Yarn in My Head

In my haste to get a photo of these charity hats before taking them to my quilt group, they were left behind, rather than delivered to my friend who volunteers for Fred Hutchinson. They were free of cat hair and all were on the table (not chewed by dogs) when I returned.

Most are crocheted, the one at top knitted with two strands of the mystery yarn from a recycled sweater. There is enought yarn in the leftover bag for one more hat, so they'll all get donated together.

The Wisteria sweater at Twist Collective is still enticing me to purchase just the right color of woodsy green yarn. Most the the possibilities are machine washable, part-cotton blends. Cascade Sierra is looking very likely right now. My yarn stash wants to grow faster than knitwear can be finished, and using up oddballs and repurposing some of the impulse buys makes logical sense.

I tried to get myself back to sleep early this morning working out color combinations for baby afghans. The Circles to Squares Afghan from Lion Brand kept coming back with colors of yarn that are currently not IN the stash, so perhaps a visual perusal is needed to find colors to complement existing yarn.

Bag Lady Challenge

I took part in a Bag Lady Swap hosted by Cindy in one of my small online groups. She assigned partners, and we sent off a sealed (not taped shut) 1-gallon zip-lock bag of fabric and/or blocks. We had several months to complete the challenge. The packet that came for me contained fat quarters - some from the same line of fabric, some very different in color and style. We were allowed to add up to 2 yards of our own fabric. As some ideas were forming, I checked with Cindy to see if we had to use all of the fabric we received, and was relieved that we didn't. Some of the darker fabrics were just too far away from the colorway for my comford. This is the top I completed, using pieced hexagons.

A few days ago I received the top that my partner made for me--and I am thrilled with it! I had sent her some of the small blocks that I had won in a raffle (along with the instructions in case she wanted to make more). I love how some of the blocks are used in the outer border.

Well, Stanley,

this is another fine mess you've gotten us into! The 9-patch swap sounded so sweet and innocent. There was a red and white group that had me reconsidering my vow not to take part. Then the chatter began about a blue and white group, and impulsively I shot my hand up to give them enough people to form a group. A decision was made to make all of the swap groups make 6" blocks. And then I joined the red and white group too! Total commitment: 12 blocks per month. At the end of the year, I'll have enough scrappy blocks to make two quilts, large ones if I make alternate blocks or extra 9-patches. I hope there will be some discussion about the "white" fabric allowing shirtings or other small prints for more interest.

The recycled-sweater-into-hats project came to an abrupt end. Two hats came out fine--one crocheted, one knitted with double strands. The third hat was on the third try, and the mystery yarn just didn't come undone without breaking. I salvaged a nice little coaster-sized circle from the center, and the rest went away.

Moving On / Moving Over

The last few weeks have been the continuation of organizing and cleaning of fabrics, batting, and yarn stash. The bag of random washable yarn is now 4 completed crochet hats for charity. The box of miscellaneous fabric odds and ends is a string quilt top (with a second set of foundations and center strips cut and ready to roll). The accumulation of leftover batting pieces were pieced and quilted into three finished tops (still need to be bound).

And this post is my first attempt at a new host for blogging. My frustration level with each post at the previous site kept me from posting, especially with pictures. And hey!--this first picture went right where I told it to. These are the boys, Max and Jake. I did a photo shoot after my son left for college...and found it harder to say goodbye to the boys than to me. He got this photo as a 10 x 12 picture for his birthday, one week after school started.