Focusing on the Finish Line

Last week I was happily working along on the green sweater when I saw another blogger posting about the Ravellenic Games. Immediately I wanted to set greeny aside and cast on a new sweater with the lofty hopes of finishing it in two weeks. My husband knows me very well and knows that at the end of the two weeks I'd have another WIP and would be upset with myself for not meeting the impossible goal. He gently reminded me that I have several projects on the verge of being done and questioned if this really was the best time to start a new sweater. As usual he was right and inspired me to set my own goal. In the next two weeks I will focus on finishing everything that is close to being finished. It won't count towards any competitions, but it's still a good goal.

Writer's Block is still patiently waiting for binding. I also got two tops back from my quilter so now there are three quilts that need binding and labels.

In addition to finishing the green sweater I also need to finish the button band on the brown blob (I ordered more yarn when I ordered buttons for greeny.) I need to finish sewing the ribbon onto the steeked part of the purple monster and add buttons. (I also might need to find a solution to loosening the wrists. The color work on the cuffs have made it so that the sleeves aren't comfortable.) The last thing on the list of things to be finished are my fingerless gloves.

These aren't all of my WIPs. (You'll notice the mystery quilt is no where to be seen.) These are just the projects that are one or two steps away from being finished. Last summer my husband helped me wind up my yarn mountain. The light blue yarn in the mountain is going into the fingerless gloves, the yellow yarn became Omelet (I should probably add a photo shoot of Omelet to my list of things to do in the next two weeks.) The brown yarn became a hat I made for my husband for Christmas, which leave the blue yarn at the base of the mountain. When I finish with this list I get to cast the blue yarn on for Anne's Cardigan.

There and Back Again

In 2011 I saw a new quilt along inspired by JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit. Tolkein is one of my husband's and my favorite authors so I was immediately intrigued. When I found that the patterns were free (a big pattern price tag is great at discouraging you from doing things you have no business doing) I decided to make the quilt never mind the fact that I knew nothing about paper piecing. I'm not sure I would have finished this quilt without the enthusiasm of my husband. After month 2 (which featured a 7" block with 144 pieces) I was starting to doubt this whole paper piecing method. By month 4 I down right hated paper piecing. I fell woefully behind, but I finished all of my blocks. The blocks were published in chronological order of the books, not by level of difficulty. I think if I made this quilt again I'd start with the easy blocks and work my way up to Cloaks in the Hall. 

Despite my dislike of paper piecing I do love Fandom in Stitches and the talented designers behind the There and Back Again quilt along. They have some amazing quilt patterns that are extremely creative and are based on beloved movies, books, comics, and more. I enjoy seeing the new patterns that are constantly being added (all for free) but the method of piecing just isn't for me. 

I apologize for the poor picture. Between the wind and storm that was approaching it's amazing I got any pictures. This shot gives you the best idea of what the blocks look like, but the colors are a lot richer in person. The sashing is a dark blue and the center block is bordered by a rich brown color. I promise when I do the photo shoot for the finished quilt I'll get better pictures.

Sock it to Me Week 5

My sock needles are looking very sad right now.

That's right. They're empty. This week I've been distracted by lots. I showed you the penguin quilt this weekend, but that is just one of the things distracting me. I've started clearing out the yarn stash by making baby hats. 

Judging from how slowly the hat is going (more so how little attention I'm giving it) this may not be the best plan for downsizing the stash. Most of my knitting time is going into the purple monster.

Have I mentioned lately that this sweater has 13.5 inches of knit stitches one after another after another? I just hit 11 inches and the prospect of finishing in 2.5 inches is very motivating. I'm trying to decide if I want to do 1.5 inches of that as ribbing for the bottom or do a turned hemmed which will require me to knit an extra 2 inches in a contrasting color and then turn the hem and bind the live stitches to the back side. (Yes, that sounds complicated to me too so I'll probably do the ribbing option.) You may have noticed that this sweater has no sleeves, but it has been decided that when my needles are free this sweater is going to have some time out in the stash while I move on to my green sweater that's full of lots of fun cables. Eventually the joy of cables will wear off and the idea of straight stockinette sleeves will feel like a break rather than a chore. When that happens I'll spend a week or two making sleeves and then will get the joy of a quick finish.

The last distraction has been quilting related.

Before Christmas I was spending more time on the pinwheel quilt than Christmas presents so it got banished to the closet so I could focus better on the stuff on a timeline. My quilt guild's show is 15 weeks away. Sounds like plenty of time, doesn't it? Then I realized that before the show I want to finish hand quilting the pinwheel quilt, machine quilt Coffee Lover, finish and quilt Hobbit, finish Penguins (although since that quilt is a workshop quilt I am allowed to display the top unquilted) and possibly do the Challenge quilt (a modern 5'x7' quilt in solids that is machine quilted by the quilter.) Suddenly 15 weeks does not seem like much time at all.

The Last Hobbit Blocks

My Hobbit quilt got set aside a bit as I worked to get everything ready for Christmas. (We're just going to ignore the fact that I had originally intended to have the quilt finished by Christmas.) Here's the last of the Hobbit blocks.

The Arkenstone

Mithril

Smaug

And of course...The Lonely Mountain.

(The picture doesn't do it justice, but this block is twice as a big as the others and will be the center of the quilt.)

Hobbit Blocks

This weekend I decided I'd finally assemble the Northshore Cardigan. Despite measuring carefully the buttons would not line up with the holes. I finally laid the thing out and realized that the right front is three inches longer than the left front. I know that there's a way to undo knitting from the bottom, but since I don't know how to do that the cardigan is banished into storage again.  I've also been busy working on the Hobbit quilt. The final lay out was announced at the beginning of the month and I'm working to catch up. I still have quite a few more blocks to go, but here's a few more of the new blocks.

It plays more heavily in Lord of the Rings, but I don't think you can do a Hobbit quilt without the ring of power.

The bridge to Rivendell

I think Sting is the most challenging block I've done so far for this quilt. The original design called for a blue tip, but since the entire blade should glow blue I chose to do it all in silver and use a blue background.

I was looking through my old posts and realized I haven't made any updates on the Hobbit quilt. This quilt has been so slow going. It probably isn't the quilt to learn paper piecing with, but the subject appeals to me a lot. I've loved Lord of the Rings for years and was inspired to read the book because of this project. Here's two more of the blocks.

Dwarves' Cloaks in the Hall

The Road out Bilbo's Door

For patterns please visit Fandom in Stitches There and Back Again. I've got three more blocks done so check back next week to see some more of what I've finished.

Gandalf

I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkein. (Okay, so I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings. I tried reading a couple of his other books but struggled too much to keep all of the elven names straight. My husband however does qualify as a HUGE fan of Tolkein.) When I saw fandom in stitches was planning on doing a There and Back Again Block of the Month I was excited. I mentioned it to my husband and he immediately agreed that I needed to do it. I've been sewing for years, but am very new to quilting. I've never tried paper piecing before, but read a lot of tutorials and figured it shouldn't be too hard. For my first attempt at paper piecing I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I tried something a bit unusual with the fabric. I really wanted him to have a dark grey coat, a medium grey hat, and a light grey beard. Rather than buying three pieces of fabric when I only needed a little bit I found a dark grey piece of fabric and used bleach to lighten it.  When I got my fabric home I decided it looked more black than grey so I put a large piece in for the cloak for five minutes, a small piece for the hat in for ten, and a small piece for the beard for fifteen minutes. The beard didn't turn out and I used a piece of white for it, but I like the effect the bleaching had on the cloak and hat. 

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. Since it was my first time doing paper piecing and bleaching of fabric I was more concerned with doing it right than documenting what I was doing. November 2 month 2's block is released. I'll try to take more pictures of the process as I work on that one.