Fall Quilting in the Hoop

When I completed my year (2007-2008) as President of Springfield Chapter of Quilters Unlimited my two vice-presidents, Beth and Cindy, presented to me a beautiful quilt top consisting of blue and white snowball blocks made by many members of our guild.  Beth did a stunning job of putting the blocks together and adding the borders.  The quilt is a reproduction of a much admired antique quilt another member of the guild, Loretta, owns.

A quilt top this beautiful must be hand quilted, and so I have begun doing so this month.  This will be my quilting project this fall. 

Summer Knitting Challenge Complete

You may recall my post in June about my self-imposed summer knitting challenge - to knit all this yarn into warmies for others less fortunate.




Here are the completed items, finished just one day before the official last day of summer ... seven hat and mitten sets, three additional hats, and two pair of child's socks. All these items will be sent to an orphanage in Romania. I want to thank "themadknitter" for giving me the yarn.

Knitting in Anchorage

During the early morning hours when everyone was asleep and I was wide awake still on east coast time, during Caroline's nap times, and in the evenings when Caroline had gone to bed I fit in some knitting time.

For Caroline I knit a cardigan in Sirdar Baby Bamboo, a sweater which should fit her this winter. I finished the cardigan on our last day there, so I left it drying on the towel!

For myself I knit a pair of sock in the Lichen Rib pattern by Nancy Bush, using Fortissima Socka, a cotton and wool blended yarn. And for the Anchorage Stork Project I knit two sweater and hat sets of Lion Brand worsted weight acrylic. (The first sweater was knit on the trip from Virginia to Anchorage which included an unexpected four hour airport layover.)

If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Anchorage do not miss going to one of the best yarn shops I have ever visited - Far North Yarn Co. The ladies there are the nicest and most helpful, and they love to have visitors come sit and knit for a while. The shop is my "home away from home" when I'm in Anchorage.

August in Anchorage

This August I visited with our daughter and granddaughter in Anchorage, Alaska. Of course I took pictures of Caroline modeling some of the sweaters I knitted for her over the past several months. It is so much fun to knit for such a cutie! Here she is:

Pattern: Buzy Lizzie by Louisa Harding ... Yarn: Botany by Rowan

Pattern: DROPS b18-25 Jacket in Garter Stitch ... Yarn: Cara by Zitron

Pattern: Butterfly Baby Hat by Melisa Darniedar ... Yarn: Cara by Zitron

Pattern: Frilly Edge Bolero by Sirdar ... Yarn: Kraemer Little Lehigh Pebbles

Pattern: Bias Baby Cardigan by Knitting Matters ... Yarn: Cornucopia by Kollage

And a few extra pictures from the trip:

Rebecca and Caroline at the Botanical Gardens

Julia, Caroline, and Denny

Moose in Rebecca's neighborhood!

beautiful Fireweed blossoms

Summer Knitting Challenge July Update

Here's what I have knit so far this summer using the yarn my friend Sharon gave me in 2007. The socks will go to Children-in-Common to be sent to an orphanage somewhere in eastern Europe. The hats and mittens will be sent to Hand of Help and go to an orphanage in Romania I believe. The yarns I used include Tahki Designer Homespun Tweed, Rowan Cork, Tivoli Killoween Chunky, Jaeger Dublin, and unlabeled red and brown worsted tweeds. These projects were fun and quick.

In late June I went on a rampage of knitting toddler socks for the CIC sock challenge and knit these six pair of socks by June 25th.

Pomona Squares - Andrew's Graduation Quilt

We had a second graduation in our family this year. Our nephew Andrew, son of my sister Nancy in Brentwood, Tenn, graduated from high school and is going to Pomona College in Clairmont, Calif for college.

Naturally a quilt to take to college was called for ... and a quilt in colors that will survive in a young man's college dorm room. So I sorted through all my dark fabrics, especially the seemingly zillion 6" squares I have left from the two years I purchased a 6" square of each fabric that came into a quilt shop in North Carolina. I used the pattern "Romantic Charm" published by the Quilting Squares Studio in Franklin, Tenn, a pattern I bought when visiting Nancy and her family in February this year.

After assembling all the individual blocks for the quilt I laid them out on the living room floor to check the color balance.

A very curious Maggie was peeking out from under the ottoman during the block layout.
I left the room for just one minute and this happened!
To make a long story short I completed the quilt in time for Andrew's graduation in May. A friend quilted the quilt for me on her longarm machine in a meandering pattern. Here is a photo of Andrew and his new quilt.Congratulations to Andrew on your very successful completion of high school, and all the best wishes for good studies and new friends at Pomona.

Summer knitting challenge

One of my good knitting friends, Sharon F, is leaving Northern Virginia and moving to Buffalo this week. Sharon and I have been knitting buddies for about two years now, are in two knitting groups together, and I will miss her terribly!

About a year and a half ago when Sharon was "de-stashing" some of her yarn she offered to me some wool for Children-In-Common knitting (Children-In-Common is an online Yahoo group of people who knit items that are sent to orphanages in Russia and Eastern European nations). Thank you Sharon! Last week when I was rummaging around in my yarn stash I came across the yarn Sharon gave me, and decided that this summer would be a good time to knit up this yarn. Last Thursday I knit a pair of toddler socks of the one skein of Jaeger Dublin yarn.

Then it occurred to me ... a great summer challenge to myself would be to knit the yarn from Sharon and turn all that yarn into useful socks, hats, mittens, and vests for C-I-C. So I took this photo of the yarn in its unknit state (except for the socks already completed).


At the end of July and August I'll post photos of my progress through this beautiful yarn.