LAST WEDNESDAY IN FEBRUARY

As usual, I am not working on a quilting project. This is a baby cable sock I think it is either Mountain Colors or Toasty Toes sock yarn. Green for St. Patrick's Day. I am in search for the perfect sock for me. The last couple of pairs have been okay, but they seem to stretch and I can't stand the feeling of them slipping and sliding on my foot. I am finally getting the concept of how to make a sock so I don't have to use a formal pattern. For this one I just had the cable pattern and made up the rest. I like my cuffs to be no more than 6". I wrote down what length it has to be between the heel flap and the beginning to the toe decreases. If these don't work out for me, I plan to make a pair with less stitches. I cast on 64 now. maybe I will try a pair with 56 stitches. I use #2 needles now. I have tried 1's with 64 stitches, but it makes the heel and cuff too tight. Maybe I will try using 2's for the cuff and heel and switch to 1's for the foot. Eventually, I will find the perfect sock..
I am making progress with cleaning my studio.. okay, I know I have been at it foever.. it is just keeping me from starting a new project. But I have thrown tons of stuff out. I have other things better organized. It won't be long before everything is right where it should be and I will be much more able to concentrate on what I need to. My mind is cluttered enough. I can't think when everything on the outside of my mind is also cluttered.

Talk to you this weekend!

SNOWED IN

UPDATE: THESE FLOWERS ARE ASTIBLES, Thanks!I thought I would give everyone a look at the winter respite I had from the home and garden show last week.. Spring is only around the corner... spring is almost here....spring is almost here....

REALITY

We had to dig out this morning. This is the depth of the area that I had to dig out for the dogs.

I thought it was so great that I didn't have to get up and go out in the weather. All of my kids have a wonderful work ethic. My son was gone by the time I got up. Meg couldn't get out of the driveway. We had to get the snowblower and shovels and dig out. Then we just drove her to work, and stopped and got some hot coffee. We realized that none of our kids have ever driven in snow as deep as this, because we haven't been hit this hard in probably over 10 years.

So I am in my sewing room and I am going to clean out. I say that every week.. but I mean it this time! So, no WIP right now. I will be back later today.. with pictures of the area by Lake Erie. The way the wind was blowing.. the houses and trees right on the lake are snow encrusted, with drifts halfway up their doors..

FONS AND PORTER CHALLENGE

Out of 340+ entries, my cyberguild group's entry was chosen to travel with the Fon's and Porter's 25th Anniversary quilts. We were sad that it didn't win anything, but not all of the quilts entered will travel, so this is kind of special. I guess they will appear at all of theSewing and Quilt Expo's this year. Our group started on the about.com forum as one topic thread on the forum called "Karen Stone's New York Beauties and Beasties". The thread was started 12/22/00, and a group of us were going to work together making a New York Beauty quilt using Karen Stone's pattern. We would 'talk' together everyday, and that's about all we ever got done. The thread has over 33,000 posts. It would have even more if we hadn't moved our group to a private yahoo forum around 3 years ago. We found that we were talking about to many private things, not really thinking that everyone in the world could see them. One too many times someone would jump on one of us for saying something they didn't like.. (gee.. I wonder who might have been the offending person?) Anyway, we still visit the about.com thread, and we still 'talk' every day. We have 14 members in our yahoo group. Most are strung out all across the US, and we have Birgit from Germany, and Maree from Australia.
Anyway, Birgit had the idea of making a quilt for the challenge. It had to have 25 different patterns of blocks, and could all be in the same setting. It was a challenge in itself getting 10-12 women together to do this. We posted pictures of our fabric choices, chose blocks to make.. all over the yahoo site. Everyone in the US sent our center blocks and star points to Teresa in MN and she mailed everything to Birgit who put the quilt together and quilted, bound, and shipped it to Fons and Porter. I guess only 14 quilts were chosen for the traveling show and we are one of them. Not bad, considering many of us have never laid eyes on each other, let alone work on a quilt together (physically) Pretty cool if you ask me..

THANKS SUZE!

Yay!! it's up and working again!! I thought I had tried everything, but Suze recommended deleting my browser history.. and I deleted the cookies, temporary internet files. I thought doing the files and defragmenting would be enough.. but I guess it wasn't. Maybe it had something to do with the cookies.. who knows? I'm so glad I'm up and running again.

I am going to spend the weekend in my studio.. working and watching the "Thornbirds" . Remember that mini series from the 80's? I told my daughter, Meghan, that I did not consciously name her after Meghan Cleary. But after I noticed on the box that it was from 2 years from Meg was born, maybe I did. BUT... we never called her "Meggie".

I am on a sock knitting tangent. I am having so much fun, I haven't worked on anything else.. I will post some pictures soon. I am working on a brown striped pair. Sedate.. for work. I keep eyeing this hank of lime green superwash wool by Cherry Tree Hill.. but I haven't bought it yet. I don't figure that anyone else would go so bright, so I will eventually buy it. Today I bought a hanpainted red varigation by Mountain Colors.

Anyway, I am so happy that this finally works again!!

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!!

You know it's cold out when I passed up a 40% off sale on all yarns at my favorite quilt/yarn shop. That and my goal to save money this year, which I'm surprised that I actually stuck to. I will admit that if it was 50 degrees instead of 12 degrees, I probably would have been there when the doors opened.
But on the positive side.. I saved money, and I actually turned on my sewing machine to make the ribbons for our first guild challenge of the year. It is called "On the Contrary" and is a challenge using a "contrary wife" block. I planned the 4 challenges this year, and I didn't get anything made.. except for the ribbons. I'm really pleased how they turned out. I came to my senses before I actually pieced tiny blocks for the center of each ribbon. I ended up fusing and quilting them.. good enough. I would be happy to win one.. if I had anything made for the challenge! I do have to go out at some point. We're out of dog food. I probably should go out and start my car. It isn't good to let it sit when it is this cold.
Who knows, maybe I will actually start something else in the meantime!