Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

What fun I had visiting Nevada. And nice to be home again. Of course, I brought some fabric and yarn. Now I seem to be making too many things at once. I'll have to put some of this knitting in bags and park it on the doorknobs. You know, I thought that I had found a nice soft brand of acrylic yarn, so I bought a bunch of it. But I was mistaken. It seems to be soft only in some of the colors! Anyhow, one of my grandchildren wanted a fisherman-style sweater. And I bought the yarn. Then, when I knitted a swatch, turns out that I can't get 5 stitches to the inch in this yarn, even with the thinner needles (how thin can you go?) So I went to my files. I once got so desperate, that I made a special file of 4 stitches to the inch sweaters. And now, I'll plan to make a similar sweater, in the gauge I can knit.

Up, up and away

Hello, I'm in Nevada visiting my family. I flew here for a long weekend. On my way back to Calif tomorrow. The sweaters I knitted for my three darling little grandchildren fitted them and they like them, so a success there. Back to the sewing machine next week, and the puff quilt awaits. It seems that the puff quilt is taking forever, but actually I've made about four other quilts since I started it. It's getting to be like the white sweater I've been knitting (or rather not knitting is the truth) for myself for a year and a half.

My liberated Shoo Fly quilt

I'm so proud of this second quilt of the pair! It's the liberated Shoo Fly. I hope that the boys will like their quilts. I hope to mail them next week. Hopefully, the fires in Calif. will have died down by then, and the mail will be more reliable.

Dreadful brush fires here in California. The air is full of smoke. Yesterday the wind was high here. Today, we have less wind so far, but it's very hot. My home is not in danger, but people I know may have evacuated last night. I'm not sure. I'll find out later today. Praying for rain.

I've been sewing

I haven't been blogging because I've been sewing! This is quilt "A" and quilt "B" is following close behind. I put the quilt on my queen-size bed, but it is for a bunk bed, so it is spread-out looking here.

Sewing on the binding

Well, it's another dental emergency for me this week. And another root canal. I guess I have to spend my money at the dentist instead of taking a trip or something! My mouth is uncomfortable, but I'll live.
Meanwhile, I'm so happy to be sewing the binding on one of the quilts. I have hope of getting the other quilt pin basted today or tomorrow.

Saw a movie

I went to see the movie "Michael Clayton," and I really enjoyed the picture. When the movie was over, the people just were sitting there, not getting up to leave. I'm thinking Oscar? Anyway, George was at his best.

Worth and Violet

I've been working on finishing the quilts. Yes I have, and besides that I'm working on my secret project.
Well, it's not that secret--I've just been waiting for my daughter to get her web site going.
And it's on line at last www.worthandviolet.com
I'm sewing some things for sale on the web site. All of the items I sew for the web site have to be of my own design. So that takes time. I've had my drawing pencil sharpened for a while, and I plan to make a few items and we'll see what people want. My daughter reminded me of the baby blankies and bibs I made when her kids were little. So I'm starting with that. It is true that I designed those myself.

From the Terrace

Acacia tree

Left-handed Knitting

My sewing is progressing, and I've free-motion quilted one half of one of those quilts I'm making. Now I'm realizing that I can't keep posting photos of my quilting as much as I thought. That's because I can't make them that fast! But I do have a lot of knitting going on. As in one sock. (But those come in pairs.)
On Tuesday I go to the Rancho Santa Margarita Public Library for the Knit and Crochet club. I'm the unofficial volunteer knitting teacher. I was trying to teach a left-handed person to knit. I think I did it all wrong. I went home later and read up on it, and decided I should teach left-handed people to knit the Continental way. I dug through my considerable knitting book library, and found that "Knitting Ganseys" by Beth Brown-Reinsel and "Knitting Without Tears" by Elizabeth Zimmerman do have directions for Continental knitting.
If there are any left-handed knitters out there, I'd appreciate your input.

Life in the Slow Lane

I've been trying to catch up on my reading lately--that pile of magazines on my coffee table was starting to lean like the tower of Pisa. I found an article in a January issue of Smithsonian that I thought might interest one of my granddaughters--it's about a female architect. But hello--this is October, grandma! I know, I know. That's merely an example of how slow I've been.

Don't you think these toys are cute? I made them today when I was suddenly inspired by a picture one of my children drew twenty or more years ago. Yep, that's really slow! If you decide to make toys similar to them, remember that button eyes are only suitable for school age children--for babies, I recommend making embroidered eyes. I hope that my other three granddaughters will like them.

Glimpse

I'm quite excited, I've started to get the first of the boys' quilts together. I'm going to quilt it in two sections, so it will not be joined up in the middle until the end. (A rather disjointed sentence, for a disjointed quilt.) I decided to add the borders before I even begin to put together the second one.