. I rotate between my projects each time I sit down to work on them. They each use different hook sizes and stitches and rotating them seems to help prevent too much strain on my hands. This is my summer vest and is up next in the rotation. This is a donation baby quilt and I made a lot of progress on it during 2 football games last weekend. We watched at a friend's house and I took this with me. It works up really fast and I think it's looking pretty cute. If I have enough yarn, it will have a border. Here's a close up of the yarn and fan stitches. While we are on our trip I have brought yarn to work on chemo hats for donation.
I didn't do a ot of making this weekend because there was more socializing than normal. It was all good! On Friday I had lunch with my Mom and cousin and then drinks with my girlfriends from work. There were errands in between. Sunday was watching football with a friend in Charlottesville. Saturday was my "making day". During the football games I worked on my summer sweater. It's kind of a vest that I want to wear over tank tops. I like how the colors of this yarn are working out. I wear lots of dull greens, blues and grays so this should work well for me. I wanted to get in some quilting time so I decided that I'd start with the areas that I wanted to quilt in blue. These are the smallest areas and I knew I could get them done this weekend and give me some small sense of accomplishment. There are 4 of these stars. All of the spikey motifs in the quilt will get simple outline quilting so that they puff on the quilt. There are 8 of these sections. I quilted feathers because there's a very large area that will be feathered and I wanted the feathers to repeated somewhere else. Here's that section from the back.
That's all I have for today. This week is going to be busy preparing for a trip we're taking this weekend. We're going to escape to somewhere sunny and warm for a week and I can't wait. Here's a hint to where we're going: we're going to hike, visit some old graves in a dead town and visit a modern monument to ecohubris. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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