Livin' La Needle Loca

...at least trying to! It's amazing how two days off can mess up the whole following week! Of course, having our Internet connection go down at home didn't help any. I discovered just how much I've come to depend on the home connection now that I can't use it! You'd think after being online all day at work that I wouldn't want to be online... Last weekend, I started and finished a small sewing project. I went to the local quilt store ( The Granary ) and found a pattern for a travel case by P3 designs. It is intended for quilting tools, but I thought it might be nice for my DPNs and scissors. I also found coordinating celestial fabrics that needed to be made into this case! So, here's my new needle "pocket": Front: Back: The inside: Yesterday I received the first installment of Sundara Yarn 's Petals Collection. Yes, it's another sock club! However, I have been admiring Sundara's yarn colors since she opened her online shop and ju...

... at least for a while! I'm making some progress on my Rock N Weave sock, even though it's been too hot to knit for long stretches of time. After messing up trying the picot edge a couple of times, I decided that it was too fussy for me. While I like things that flow, I am not a "ruffles" kind of person. So I decided that I'd just do a straight cast-off on the edge. I'm much happier with it. I'm working my way down the heel, doing "slip 1 k1/ slip 1 p1" instead of " slip 1 k1/ slip 1 purl across" in the pattern. I just like the way it looks... Other than that, not much other knitting happening. I've only been knitting at lunch time; with no air conditioning at home, it's been too hot to knit at night. This weekend, I need to get my sewing room back in order; it's still a mess after finishing my Mom's quilt. Then I can concentrate on my socks!

It was a long, but great weekend! Our daughter officially holds two masters degrees. Next stop: Johns Hopkins University for her PhD! Here's a picture of my daughter and my mother - don't they look great! For a graduation present, we gave our daughter a silver pendant with three diamonds, one for each of us. This is a theme for our family - for Mother's Day one year, she gave me a necklace with 3 pearls in it, one for each of us. We also made a box of quotes to give her inspiration when she needs it. We collected the quotes from various quote web sites and from books. I also included some inspirational quotes from her favorite movies and wrote a few "mom" quotes as well. I printed them on different colored card stock and laminated them so they'd last. I found a silk-covered box to put them in. Here's what it looked like when opened: We named it the Rainbow Collection (a take-off on a Muppet Movie song lyric, "Someday we'll find it, the rainbow...

I finished... ...the graduation present! It turned out really well - I am very pleased! ...the turtle quilt! It's official name is "Dances with Turtles," or "Bailar con las tortugas" in Spanish - roughly. (I prefer "to dance" (bailar) rather than "dances" (danzas).) Here's a picture of the quilt, taken in my office. And a more detailed picture of some blocks. The pattern is "Baby Honu Sea Turtle" by Lisa Boyer . It was a fun quilt to make and I know my mom will love it! I'm still working on a couple of other little things for the graduate, but the finish line is in sight!

...that was an unexpected break in blogging. It's just as well. I'm not going to be doing much knitting for the next week while I channel my inner craftiness and finish up a graduation present for someone special. I can't go into any sort of detail, because she might read this. Graduation presents for other people's kids are usually pretty easy: most appreciate money or gift cards and I can usually find a little remembrance for them. However, when it's your own kid, you want to do something special. Now call me a bad mom, but I don't remember what we got her for high school graduation -- it was such a blur (plus it was 10 years ago). My husband and I worked on the Grad Night committee and were part of the parent chaperone contingent for the all-night party. By the time that was all over, we were exhausted and I don't remember much! I made up for it (whatever "it" was) when she graduated from Stanford. I made an 80-square attic windows quilt, on...

[Edited to add pictures] Wow...what a great feeling to be finally done with these socks! Here's another view. Very happy feet!! Almost as soon as I finished the Cedar Creek socks, I cast on another pair of socks, using the STR Fairgrounds yarn. (I had to give myself a treat, didn't I??) I decided to go use the Rock and Weave pattern that came with the sock club. The linen stitch is intriguing and it was easy to get into a rhythm with it. Here's what I have so far: Other than that and a little housework, I didn't do much over the weekend. It was too hot to quilt and too hot to work on a baby afghan.

OK, every time June rolls around, I think of Junior High Chorus when we had to sing "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" from the musical, Carousel . I remember all of the lyrics and can't get the d*mn song out of my head! (yeah, I know, bizarre!) On to the May project recap...there's not much, but what can I say? What I finished ( no pictures because to most recent ones are shown in my previous blog entry ): One Cedar Creek sock A tan catnip mousie for Tica What I worked on: Cedar Creek sock #2 - turned the heel and working down the foot Started machine quilting the turtle quilt Baby afghan Opal Tiger socks (on hold until I finish Cedar Creek) Started a swatch for the Rock and Weave socks, testing the linen stitch Added more stuff to my stash database. Starting working on index-card-size reports that I can stick in my purse Back to the drawing board: Jaywalker socks - I'll get back to these eventually I worked on lots of stuff and made progress, I just didn't ...