Hello, everyone! Now finds us living in the little windows between Covid scares, and stuck inside even then, because the cold is a kind of cold that you can't really go outside in. I am tired of talking about Covid, thinking about Covid, adjusting plans because Covid, etc. Covid.
So today we're not going to! In my little quilting spaces, I watch shows that (mostly) aren't about the pandemic and make stuff that is distinctly non-pandemic-related.
Scrap Strip Quilt
I did say uncle and dug into the white stash for the rest of the strip blocks, which I finished putting white borders on. I cut the corners off like so:
And I did that 72 times. Actually 144. Then I cut out 144 triangles to go in the corners, then sewed them on, then laid out all the squares on the back of another huge quilt, then put them in piles, and am now sewing rows of squares together. Very exciting! I have enough batting for this one, and a plan-ish thing for the backing. Basting is going to be a Thing, and quilting is going to be an even bigger Thing. Don't quite have a plan for quilting yet, but it will happen! Hopefully before this insanely cold weather stops!
Gnomies
Some progress has been made! The first of the specialized gnomes has been made, which you can't actually tell without a lot of awareness of what qualifies as specialized. This is a plaid shirt that was a hand-me-down from one of the recipients. It's pretty darn thin, which probably isn't great, but it's not too much real estate on the top, and I really don't want to make another one.
I tried hard to match up the plaid:
And it kind of worked:
Not perfect, but good enough. I have an inkling of a plan to use the brand-new Cricut to cut out the logo of a restaurant that said recipient has on their favorite baseball cap. That may be a whole lot of work, but it may also be fun? And I'm not afraid of applique, and it would make the specializedness even clearer, so maybe!
Nest Fiber
Anywhere between 2-5 years ago, I got as a gift some fiber from Nest and spun it up into a dense chain-ply that came out to be about worsted weight, or maybe aran. Then Mom knit it into most of a hat! And then there wasn't enough yarn left to make the rest of a hat! So patiently, we waited and watched the Nest site to see if Equinox in Superwash Merino was ever available again. And it wasn't.
And then, a week or two ago, I sent an e-mail I'd been thinking about sending for anywhere between 2-5 years, that said 'hello, can you please dye some more of this fiber?' and then Nest said 'of course!' and then they did and then I felt silly for waiting 2-5 years.
Isn't it so pretty? Such nice colors. I am not confident about my ability to match the weight, but some wrong yarn is probably better than no yarn. And I got two more bumps of fiber, so I'll have a second chance if it's too wrong.
Baby!
It honestly may be true that my joy at hearing about new babies is almost 100% because I want to make a quilt for them, and not, say, the human potential, or the joy of becoming a family, or anything uplifting and positive. QUILT!
This is the early stage of the next Koala quilt. It's now a top, ready to be basted, with backing from stash (it hasn't been there super long, but it could have been so still a win!) and I have fabric for binding, too.
I'm doing the UFO group in the Quilters Knitting group on Ravelry again, for which all three of these will count this quarter, woo! And I refrained from joining the Unbegun challenge this time around, even though I have more than one t-shirt quilt that could be begun. Maybe if they do it again.
I'm also doing a fabric fast, mostly because the shelves that my fabric go on are stuffed, stuffed to the gills, and I filled in the light purples and browns that really rounded out the rainbow. And there are quarterly buying days, so if I do end up actually needing something in order to finish something, I won't be up a creek.
Squooshy Shawl
The last thing I'm working on that's worth talking about is a squooshy shawl out of the squooshy rambouillet I spun last year. I'm using the Bramble Shawl pattern from Miriam Felton, and it is huge and squooshy. I haven't snapped a picture of it so far - and it's just a big pile of garter stitch - but here's the yarn:
And that's it! I hope to have more progress to report soon.
Happy crafting!