STILL THERE

Yes, really, I am still there! After some relaxing sommer holidays, some gardening ( it felt like a lot!) and some renovating I am back to my hobbies:


I knitted some socks with left-over yarn. That´s why they are not very long.

But they are still nice enough to walk around the house and the garden and that´s less yarn in the basket.
I also got new glasses. And that was not funny at all. They are with progressive- addition lenses which are just a bother! After more than one week, I still have to move my head a lot to see clearly. It is getting slowly better though I think.

We are having a wonderful weather here at the moment. That means some more work in the garden but great walks and runs too.
Have a nice time!

HAS SOMEONE GOT A FAN?

It is just hot here, too hot to do anything apart from gaping at the garden getting dry!


Fortunately the house is more or less cool (depends on the floors) so that we can still sleep and move around.
My confetti quilt is growing. I am thinking of adding 3 more rows of squares, add small white sashing in between and then ponder for a border.

As you can imagine I am not wearing these at the moment although they are very comfy and soft. I am proud to show my first ownmade handspun socks and I must say they won´t be the last!
I received some rovings from England and I started dyeing them (they dry so fast in the heat, it has to be good for something!) so that next time I will present some more homespun.

Till then I wish you a cool breeze and a nice refreshing drink on the patio.

BUSY, BUSY

I don´t have much time this week for blogging.

My workshop on scrap quilts is tomorrow and I made some more blocks to show. I don´t intend to make a quilt out of those ones, they are only to show the students the construction of the blocks and the importance of colour placement or the lack of it!

I hope we will have fun!

On the knitting front I made a scarf and nearly finished the socks to match.
This was the first time I knitted the NORO yarn and I like it a lot. To knit the scarf and the socks I only used two skeins ( one multicoloured and one brownish). The yarn is a bit pricey but the results are very nice I think.

If the weather stays so mild, I will have no excuse on Sunday not to go in the garden and say hello to the lovely (!) bunches of nettle growing busily in every corner!

Have a nice week.

STILL WINTER

I won´t bore you anymore about the murky weather we are still having here! You know how it goes by now: snow, ice, ...

So I tried to do something against it: I knitted a beret for me ( my DH has already got one) and my DS does not want one!
That´s the Relm Tam from Knit.1. I knitted it with the left-overs from the cardigan I showed last week.

And I finished my Marlene socks from the same magazine as mentioned above.

The yarn is 100% Merino wool and very warm.

Yesterday my DS and I dyed some more sock yarn. This is a great way to learn a bit about colour theory. Take yellow and blue to get green is simple enough but it becomes a bit more complicated when it goes to how to transform a yukky brown into a warm caramel brown!

Pictures of the results next time.

I learned today that I will teach a workshop on scrap quilts in two weeks time. So now I have to sew some sampler blocks and work on the course of events, busy week ahead!

I wish you a nice week with a lot of time for crafty projects.

IT IS FREEEEZING!

It snowed last monday and the snow is still here and it is freezing cold!

Fortunately I had knitted a tam for my DH for Christmas.

The children are having fun with their slides but can´t stay outside too long as it is freezing cold.

This week I did not have to go to work everyday. Instead I enjoyed dyeing some sock yarn.

I could not go outside as it is so cold ( oh I have already told you that, well never mind!).

Do go and have a look at the new BOM Bea is having. It looks very promising. I wonder when or if that woman sleeps!

Next thursday we are having our monthly quilt group meeting and I plan to machine quilt my mother´s top. Some things to look forward to instead of that **** freezing cold weather!

I wish you some warm place for this week.

P.S. : I think I forgot to say that the temperatures were playing crazy here and that I have to put on 5 layers of clothes when I go outside!

NEW TEMPTATIONS

How is it that Christmas is already in 10 days and I haven´t seen anything of December yet?! What with bad weather, ill family members (DS and DH both sick with fever and heavy coughing), getting and/or making presents,...

Anyway, yesterday I took some time off to get some quality time going with a good friend of mine to the opening of a new yarn and quilt shop.

Christiane has made it! She now has a very nice shop with gorgeous yarn and fabric.




Of course I did some retail therapy but could not take any picture yet.

This week I knitted some presents for my dear sis: some mitts (modified version of Evangeline) and knee socks (my own pattern).

I just hope that they arrive on time in England. It is supposed to be so cold there (especially inside the house, isn´t it Sis? ) (Private joke!).

Now my DH has discovered a tam he would like to have for Christmas too so you know what I will be knitting next week!

I wish you all a nice third Advent.

SHE DID IT AGAIN!

Yes, you see well, I did some more Kool-Aid, food-colouring dyeing at the week-end!
The big ball is lace yarn and is a bit too pale to my taste and the second is sock yarn and looks like fun!


Winter is coming and my son´s head has grown, it seems. So what is a mum to do, a new skull hat of course. I would not have chosen that pattern myself, but better he likes it and WEARS it as goes bare head and catches a cold!
I finished the socks for my DH too. I like the colours but did not have enough( he has BIG feet!) so I had to mix in some dark grey yarn at the toes.And finally, I sewed a little bag. It is for a surprise project at our quilt group and that´s why I can´t show the stitchery on it at the moment.

That´s it for today. Still not much quilting going on but I am thinking about it!

Have a nice time.

NICE AUTUMN

Nothing much going on this week. Running errands, doctor´s appointements,...
I had time to admire some trees in the neighbourhood and I hope to get inspired from their colours for some future projects.
Last week´s workshop on machine quilting went very well and we had much fun. So much fun that I forgot to take pictures!
Anyway I have finished Bea´s 9th BOM. I changed it a bit. I hope Bea won´t mind!

As I have a growing stash of scrap sock yarns, I started using them. First for a pair of
booties for a student of mine who is expecting. ( Don´t worry, I teach adults!)









Then some preemies´ hats and socks for a local hospital.
When I have more I intend to visit the hospital with my DS to bring them the socks. My DS was born there 8 years ago and he was a preemie too, so I thought that would be a nice idea to thank them for their care.


Now I am knitting some socks for my DH, who is quite a bit larger than a preemie and the socks are taking a bit more time.
After that I intend to go back to sewing and quilting. I still have some projects ( others would say UFOs!) which need looking after.

I wish you a nice autumn week.

RUNNING NOSE

Two weeks without posting! I had a reason: a nasty bad cold, with my head feeling like a pumpkin most of the time.

The week before I had started quilting my siggy swap blocks quilt and I hope to show a picture of the finished quilt soon.
This week I received the last lot of my yarn subscription. That was something I could drool over. Quite easy with a running nose! I can see some nice socks or scarves there.

As my dear son and I are flying next week to the UK to see my dear sis, I had to finish her socks. And here they are. The pattern is called Clessidra from Knitty.

She wanted some flaps to fold over boots and there are still some buttons missing at the outside sides.

I hope she will like them, if not they are coming back with me!

This afternoon we had a gorgeous weather and so I spent some time dyeing more sock yarn with Kool Aid.

Pictures will be in the next post too.

I want to thank you all for your nice comments on the scrappy star quilt. They went down like honey, which was just what I needed this week.

Well enough whinging! I wish you a nice week with pumpkin in your gardens or on your plates!

COLOURS

I was lucky this week and managed to have some time to sew things for me! I could finish this wall-hanging. I had made the stitchery back in spring I think and I had bought the fabric for the border. Well here it is at last and in time before Christmas!

I had told you that I wanted to dye some yarn with food coloring, well I did. With a friend we had a nice afternoon in the garden and dyed three skeins.
I will show you what the yarns looked like before dying, some baby blue ( I must have bought that colour about 8 years ago as my son was still a baby), white and cream.
And this is the result, first as skeins and then as balls. The colours are quite true apart from the green which is a bit brighter in real.
Not too bad but we had to use up all the food coloring (2 packs with 4 colours each) and I think the colours are not as dark as with Kool Aid. My friend got hooked I think, so it won´t be the last dying taking place in our garden!

I have been machine quilting my scrappy star quilt and it is coming out fast! Some pictures next week.

I wish you a nice week.

SOME GOODIES!

Some parcels arrived this week.
First the beautiful summer quilt from Wendy. I am very lucky that I was her partner this season. The quilt is very, very nice. The piecing, the appliqué and the quilting are perfect. I love it and it hangs already in my sewing room. Funny that the summer quilt I made has nearly the same color scheme.



I got the autumn delivery from my yarn suscribtion with a nice extra skein (the blue one). All the colors are so yummy, I could start straight away some new socks or a scraf. I could ... if I didn´t have around 50 (!) other projects on my queue.
I finished the socks, which yarn I had dyed with Kool Aid. This time it was grape flavor.
I found the pattern at Ravelry which has around 1500 free sock pattern so it was hard to choose only one. But with the new yarn I got this week, I should be able to have a go at some more patterns.
I knitted the socks for my mum if she wants them.

School starts tomorrow after the summer break. Today we have been packing my DS´s school back pack with new exercice books, pencils,... but still enthousiasm has not appeared yet! Let´s see what the first week will bring.

I wish you a nice week too.

BACK AND RESTED

After 3 weeks of that (see above), it was time to come back home. We had a wonderful time, lots of time without kid (he was at my parents´), nice food and even some sunny weather!


In Brittany I managed to find an original fabric for the summer 4SQS and that is what I have sewed with it so far. My partner likes bright colours so I hope it is to her taste. I hope I can finish it over the week-end so that it is on the way to ... before the deadline!
On holiday I had a few magazines to read. Some I bought in Paris and some my DS and my Mum brought back from the USA. I love magazines, the only problem is that I want to start a least 2 or 3 projects per issue at once and as I did not have any sewing stuff with me, it was difficult!
At least I knitted a bit: the socks are made for my Mum (and modeled by her). We had some fun dying wool yarn with Kool Aid (here orange flavor) and I am quite happy with the result.

We dyed the other yarn with grape flavor and it turned out pale purple. I will show pictures when the socks are finished.

Next time I will show pictures of my Mum´s latest quilt works.