bits and pieces

all of the turtle parts have been knit

there's the body and the legs and the top and bottom of the shell and the "vest" (that holds the shell on to the body)

this is a really cute little critter

(and I can imagine one with multiple changes of shell for the holidays -- red & green, black & orange, pastels -- never mind)

today I will work on getting him all stitched together and stuffed, then I can mark him off my "To Do" list


this is all done except for the sleeve on the back to hang it

notice the "bubbles" from the fish -- those are pearls, and then there is the little "clam farm" there at the bottom

I was going to add some coral over there on the lower right hand corner, but the holes in the little pieces of coral are so tiny I can't put even my smallest needle through them

I do like the way this came out


onward and upward!


PS: don't forget there will be a prize drawing here in a few days!

turtle shells and red things

well, the legs are finished and so is the top of the shell for the turtle toy

I started on the underside of the shell yesterday too, and got it about half finished

he's looking good!

and this bit of knitting should be finished this week, which means I'll be starting on another project -- probably the afghan I want to knit for a friend for Christmas
this is the piece of stone I bought on Saturday at the gem show

I love the colors!!

warm

royal

awesome (please excuse the flash glare there on the edge)

so now I'm thinking about what I'll be making this in to

(and don't you love the patterns of the matrix too?!)

time to go and launder

going swimmingly, thank you

finished the rest of the quilting on the fishy last night

I wanted the fish to "stand out" against the background, so I did minimal quilting on the fish and pretty close quilting on the background - which kind of "mashes" it and gives it some interesting texture

next step is to dig through the boxes of beads to find some embellishments, and I need to put a binding around the edge and a sleeve on the back for hanging

(just keep swimming, swimming)
finished this in the car yesterday

we went to the gem show and I picked up just a couple of things to use in some projects

(what I was actually looking for, however, was no where to be found -- figures!)


and finally, an announcement -- sometime this week I will be writing my 1000th (!) blog post

in honor of this auspicious occasion, I will be doing a give away

be sure to check back to enter!!

there seems to be a water theme

the second of the water lily blocks is now done for the Hoffman Challenge project

these two blocks took a Loooooonnnnngggg time -- must be the fact that each lily flower has 14 individual pieces

so now it's on to the corner blocks -- fish in some most awesome colors
and then there is the wavy necklace

having strung the first 5 together, I had to do the first "swoop" on another batch

so here are 5 more, ready to be connected to the first batch

(see, I told you there was a water theme)


yesterday, when I was in the store I picked up the latest issue of Bead & Button -- it has some awesome new techniques including a sort of serpentine beaded rope with some amazing embellishment ideas -- yup, I'll be trying that one

time to get rollin'

waves in progress

this technique makes me think of ocean waves

I'm getting quicker at doing them too

this is not quite half way, and I'm already thinking about other "variations"

nice
completed last evening, mittnz #7

don't you love this yarn -- just looking at these should help warm someone!


also completed one leg for the turtle toy

and quilt projects are moving along, there's just nothing finished enough to show you yet

soon though


these are all done and will be bundled off to be mailed today -- WOO HOO!

so I should get paid for them soon too

a very good thing


time to get to work on those eBay listings

Creeping along

so what else would you expect of a turtle?

I have knit several of these, but they were on larger needles

there is a lot of difference between knitting on size 5s and knitting on size 2s

but it is a nice tight knit

now that the body and head are done I can move on to legs


then there are all of these guys

in preparation to put our house on the market, I'm trying to downsize our collections

which means some of the goodies are going out on eBay

these are bears that Gund did exclusively for Land's End, and I have all of the original boxes too

there is one more in this series which I am trying to locate in the pile so I can list all of them at once -- hopefully I get this done by Sunday which is when I like to start auctions for this kind of thing

Little Bunny FooFoo

ok, my dog is officially loosing her mind

this little cutie spent a lot of yesterday hanging out in our front yard

where upon our big Labrador feels it is necessary to have all the hair down the center of her back stand up on end (making her even bigger and fiercer looking, don't you know) and adopting her official "I'm a very big dog" voice to bark like a total ninny

the rabbit is adorable, but should he take even on little nibble out of my freshly emerging daffodils, I may take that big dog out in the front yard

this is the progress being made on the latest beading project

I love the look of these!

and while right now I'm concentrating on finishing up the necklace that is planned with these particular pieces (which entails also doing a "swoosh" from the top edge that runs the other way), a plan is starting to form to make some similarly shaped pieces into a brooch

the first one of these "swoosh" forms took three tries and my finally sitting down and copying out the instructions row by row on cards so I could keep the count right

the other three were completed in about the same time it took me to do that first one -- which is about normal when learning something brand new

yup, I think I'm going to really like the final look of this

this is what one can accomplish while sitting and waiting for maintenance to be done on one's vehicle

yesterday I had to take the van in because both the brake light and the engine light had come on and I know how quickly ignoring those lights can add up to big bucks in repair bills, so it had to go in

it could have been a lot worse, but even so, $310 makes a big whole in our budget for this month

meantime, another afghan square is complete - number 2 for this box

doing 59 more of these in the next week may help that budget thing

in the past few years I've done these for the Nevada City Bear Convention

several of those years I did them in exchange for a discount on my show entry fee

this year I'm getting paid for them

it's a good thing

Really done

unless, of course, I win the whole bundle at quilt guild

here is block #5 of the heart song pattern

this black and white print is really cool -- sort of makes your eyes dance back and forth between seeing the stars and seeing the circles

I got a quarter yard of it, so I'm hoping to put some of it to use in one of the Out of Africa pieces (which I really am going to work on again soon -- I hope!)

we're all ready to go to guild meeting, and it's not until next week!

back in November when I was working on ears for the Seasonal Rabbit, I never did find any fabric that looked like St Patrick's Day

when I got the stuff for the flower project the other day, I found this, which I think will be suitable -- whipped this up yesterday in about 10 minutes, and soon it will be in an envelope on it's way to the otherwise ear-less for the holiday rabbit

new cameras are a good thing/bad thing sort of deal

I learned early on to back up my computer files -- especially my photos because so often they simply can not be replaced

each month I write all of my picture files to a CD and store it in a labeled sleeve

uh, except this month, when I started to do that I realized that 737 MB of photos were just not going to fit on a 700 MB CD --oops!

the deal is that the new camera has a lot more mega pixels, which means each photo is a much bigger file

I did some rearranging of files, moving the "copy" files that I created of documents to a different place (these ordinarily wouldn't even be there if my scanner was up and working, but never mind, that's a whole other rant!)

mission accomplished (and I'll keep that fact in mind for future reference)

time to get to that laundry

And the winner of the Gold Medal is

ME!

ok, I've feeling very good about my knitting prowess --- this adorable baby hoodie all finished in less than the time it takes the world to do Winter Olympics

I finished the last little loop for the buttons as the final ski event was being played on our "prime time" coverage last night

honestly I feel a bit bereft -- what do I start on next?

it was so early in the evening that I worked the entire cuff of the first mitten in a new pair --

now I just have to figure out how to get to that medal stand to collect my gold medal!

this was actually fun --- do we get to do this again for the summer games in two years?

this morning I went through my stash and found the necessary yarn to knit a turtle toy -- since I'm now in the quilting phase of the sea turtle quilt it's time to think about the toy that will go with it (a sort of tradition I started a couple of years ago, and I kind of like) -- cast on coming soon
these have been on the bead project board for the last week

each of these is an 8 mm diameter glass pearl that has been "belted" with size 11 delicas and size 15 seed beads (those are the light ones that look like the prongs in a setting)

I need to find the bottle of Fray Check and seal off all of those threads, and then it's on to setting all of these together

like a lot of things when you teach yourself a new technique, the first two or three involved a lot of time and some considerable mumbling, but the last few went quite quickly

this is going to be a very nice necklace I think

I've started on the last (and yes, I really mean it this time) Heart Song block yesterday -- got most of the center of it finished

who knows what I'll work on today!

Wild About Flowers

as I said yesterday, I didn't have enough of the "fence" fabric for this project

but because I keep track of where I get things, I knew where I got that fabric and made a trip there yesterday

and I just love it when the stuff I need is on sale too!

so here is a good start on the design for the fair

these are all flipping around in the dryer as I write this -- except for the tulle

(I know, I know, did I really need another project right now? I guess so)

Knitting Olympics update!

97% complete --

all of the knitting is finished -- in fact (under the category of cue the Twilight Zone music) I had just finished binding off and showing the DH that I was now ready to start sewing it together when my phone rang and my sister was crowing about having just finished her knitting too

weird!

so, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get this thing done before the flame goes out tomorrow evening!

I finished this too

the very first block for the new box of afghan squares


and I cast on a new mitten


and worked on various other projects too

it was a busy day


spring is coming

these are the daffodils just outside my front door, poking their little heads up through the dirt

and yesterday I saw a robin in the front yard

hurrah!

water lilies

this falls under the category of "did I do that?"

block 3 for the Hoffman Challenge design, and these came out unbelievably well -- or at least I think so

now it's on to the next block for the challenge -- another one with water lilies -- similar but not exactly the same as this one

I've started to collect the fabrics to work on the "Wild About Flowers" piece for the State Fair

I have this very cool fabric which definitely looks like fencing -- trouble is it was only a quarter of a yard which means it's too short to be the fence boards in this piece --- grrrr

have to find some other fabric that will do the job

Knitting Olympics piece is 81% complete!

today a few quick errands then back to work on projects!

Still testing

one or two?

the new photo was taken with a mode on the new camera that the old camera didn't have and I'm experimenting with

it was also taken in natural (though not really bright) light without a flash (that sort of yellow cast over the right hand photo is from the flash)



and check out the amazing difference in these two photos

(and yes, that far left one is the best of the batch and it's not all that great except for the reflection part)

the difference in the detail is amazing




another afghan square complete, the box is now full

I'll be shipping it off in the next couple of days


and the hood of the Knitting Olympics project has proven to be the biggest challenge of all -- for one thing, it begins with almost twice as many stitches -- even so, I'm chugging along (77% complete!)


applique group this morning -- time to fly

gifts of the yarn fairy

lookie what appeared at my doorstep!

evidently the yarn fairy heard that I've been knitting up mittens out of little bits and pieces out of my stash box and felt compelled to make sure I had enough wool yarn to keep on knittin' mittnz!

heh heh

ok, so there are 4 skeins of a sort of camel hair/carmal-ly color and two that are a sort of mauve-y flecked color and two that are lilac and two that run from brick red to pink and a deep purple and that back one on the right that is brown and teal

I selected the red to pink variegated to start the next pair of mittens --- perhaps they'll get cast on tonight

Knitting Olympics News

in the race for the gold, I've completed the 2 sleeves for the baby sweater and have cast on the hood and knit 4 rows on it too

74% complete -- with 5 days to go

(I think I can, I think I can)

oh yes, the yarn fairy also sent along buttons that will be perfect on this

so a big shout out and a thank you to my sister for being the yarn fairy!!

remember I said I had an idea for another quilted piece perking in my head?

it involves these two things

just so I could get the little image demons to SHUT UP! I did some picture research and created a file on my desktop so I have a record to go back to when I finish the 6 projects that are in the que ahead of it

today is pay day, so we'll be heading off to do our big monthly Costco trip (canned goods, toilet paper, soap) then a stop at a friend's house to check up

hopefully some actual work in the studio too

merrily we roll along

a visit to the only (large) fabric store here in our little village yielded this bit of fabric that I think is absolutely perfect for a quilt that is appliqued sea turtles

the figures look like chalk drawings on a blackboard and there are the fish and the sand dollars and the shells and the sea turtles!

the fabric has been through the washer already and now I can do the pinning of the quilt "sandwich" and get ready to go

while I was in the fabric store I also found a fat quarter packet that had some perfect fabrics to do the corner blocks in the Hoffman design and a black and white print that I couldn't resist, so there will be one more Heart Song block too (that thing is proving to be like potato chips -- can't stop at one!)
here is the latest pair of mittnz -- number 6! so the pile to be sent off is growing while the little balls of scrap in the stash box is shrinking -- it's a wonderful thing


work on the Knitting Olympics sweater is now 68% complete -- closing in on the finishing line!!

Trial and Error

as you may recall my saying, I got myself a new photo "brag book" last week, so the DH wants to use my old one

I also got a new camera for Christmas, and I'm still learning all of it's little ins and outs

this morning I took the pieces of silver that he wanted photographed and went to the photo booth to shoot new pictures

and after I downloaded them to the computer I started cropping and tweeking to try and get the best possible shots

so this is starting to sound like what the eye doctor says to you when you have your eye exam


"one or two?"

"one or two?"

(yellow or blue?!)

ok then, I've got some fiddling still to do then the DH will have to pick his favorite picture of each and every piece and we'll have to write something up for each one so I can make up the "postcards" to fill up his book

yesterday I worked on projects -- quilting on the fish, appliqueing lily pads on the Hoffman piece, starting the sleeves on the Knitting Olympics piece (see, I'm 60% done!), working my way up to the decrease rows on the second mitten of this pair -- and I watched a movie from 1965 that I had never seen -- Doctor Zhivago -- while the snow fell outside my windows

and so now, under the category of "where does your inspiration come from", there is a new mixed media piece perking in my brain

but for now, the laundry is calling

third time's the charm

I was feeling all smug about having this block finished after two tries yesterday morning, all ready to post this picture and blog about how I had managed to get it done even though it is only a 5 inch square, and how I don't usually do detailed piecing at that size

yada, yada, yada

but wait --- there is a serious problem with this block

look there at the bottom row

that's supposed to be a mirror image of the top row

DUH!
ok, so I picked it out and redid the bottom row and while I was at it I went ahead and signed the center

(being that this is an album block)

NOW it's done

and I still don't get how anyone does blocks this size on the sewing machine

I can barely manage to make all the corners meet when I do it by hand!

at least it's all finished WAY before the June deadline and it's off my list


this is the last of the redwood trees -- all 7 foot (or so) of it

the little blue lumps around the edges are the ends of the yarn that I used to fill all of those many (about 15) channels that give it that whole textured bark-y look

so now I can start thinking about the next step of this process -- which means I must clean off the biggest table in the house and lay the background out to start placing all 7 of the trees

in the past I did all of the pinning of projects in process with straight pins as I worked, but since I want to lay all of these down at once, I'll be breaking into the box of quilt safety pins so everything will be nice and secure through the long process of stitching them all down



two blocks for the Hoffman Challenge complete

these are mirror images -- sort of -- each one has it's own slight individual character

so last night I started on the next block for this -- water lilies -- which will include lots of little point-y petals




work on the fish block continues -- I was able to get a piece of kelly green tulle at the fabric store yesterday -- I worked around the side fin and the mouth -- working from the center out -- this is going to be very cool

and I'm working on drawings for the Wild About Flowers piece, thinking about using several techniques that I've been playing with
and the fronts of the baby sweater that I'm doing for the Knitting Olympics are complete -- 52% folks!!

this was accomplished while I was actually watching a part of the Olympics! BOBSLED! (feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme.....)


mittnz are progressing -- I'm doing the increases for the thumbs on mitten 2 in this pair

started on the final afghan square for the box last night

a new piece of jewelry is in the works too -- one thing about winter weather -- I'm getting a lot of stuff done in the studio!