stayin' alive

As of this moment, Gladys and I are still alive in Shawl Wars. That might change when Gladys gets home from work today. My mailman has come & gone and all I got was the phone bill.

Last week, I finished a few things.


Pattern: generic top down sock; picot cuff; short row heel; wedge toe
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted Fingering; 2 skeins in colour Ocean Depth (a lovely gift from P-la)
Needles: 2.25mm bamboo
Notes: These were the socks in all those blurry PNE pictures. 51st pair of finished socks (yes, I'm counting). This yarn is lovely and reminds me of Koigu (especially the yardage). I have size 8 feet and there are a few yards left from each skein. The picot cuff uses more yarn than I'm used to.

And I also finished the Ride2Survive raffle quilt:


I searched high and low for a nice binding fabric. Nothing really suited the look of the quilt. I ended up buying more of the sashing fabric. It looks ok but I still think I prefer a more zingy edge. Hopefully, the recipient will like it. I used one charm pack - Flutterby by Tula Pink. It's about 65" x 70" - a very generous lap quilt. I machine quilted it diagonally using my walking foot. Each pass consists of one gentle wavy line going in one direction and a second pass with the wave going the other way to create leaf/petal shapes. I try to hit a seam where the two quilting lines intersect. This method doesn't require pre-marking the quilt.

I've cast on several knitting projects recently - a Christmas gift (yes, it's that time of year again), something totally crazy but fun, and a special request from my sister. She switched jobs and it seems that her new office is in a very old building. One end of her floor is a sauna and the other end is an icebox. Guess where she's located? Her space heater blew the breaker so she's stuck using an electric blanket to stay warm. But her fingers are still cold and she's requested a pair of fingerless mitts for her birthday. Time to whip up a pair of Fetching for her.