Sweaters and Socks

I've been doing lots of knitting lately. I'm on the shoulder of my last sleeve of the sweater. I've decided to leave the first sleeve as is. The person I'm making it for wears sweaters a lot like I do, with the sleeves pushed up out of the way of a computer keyboard. Since the error is fairly low on the sleeve is will get lost in the smooshing. I think that since it is a Christmas present and I want some element of surprise I'm going to wait until after Christmas to post pictures of the finished sweater. (I'm going with that excuse rather than the fact that it usually takes me a few months weeks to sew a sweater together, knit the button band and collar, and weave in all of those stupid little ends.)

The other reason that the sweater will have to wait for assembly is that this arrived in the mail yesterday.

My intention was to order the needles for my husband's Christmas sweater and immediately start working on that. After two months of working with cream yarn I want color. (There's a tiny voice reminding me that my husband's sweater is green which is in fact a color, but it's being drowned out by a whiny voice saying socks are fun and fast and we want fun and fast.) Since this is a pair of socks for my husband and he's given me permission to make socks before sweater the sweater will just have to wait.

*If you're wondering the yarn is Stroll Fingering in Harvest Tonal from Knit Picks.

Knit Picks did not sponsor this posting. 

Imperfection

There is a legend that Persian rug makers will intentionally put a mistake into their rug as a reminder that only Allah is perfect. As I've been working on my sweater this phrase has come into my head. This sweater is the first time that I've done cables. Over all I think I'm doing pretty good. (We're just going to ignore the fact that every repeat of the cables on the back, the first piece I did, is a different length.)

Then I got cocky. I started thinking that I knew the pattern. I started thinking that I didn't need the stitch counter and stopped counting every row. This worked great until I stopped for the night, picked it up the next morning and realized that I'd forgotten to include eight rows in the counter the night before. I didn't panic too much, just added in the rows that I'd forgotten to add and started knitting. Two inches later I discovered when I started work my row counter was actually right.

As a knitter I should probably know how to frog and then start knitting again once I've pulled out enough stitches to have pulled out the mistake. (I should point out that I'm fully capable of pulling out my stitches and putting them back on the needle, they just end up twisted the wrong way half the time.) Since I struggle to undo inches of knitting when it's flat knitting I'm terrified of frogging cabled stitches. I asked my husband what he thought I should do. He looked at it for a minute and then said the beautiful words, "What mistake?" I trusted him and continued happily knitting. After all, only God is perfect so little mistakes aren't so bad. Then I got to the end of the sleeve and my dear husband says, "Oh, that mistake. Yeah, it's pretty noticeable."

So let me put the question out there to all of you. Do I knit the sleeve over again or do I give it to the recipient saying the sleeve is that way as a reminder that only God is perfect?

Coffee Top is Done!!!

I'm starting to think that this quilt might have a curse on it. My first goal was to get the entire quilt done over the summer to show at my quilt guild's fall guest night. I was humming along nicely and only had to sew the rows together before the top was done and my machine broke down. I got my machine fixed and  managed to finish the top in time for guest night. (I even had a week to spare.) Then the week before guest night I start coming down with some coughing illness and am to sick to go to guest night. I'm slightly worried to see what new disaster will come up when I actually start to quilt this thing. (I can't decide what I want to do for quilting though so I have some time before that occurs.) Despite all of the problems with this quilt I'm absolutely loving how it's turning out. I can't wait to cuddle up under it this winter (or next if the quilting curse is bad.)

*It's not the greatest of pictures, but with the curse that is this quilt what else did you expect. I promise when I take the finished pictures they will be good. I've even started plotting locations for this quilts photo shoot.

If you're interested in the pattern it's based on this quilt on Moda Bakeshop's webpage. 

Updates

This week has been very unproductive. Not sure how I managed to get a respiratory infection in August, but the fact that I'm still alive is a pretty great accomplishment in my book. (No, it's really not that bad, but it feels like it should be.) I have made a lot of progress on things before this week, but I haven't had a chance to get pictures. I'm pleased report that the top is finished for Coffee Lover's Delight. (Hopefully I'll get some good pictures sometime this week and can share with you next Saturday.) I've also made a lot of progress on the first Christmas present. I have the back, left side of the front, and a sleeve finished. All I have pictures of though is the back.

If you're wondering what I'm making I'm using the Northshore Cardigan pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.

Pinwheels of the Past Part 3

You're going to have to forgive me with this post. I've been working on this quilt and randomly taking pictures in preparation of sharing them with the blog, but since I wasn't actively posting at the time I wasn't focused on taking good pictures. It also meant that when I got the quilt put together I was so excited I pinned everything together and began hand quilting without taking pictures of the finished top. I did go back and take pictures of the half that doesn't have quilting on it and it gives you a pretty good idea of what the whole quilt will look like. (Sorry for the poor lighting. It was late at night. When the quilt is finished I promise I'll take it outside and find a good setting for the revealing shots.)

It will be a very long time until the quilting is finished so I've decided to give you a sneak peak of the quilting too. I found a quilt stencil that I'm using on the white squares. It doesn't show up very well in the picture, but the thread is the same teal as the boarder. In the pinwheel blocks I'm doing in the ditch quilting around the pinwheels and the outside of the blocks.

Pinwheels of the Past part 2

Last week I showed you how to make the first part of the pinwheel blocks. After you've sewn your four half square triangles (HSTs) together you'll have a pinwheel block. Lots of quilts can be made with just this block, but I chose to take mine a step further. Last week I mentioned that I used three charm packs for this quilt. I chose to use the more solid colored charm squares as my pinwheels and used the more patterned pieces as the background fabric. The first part of the block uses one and one print squares to create your pinwheel.

Next I took the remaining two squares of print, cut those in half, and added them to the pinwheels.

Ignoring the fact that my block has magically changed colors this is what the finished block looks like. (Did I mention you're making 24 of these pinwheel blocks?)

Pinwheels of the Past

I went to post more pictures of the Hobbit quilt and discovered I didn't bring my camera. (I'm writing this at a coffee shop so I can't run across the room and get them. Sorry.) Since Coffee Lover's Delight is on hold until I can get my machine fixed I decided to share another quilt I've been working on. I don't know how many quilts one person should have in progress at a time, but I may be approaching that number.

This quilt is called Pinwheels of the Past and has been in the works for a year now. I received the fabric as a birthday present two years ago. My husband works overnights and my sewing space is about 30 feet from our bed so I try not to sew when he's sleeping. The result of this is that I had a pattern figured out and my fabrics divided into blocks and then spent three months waiting to find time to sew. After waiting patiently (as patiently as I could at least) I decided to piece the quilt by hand. If my great grandmother and the thousands of quilters who came before me could quilt without a sewing machine, why couldn't I?

I used three charm packs for this quilt. (For those who are curious I used Just Wing It by Moda.) To begin with I sewed two squares together around all four sides. I used a pencil and drew in my quarter inch seams. As I got more practice at hand piecing I just sewed with a hem gauge and checked my seams every few inches.

After sewing all four sides I then cut my pieces in half diagonally.

And then I cut them in half diagonally again.

It may seem strange, but when you press them open it starts to make sense.

Rotate your pieces, sew the four blocks together and you have the first part of the pinwheel!

*I first saw this technique for sewing pinwheels on moda bakeshop's page.