Knit One Quilt Too

Goodbye Purple

Project Spectrum is nearing completion with only one month left to go.  It's been a very interesting approach to creating and has led me to colors I might not normally have chosen.  August will be about the neutrals, but today is the last day of PURPLE!  Enjoy these purple images.

Here's the state of my two purple projects.  The Charlotte's Web continues to grow, though slowly.  I started the Trellis Scarf this weekend because I just couldn't wait.  Meanwhile, I'm thinking about what kind of neutral project to start. 

O is for...

Opposable.  Thumbs that is.  Without these babies, none of us could do the kind of intricate work that we do.  I am especially attuned to my hands now, since I have experienced occasional hand pain in the past few years due to overwork.  Take care of your hands, wrists and fingers people.  And those wonderful, opposable thumbs too!

We have a winner!

Jessica, from Zarzuela Knits & Crochets has won the contest with comment # 200!  Jessica is also the lovely host of Summer of Socks.  Congratulations, Jessica!  I'll be emailing you for your address. 

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments.  Chloe and I have a fun time thinking about what to create for the fair and there is a little bit of prize money involved.  We shall see!  These are Chloe's entries.  In the middle is a cute little knitted hedgehog and on the right is a close up of her computer art.  I think it's incredible!  Also, the two shoe boxes were made by Chloe and Ryan and filled with new school supplies.  These are distributed after the fair to local children in need.  It's so funny to watch these unschooled children have a wonderful time picking out supplies for kids who go to school.

For those of you asking about the fires, we are well out of range of the fires themselves, though the smoke is a problem.  Last night we had so much smoke that even with the house all closed up, the smell of smoke permeated the house.  It looked like fog outside.  This morning we woke up to beautiful blue skies, a light breeze and very comfortable temperatures.  I got a photo of the sky this morning, but didn't think to take one last night.

One Year

Well, it's my 1st blogiversary!  I've had 121 posts and close to 200 comments over the past year.  It's been a lot of fun and very motivating to be a blogger.  I definitely think this has been my most productive year to date as far as knitting and quilting goes.  Pay attention at the end of the post for a little surprise....

Today's post will echo back to my second post as Chloe has been in a 4 week summer conservatory again this year.  She had three shows and today there was an "informance" where the kids show off some of the stuff they've learned over the past year.  The play was Shakespeare Comes to Calamity Creek and Chloe played Flenda, the ingenue and aspiring playwright. 

Well, I guess I ought to have some knitting or quilting since it is my blogiversary, so I'll show you my fair entries.  These will be delivered tomorrow.  I got Clapotis and the Branching Out Scarf blocked yesterday.

Stay tuned next week to see if I've won anything.  Meanwhile, since it is my blogiversary and since I'm almost to 200 comments, I've decided to have my very first blog contest!  This one is very easy.  I will send a very nice yarny sort of prize to the person who makes the 200th comment!  Good Luck!

Random Wednesday

This has been a busy week with Chloe's summer conservatory wrapping up.   I'll have more about that tomorrow.  Today it's all about the latest random creations. 

First, this is the parts department.  I'm taking a cue from Gwen and Freddy and creating my own parts for a Halloween quilt.  I'd love to have this top done before mid-August because I'll be leaving for a lengthy trip then, but time's getting short.  This kind of quilting is so much fun.  I've got tons of Halloween fabrics and I'm having a great time using scraps.

I also finished this big quilted tote for a silent auction at an upcoming homeschooing conference.  The idea of the silent auction is to have "passion baskets" where someone fills a container with the tools and materials for whatever passion they would like to share.  In our case I'm going to fill it with a bunch of picture books and story tapes that we are ready to pass down and call it "A passion for stories".  It's made from two fat quarters and I followed the directions at this tutorial, with an added layer of batting machine quilted to the outer fabric.

I finished my first Summer of Socks pair.  These are the chocolate cherry colorway of Claudia Handpainted Sock yarn.  This yarn is fabulous!  I would use it for a shawl someday.  I worked these two at a time on two circulars and I'm definitely a convert.  I love having them done at the same time! 

The pattern is Wendy's toe up feather and fan with a change at the top.  I didn't like the way the garter stitch edge was spreading out, so I did a ribbed cuff and finished with the sewn bind-off from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting without Tears.  These will be entered in the Deschutes County Fair this weekend.

I also finished the Entrelac Scarf from Scarf Style (it's called the Lady Eleanor Stole).  This was a wonderful knit and I would do this technique again especially with these very well written instructions.  I decided not to do the fringe on the edge for now.

I got two wonderful yarny packages in the mail this week.  The first was from the Rockin' Sock Club.  This beautiful skein of lightweight Socks that Rock in a new colorway called Peaseblossom.  I love this!  The pattern looks interesting.  So far I've not done any of the patterns that came with the yarn, but I think I'll try this.  Maybe I'll just modify it for a toe up version.

 

I also got my July package from my One Skein Secret Pal.  This yarn is Jaggerspun Zephyr!  Wow, wow, wow!!!!  I'm so thankful, SP!  I've been wanting to try this yarn, but haven't seen it on any of my travels.  It's the most beautiful purple for July's Project Spectrum- how neat is that!  The color is not showing true on my monitor though I tried the photo in three different places.  You'll have to trust that it's a true purple.  Anyway, I've decided on this pattern from Interweave Knits, Spring 2006.  It's called the Trellis Scarf and it looks just complicated enough for me.  I will be taking this project on the next big trip!  Thank you again, SP!

Lastly, I'm finally motivated to finish this Branching Out Scarf, from Knitty.  It's made with Silky Wool and it's a nice pattern, but I set it aside for quite a while.  Now I'd like to finish it by Saturday so I can enter it in the fair.  I've got less than 10 repeats, so I think it's doable.  Stay tuned for a fair posting on Saturday!

Another Trek Along the Deschutes

Last week we did another trek along the beautiful Deschutes River in Central Oregon.  To see this part of the river you only have to drive a few miles from town.  This time we walked the stretch between Meadow Camp and Big Eddy.

Central Oregon is full of volcanic features so we see a lot of old lava beds.  The one on the left is in the middle of the river and is called Lava Island.  It was caused by lava flows coming down from both sides of the river.  This area of the river ranges from slow moving pools to class 3 rapids.  Here are some rafts that came by while we were hiking.  It looks like a lot of fun.

The sock (Trekking #68) is coming along.  I'm about half way down to the toe.

On the left is Bid Eddy, class 3 rapids, we saw a few kayakers come down here and what a wild ride it looks!  On the right are my three hiking companions.  They've finally accepted the odd request to stop for a sock photo!

What a beautiful day for a hike.  Since then we've had record hot temperatures, so no hiking lately, but stay tuned for the next trek along adventure.

SOS update

The summer of socks continues and I'm finally past the heel on mine!  I decided to do a feather and fan pattern on the cuff, so this is Wendy's newly posted pattern (pdf) for feather and fan socks from the toe-up.

I also got the button for my felted entrelac bag which is ready to make it's debut.  I will be entering this in the county fair.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to enter the socks too if they are done in time.

 

N is for...

Nestbox!  Take a look at these sneaky little Downy Woodpeckers.

I caught this family of woodpeckers trying to enlarge the hole on this bluebird box a few days ago.  It's about 30 feet from my office window and I can watch them while net surfing.  The one on the box spent about 30 minutes working on the hole while the others (there was a fourth) worked the tree trunk looking for bugs.  They haven't been back to the box since, but we've had them at the feeders. 

We've had some bad luck with the boxes this year.  Last year we had two boxes and had a swallow family in one and bluebirds in the other.  This spring we had both swallows and bluebirds checking them out (plus a third box we added this year), but alas, no birds nested.  Here's a nice website I found if you are interested in bluebirds or building nestboxes.

Sisters Quilt Show 2006

It's been a crazy week!  My sister visited for quilt show weekend and it's been three years since I've seen her, so we really needed to catch up.  Then, Ryan had a day camp this week which should have allowed me extra time, but I was so busy with getting ready for a garage sale this week that I was exhausted by the end of the day.  Anyway, finally there is a new photo album for the quilt show (see the sidebar).  I wasn't able to get photos of some of the Marston/Moran quilts I had said I would, but I still saw some remarkable quilts.  It was a great day. 

I had four quilts in the show, two of my own, one with my mom and one with my sister.  It was extra special that I could attend the show with both my mom and sister.  Here are those four quilts.

Brush with Greatness

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran, none other than the authors of the fabulous book, Collaborative Quilting.  They did an excellent talk and showed some really awesome quilts.  I've only had time to do a cursory look through the book, but I was intrigued to find out that they were heavily influenced by the Gee's Bend quilters.  My sister and I didn't have a great view, but I did get a few pictures.  Please forgive me for the photo quality.  I'll try to get better ones tomorrow at the show.

Gwen and Freddy are funny and endearing.  On the right you can see them holding up a piece from the "parts department".  In the book they describe that when they started collaborating they realized that it took a long time to create the parts they needed for the quilts, so they decided to do them before their scheduled visits to each other.  This left more time for actually planning the quilts.  In this picture you can sort of see a pieced together border that was about 20 feet long.  They would just trim something like that to whatever size they needed and keep on sewing.  Click to enlarge.

I love the exuberant color!  The bottom right is my favorite, but I'll have to get a better photo tomorrow. 

Trekking sock #68 heard the lecture too and had a great time.  Here he is reclining while I take some photos.

Lastly, here's where I'll be tomorrow.  A photo album will be posted early next week!  Have a great weekend!