Socktober

 I decided I really wanted to document something my daughter did for me. First, let me just say she is a prolific knitter, and is very good. She has made socks for me in the past and I love the feel of hand knit socks. Especially now that I have neuropathy in my feet from chemo. The hand knit socks are loose and comfortable for my feet, when other socks are so very constricting.

When the pandemic began and we all went into lock down, she decided to use up a bunch of her yarn stash, and she secretly enrolled me in her Pandemic sock of the month club. I got the first delivery of three pair. (This is a quarterly club.) I was bowled over by this thoughtfulness. Socks are a lot of work.

It was too warm here in southern California for socks, at that time. So when the weather finally cooled, I dubbed it Socktober and wore a new pair each day to be able to send her a picture of her beautiful work in use. Here they are in all their glory...

Each pair came with a card that gave the month and

a little quip about the pandemic and it's impact on normal life.

Each pair is different and I love all the colors and the yarns she used. Some of the yarn is self striping, meaning it makes strips as you knit up. I have no idea how that works, but it's cool.

Some, like these have heel gussets and toes that contrast. These have yarn that she used for an older pair of socks and also a shawl she made for me.

I love the vibrancy of these socks.

Fall colors, and toasty warm.

Love these beauties. Mermaid socks.

Love the tops of these.

These are different, but quite lovely in blues.

And these are very interesting and bright. I love the way they almost look like two different pair of socks.  So, this was my Socktober and I loved every pair. I am still wearing a pair of hand knit socks every day. There are two more pair being made to add to the collection. I will not need to buy socks again for years, and I'm okay with that. It has been great fun to get these surprises in the mail and I love her so much for thinking of this and of me. When this stupid pandemic it over, I will have the biggest bunch of hugs to give her for all this joy.

Talk to you soon.

Dear Dottie

 Last year, I decided to join in with Rachel, of Stitched in Color, to do the Dear Dottie QAL. I really wanted to do this pattern, but I had tons of projects on my plate, so I did the baby size quilt, hoping to revisit the pattern and make a larger quilt. Eventually.

This is my Baby size Dear Dottie. I made this on totally scrappy. Technically I guess it's a charm quilt, since no fabric is repeated here. I used up lots of my 5 inch charms in this quilt. I totally love it.

Then, I saw a picture of a Dear Dottie in a limited color pallet. I fell in love with it and wanted to do one as well. But I waited a bit, trying to figure out what colors. Or what fabrics. Or something. I finally found some fabrics that I loved and added a few from my stash. 

I have to say, I think it is harder to limit your fabrics than to go all scrappy. Any time I couldn't decide on a fabric, I would think "it needs more variety". Then I would stop and remind myself that the point was to limit the fabrics and the pallet in this one.

I finally finished that quilt this week and here it is now. I posted the small one above for the sake of comparison.

The other thing I did different was to add a narrow border to this quilt. I just really felt like it needed one.

The top and bottom borders are both dark blue, but two different fabrics. The two sides I made different.

This Dear Dottie is so much softer in color tone and also has less quilting which makes it literally softer than the small one. I knew the small one would be a wall hanging, so I quilted it rather densely.

This is most of the back of the quilt. I didn't have enough for the whole thing, so I added a strip of red down one side. I didn't get a picture of that.

I am very pleased with the result, and happy that this second Dear Dottie quilt is done so I can enjoy it.

I will see you soon. There are two more quilts pin basted and ready to be quilted.

Well Hello October

 Yes, I know we are more than half way through the month. I have been busy. I have no real excuses, but then, this is my blog so I don't need any. Here's a bit of what I've been up to.

First of all, I am participating in the Geesey Geesey QAL with Rachel of Stitched in Color. I bought some Kona white and used a Shibori technique to dye it. I used Rit dye in Pearl Grey. It's actually a bit lighter than this now that it's dry. I am going to use it for the "sky" in my flying geese blocks.

These blocks are for my Penny Sampler Quilt. The pineapple block on top is the one I am using for the quilt. The second one was actually the first on I made, but I got confused and placed the pink pieces next to the center square, which was not my intention. I re-made the block the way I wanted to, and am so very happy that I did. The third block is just a six inch block for the top section of the quilt.

And lastly, for today, I voted. Very important to help save the democracy. Talk to you soon.

A Couple of Things

 I've been working on a couple of things I'd like to share here. In my last post, I shared my latest crocheted blanket. Now I am making one for my youngest grandson, B. His favorite color used to be orange, but now it seems he likes yellows and golds as well. So this is the yarn selection. I am crocheting a ripple pattern from Lucy at Attic 24.

I think I posted that I was painting rocks during the pandemic. This is one of my latest rocks. I do lots of little pictures on rocks which I put positive messages on the back and we put them in a basket out front for neighbors to take. I believe we have done a few hundred rocks since we started.

On the sewing front, I was finally able to move ahead on the Penny Sampler Quilt. I am doing the Dutch version since I have already done the Nordic version a couple of years ago when Rachel offered it.

My quilt is all blues, pinks and a bit of red. So this is my tree. It was so fun to choose the fabrics for this block. I pulled all my fabrics back in the beginning, so I just go through the bin they are in for each new block assignment. We are in the home stretch with this year long project.

This is my faceted diamond block. I forgot to re-orient it. It will go longways on the quilt. The third block for September is the windmill, which I haven't downloaded to my computer yet, so I will do that soon so I can document that here. I am so excited to get this quilt put together. I have really been enjoying the monthly assignments.

So have a great weekend and stay safe and well. I will see you soon.

Crochet!

 So, in addition to sewing I also love to crochet. I have been crocheting blankets for the last 3 years, along with Lucy at Attic 24. She has so many lovely patterns and she is really good at explaining the techniques. She shows pictures of how things should look, which is so helpful. And her patterns are free!

This is one of her patterns I just finished, in my own chosen colors. This blanket is to be a Christmas gift for Miss N. Her favorite colors are pink and purple.

This is the Cosy Stripe Blanket. It is all double crochet, except for parts of the border. This is a picture of the final row of the border which give such a pretty little finish here.

Every two rows alternate between a plain double crochet and one with three stitches done in one spot skipping stitches on each side to give this unique look. I alternated between pink and purple on each row.

I started out using up bits of leftover yarns from other projects, but then I soon realized I didn't have enough of either pink or purple to complete this. So I found an on line source for the same yarn, here in the US.

I usually order all this blanket yarn from Wool Warehouse in the UK, but at the time, they weren't shipping to the US because of Covid.

I am very happy with the way this blanket turned out. These pictures are on my queen size bed, so this is a sizeable blanket. My daughter requested it be big enough so she could use it as she grew up.

And here is the little wooden button I put on all my crochet blankets. I found these on Etsy. There are many vendors on Etsy that sell something like this if you are interested in finding some for yourself. I hope you have a great rest of your week, and I will see you soon.

Happy Fall

 Well, now it is officially fall, or Autumn, if you prefer. Days are getting shorter, temperatures are cooling down a bit. It's awesome! Here's what I have been doing the last couple of weeks.

I made all these balls of fabric "yarn" from string scraps that I have been saving for the past two years. A number of years ago, Crazy Mom had a tutorial on how to crochet or knit a throw rug with these. I have made a few of them over the years. I want to do one more. This will be my last. I'm not saving these kinds of scraps any more.

This was the table as I sorted all the scraps. After I made the very first one, I decided to sort into color groups and I like the look it gives me much better.

It takes about 3 pounds of this yarn to crochet a decent size rug. The blue is the largest ball I have and you  can see it is close to a pound. I weighed all the balls and together there is 4.8 pounds, so this will be a sizeable rug.

I also finished this lovely EPP piece. I am going to look for a backing fabric so I can remove the papers and quilt it. I will finish the edges without binding. That should be interesting. 

I hope you are all doing well. I will be back with more projects to share.

Dear Dottie #2

 I have finally finished my second Dear Dottie quilt top. I think I know how I'm going to quilt it, so all I need is a backing now and I can pin baste.

Here she is in all her glory! When I made my first Dear Dottie, I made the baby size and I made it completely scrappy. No fabric used more than once. And I loved it, still do. But then I saw one on Instagram that used a more limited pallet and I couldn't get it out of my mind. So I decided to try it.

I found a bundle of fabrics from a collection I had in my stash, and I pulled a few others to add to it. I had to restrain myself from adding too much. I kept telling myself what I had would be enough. And truly I found limiting the amount of fabrics to be more difficult than just putting something else in that I felt it called for. In the end, I'm glad I did limit my fabrics. I love the effect.

I think I struggled when so many of the blocks were the same, or similar. That's where I had to tell myself it was fine and it looked good. And I think it does.

So, I now have 3 quilt tops completed and needing backs and quilting. It's going to take a while to get that done, but I love them all and cannot wait to see them quilted and on the bed. I hope you have a good rest of your week. Talk to you soon.