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.
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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. I keep a crochet bag with hat materials ready by the front door for any time that I think I'll be out somewhere sitting and waiting. I mostly take it to quilt club meetings and appointments and that's what happened yesterday. I took Mom to an appointment and had a good hour or so to relax, listen to my book and do some crochet. This one will be a chemo hat for a man. In the afternoon I went to the basement and started making some decisions about the quilting on the Red Sunset quilt. I do that by spending hours on the internet looking at the beautiful quilting that other people do and then I take a lot of chalk to the quilt to work out some ideas. In the end I generally revert to the stuff I like doing: feathers, some ruler work and a little free-motion. I think I have the plan set, more or less. Because I've stabilized the quilt with all of the SID quilting, I can start the design quilting anywhere. I decided to start with the areas where I want to use blue thread. I've decided that I want all the spikey areas to really stand out so they will get minimal quilting like this. It's not much, but it's a start. I have officially stopped procrastinating. Since I finished the big blanket project I decided last night that I'd start a new donation baby blanket so I've started swatching.
This weekend we're going to watch football with a friend one day but otherwise I'll be quilting, crocheting, working on the blue quilt and stocking wood. I made the first one of these blankets for Chris is 2021. I loved the yarn and pattern so much that I bought the yarn (on clearance) in almost every color available. This one is for Chris' best friend, Win. I call it "the dude blanket" because, except for one, they have all been made for men in my life. One for Chris, one for each of my 3 brothers and one for my cousin's husband. I decided to break with tradition and give one of them to my doctor, a female, to thank her for everything she's done for me and Chris. The colors of that one were pale grays, purples and a little pink so it definitely had a feminine feel. I have one in the closet yet to gift but I'm sure it will find the perfect home soon. Here's the full view of the last one. It finished to 48" x 66". I'm a little bothered by the solid looking rows at the bottom but that's how the yarn came out of the skein. Win will not notice. Hopefully it will just be his nap blanket. He has a couple of my quilts that he says he likes so hopefully he will like this too.
Here are the details: Cascade Cartwheel Yarn, 7 balls, Pattern from BagODay Crochet, pattern repeat is 8 stitches plus 3 I used a K hook and chained 147 stitches (with an L hook) These were a lot of fun to make and I could do them blind by the end. The patterns works up quickly and has a great texture. I'd happily use it again. I have a few more balls of this yarn but not enough for a big blanket. I expect that I will turn them into a couple of wheelchair lap blankets. But I'm going to rest this yarn for a while and start a new donation baby blanket. In other news, I think I finally have a quilting plan for Red Sunset and hope to get started on it today after I go to craft group at the library. You can't beat a weekend that's mostly about making and that's exactly what I had this weekend. It kicked off Friday with 2 days of sewing with my quilt club, Country School Quilters. I generally work on veterans quilts there and I took a new kit from the 14 that I cut out over a year ago. This one, as it turned out, has 2 quilts in it. One had a blue background and one has a tan background. I started with the blue one and I got all of the blocks together by the time we left Saturday. I brought it home to lay out the blocks on the design wall and I have everything organized and ready to sew together when I go back in March. I found a medium blue in my stash for the border. I had cut another fabric for the border but decided that I didn't like it. I'll use that fabric the next time I cut a bunch of veterans quilt kits. I only have one left so cutting sessions will have to happen pretty soon. On the quilting front, I finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch for the bottom half of the quilt and I'm working from the middle to the top now. It's going really well but I still don't have a plan for the rest of the quilting. One of the things that's made the SID go fast is that I can do it all with just one ruler. I'm not searching all over the quilt top for a variety of curved and straight rulers. This one has several curves and a straight edge so I've done every inch of it with this Lily Lines ruler from Bethanne Nemesh. During the football games I've been crocheting. I got started on a summer sweater. This is one that will be blocked so don't worry about the wonkiness. I think it's going to come together pretty quickly too. But this week I'm going to focus on getting this one done. It's for Chris's friend and there's a good chance that Chris will see him next weekend. I have a ball and a half left so there is a good chance that I can get it done.
So this week will be about this blanket, the Red Sunset quilt and the blue bow tie blocks. It's going to be cold so it will be good to stay inside. I had some chores that needed to be done yesterday, like filing sales tax, and none of those things happened. Instead I worked a little on several things. I finished all of the blue bow ties. Now I will sew them together in sets of 4 before I assemble the whole top. Then I went to the craft group at the library and I worked on the shawl. I finished the first skein and started a second. I think the whole thing will take 3 skeins. This pattern goes pretty quickly. I finished off the day with about an hour of quilting. I rolled the quilt down a bit and finished the bottom part of the center star (yellow arrow). Next I'll work on the sections with the blue arrow. Today and tomorrow I'll be sewing with my quilt club. I work on veterans quilts there and this is the next kit. I'll sort through it tomorrow but I think there might be 2 quilts in this bag.
At some point I need to file the taxes too. Maybe while I'm watching one of the playoff games. I finished it! This sweater has been hanging over me for a few months. It's the ubiquitous hexagon sweater and I got the two hexagons done months ago. Then the project stalled while I worked out exactly how I wanted to finish it. I was also held up a bit by the baby quilts in September and hats in November. Finally, over Christmas I buckled down and got it done. I made another version of this sweater last Spring and gave that one to Mom. I wanted to make one for myself that was a little shorter and this is the result. I was going to take a photo of it on but my hair was wet and I had my PJs on so you'll have to take this flat photo along with my witness that it fits PERFECTLY! I will wear this one a lot, probably starting this afternoon when I go out to knit group and to run errands. I really like this pattern by LaDria LaVea. There are dozens of hexi cardigans on the web but I liked the bobble detail around the front edge of this one and her tutorial style is entertaining but also really clear and thorough. The yarn is Lion Brand Heartland in the color New River Gorge. I thought that color was appropriate since the NRG is in Virginia and West Virginia. I used a J hook. I usually keep 3 projects going that require different hook sizes. I alternate them each time I sit to crochet and it seems that changing hook sizes helps to alleviate hand fatigue. With the hats and sweater done I only have the big blanket going so it's time to start 2 new projects. I think they will be projects using these yarns. With the pink variegated Mandala Ombre I think I will make another of these blankets for donation. I loved hos that one turned out and I seem to remember that it worked up pretty quickly. With the Noro yarn I'm thinking of making a shrug and will try out this one that I found on Lovecrafts. I'll start it and see how it goes. Remember all the baby blankets that I made in August, September and October? Here's one of them in use. Isn't she so cute?
My main goal for yesterday was to get the second veterans quilt quilted but I seem to be having a little trouble with the longarm. I'm getting thread nests and need to figure out the issue. I might get to that today. Instead, yesterday I worked on the surgery drain bags and my crochet sweater. This is a set of about 40 bags. I have 60 more cut but these all use gray thread. I got the tops hemmed and the loops added. Next it's back to the serger to stitch the other side. I'll work on them a little each day and they should be done in no time. Mostly yesterday I watched football and worked on my sweater. I finished the second sleeve and started the bottom ribbing. I need to add a couple more rows and then do the front and neck edging. There's so much football this weekend that I might have this done before Monday.
I really love how this is coming together. It fits perfectly and I think I will wear it a lot. It's even got me interested in making more crochet garments. That's something I was ready to swear off about half way through this project. I'll have to look through my patterns for something summery. As soon as I finish this I'll first get back to the big blanket and workin gthat a while before I start something new. |
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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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