Projects A-Flying

The October sewing retreat with the ASG group pushed me through several projects:

• Orca quilt binding – pushed myself to quilt it the weekend before, so just the binding to finish. It went off to the dorm before I could get a picture.
• 9-Patch swap blocks (the blue ones) – set on point, values giving a 3-d or Baby Blocks effect.
• 9-Patch X quilt quilted and ready for binding.
• Little Bear Quilt – leftover panel fabric from a swap, bears fussy cut and set into a square in a square – blocks ready for quilt top assembly.
• ASG Project – Troop Bags, drawstring bags that will be filled with goodies and sent to troops. After making 6 with given instructions using French Seams, need to re-write for serger, using a buttonhole in the casing.

Latest charity project: Christmas stockings for Toy Rescue Mission in Tacoma; 10 finished so far. Started with felt, and moved onto printed cotton (11 more cut out)

Spinning is still going slowly, though have finally learned to pre-cleaning dirty fiber (pulling out several yards and picking out the veg matter). Pulled out my spinning guide card and was surprised to look at how fine my spinning is now. I love to ply and prefer lighter yarns, but at some point will need to practice spinning thicker, and learn to be consistent at that weight.

Dyeing: Pale yellow yarn + red dye = red yarn (NOT orange, unless you pull it out of the dyepot early). Apparently even after re-reading the directions, I’m still putting too much dye for the fiber and getting very saturated colors. Forgot how much water dying takes (mostly in the rinsing). Does this justify buying beautifu hand-dyed yarns from someone else?

Knitting: Finally finished the Daily Sweater – took me almost a year from start to finish, with a couple of long breaks (doubt, summer heat). What I learned: don’t buy a yarn on sale unless you’re really happy with the color—it would be better to spend full price and get a finished product I love. Made two more kitty blankets for my sister's cats, finished with crochet edging.

I'll post about Christmas knitting next time...trying to find a reasonable number of small projects. Hats! Scarves! Gloves! Now that it's getting colder, I want warm things myself, and am also thinking about family...