I'm knitting circles around you!

Another pair of socks finished, and they are sooo comfortable! These are Circle Socks -- free pattern on Ravelry -- made from Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn. The texture pattern is amazingly easy to do.

I have several ideas for my next pair, but I need to look at the pictures again before I decide. I've been planning to jump into the Cat Bordhi book for a while now but I think I like doing top-down socks better than toe-up... we'll see!

Long Weekend

It's so wonderful having all these days off from work, and being able to laze around and do whatever I feel like... I could definitely get accustomed to it!

Yesterday afternoon I started making a little mystery quilt from Dorothy Young's yahoo group -- I finished all the blocks this morning, and before she posted "her" layout, I arranged them like this:








And then she posted her version, which looks like this:















I have lots of little HSTs left over, which I'm going to use for part of the border.  Haven't decided which layout I like better or what the rest of the border will be...

Has anyone switched to the new blog editor on blogger? Am I the only one who hates it and is planning to switch back?

I took a little outing to the nearby city of San Leandro this afternoon, for a very spicy chai latte and an "in person" look at Libby's quilts at the Zocalo Cafe. They are beautiful and I saw several I'd be pleased to hang on my walls!

I'll see if blogger will let me place one more picture here  (it wants to put them where I don't want them, and then won't let me edit without a lot of grief) These are a set of blocks from this year's Friday Block Party -- who knew I had that many fabrics with orange in them?  The block party is moving forward for another year, so feel free to jump in!  I think I'll switch to another color palette now.

Next up, chopping a whole lot of onions and garlic for our annual chili-fest tomorrow!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

my celestine

Otherwise known as a totally frivolous bit of knitting...
but when I saw this somewhere last week (was it on Knitty?) I had to drop everything else and make one! It's a stellated dodecahedron, which means 12 points. I used some funky variegated acrylic yarn that was in my stash for some reason, which was a bit heavier than the sock yarn in the free pattern. I have no idea what I'll do with this, or why on earth I HAD to make one, but I'm pretty happy with it!

lost and found

This is the "missing" post, which I had foolishly put on the wrong blog a few days ago...

I'm a sucker for swaps, although I do try to keep it in check somewhat. One of my little yahoo groups does a set of round or row robins every year, and I just got my package back!

The top row was my starting row, and it actually came from another swap a couple of years ago. Five other quilters made me sets of 6 blocks to go along, using batik colors and various black backgrounds. I love the way it all came out -- the variety of blocks, the whimsy in the second row (what's in that jug, anyway?) and the colors. Some of my favorite quilts have come from these swaps.

In my continuing quest to capture birds on "film", I bring you the common titmouse. This guy is a little piggy when it comes to my bird feeder!

I'm hoping to have some cool knitty stuff to show very soon... my back has been freaking out the last couple of days so instead of sewing with a friend this afternoon I'm planning to lounge on her sofa and knit.

what's up with blogger THIS time?

I just wrote a post, added a couple of photos, tweaked the font because it's not doing what it's supposed to, and hit "publish" -- and it seems to have disappeared from the cosmos! So this is just a short test to see if it might publish. (the last one doesn't even show up on my dashboard as a draft,,,)

Y not?

A couple of months ago I met Sandy Klop, the designer of American Jane patterns and fabric, at a local quilt show. Someone had a version of this quilt in the show and I was blown away by the woven effect and by the fact that I could NOT figure out how it was constructed. It turns out that Sandi had the pattern for sale; it's called Pretzel Party. I had to have it, even after she told me it had lots of Y-seams. "I'm not afraid of Y-seams", I proclaimed boldly...
Ha ha ha. This damn quilt has 12 Y-seams in each block! Plus the ones in the half-pretzels around the sides. That's way too many Y-seams for me. Luckily I discovered this before I cut into the beautiful Bali-pop I was going to use, because I was smart enough to try a block with scraps first... very tedious stuff, and I don't do tedious over and over very well! (but I still think it would look terrific in batiks)
I spent a chaotic weekend in Seattle with my youngest brother and his brood. The heavy quilt seems to be a hit with the oldest daughter, as she slept more peacefully the first night with it. The middle kids are fun and crazy, but the youngest is a wild child, boundlessly energetic and fearless. This came to a head on Saturday when he was racing around the house and slid into the base of a table, dislodging one of his teeth... after an emergency trip to the dentist he will now have a bit of a gap-toothed smile until his permanent tooth grows in:
He screamed bloody murder until the tooth was pulled; after that he was back to racing around the house. (If you need the name of a fabulous pediatric dentist in Seattle, just ask -- this guy was amazing!)

And finally, just to keep one of my themes going, this was our hotel room in Seattle:
I swear, it's a different chain altogether than where we stayed in Madison (see banner above) but what is it with these pillows? Sculptural qualities aside, they are pretty much useless -- much too thick and foam-rubbery to sleep on comfortably.