What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I always feel there is something quite magical about knitting heels on socks.  On my warm and cozy 12ply socks, these  heels are knitted in three stages.  First the reinforced heel flap, then turning the heel, and finally the gusset, picking up stitches each side to do the heel shaping.  Somebody really clever obviously worked out how to do do all this, and I'm in awe.    I have to sit quietly with my pattern, knit one row at a time reading the instructions, and carefully marking off each row in my notebook.  

Heels, done

I like to knit my ...

 I've completed stitching three pair of tiny felt Christmas Stockings, which were handed out at last month's quilt club meeting.  Each set of stockings came with an extra strip of felt.  These will be hung on the display of Christmas Trees in December, our club's entry in the Avenue of Trees.

Red, white and green

After putting my thinking cap on, I had worked out how I wanted to decorate them.  They are tiny, so keep it simple, I decided.  Sadly, I failed miserably with blanket stitch, so just did running stitch instead.  I'm sure it ...

NOOOOOOOOOO -- time goes by so quickly, and it's time for us to leave today. I confess I'm a bit sad. Not only were we here for a beautiful wedding, but we had a wee vacation, and spent a lot of time visiting with friends and family. Not nearly enough time, but we did what we could. Not only do we have to go home, but others must as well. Several people left yesterday, and I think the last of the guests, including the bride and groom, will leave tomorrow. We have a two-day journey home, so we need ...

That's all I needed for one of my current RSC projects.   Just two orange blocks, the colour for May, and one extra for the corner, which I stitched in yellow.  Nice bright colours to go with the black on grey  funky dinosaurs.

The last three blocks

That was nice and easy, so then I set about webbing the blocks together.  Somehow I got one row tangled up and around the wrong way, goodness knows how that happened.  It all worked out fine in the end though.  The borders were added over a couple more days, as I don't ...

 With my sewing machine away being serviced, I've been spending a little more time knitting.  Last week I came across a stalled knitting project and set to work finishing the two fronts, knitting with  some hand spun wool sent to me by my late friend Merilyn.

That didn't take too long, and now I'm working on the front bands.  I've almost finished them, so the next step is the neck band, and sew it all together.  Wonder if I can get this finished by next week?

On to the front bands

The weather is certainly turning ...

 My latest pair of socks are now finished.  These ones have been knitted in some lovely cream hand spun wool gifted to me by my late friend Merilyn.  I've only got enough of this precious yarn left for one more pair of socks.  I added some left over 4ply sock yarn to make my favourite warm and cozy 12ply winter socks, just for me.  Knitting the heels always seem quite magical to me, and I often wonder who worked out how to do heels, way back in the mists of time.  I don't know about other sock knitters ...

 It's just as well that I have finished a couple of pair of woolly socks recently, as Winter has returned with a vengeance.  After weeks of fine, calm, sunny but cool days we now have wind, rain and cold temperatures.  Spring may be just around the corner, but our Spring weather is often fickle and rather changeable.

My two pair of nice, thick, wooly socks used up some remaining sock yarn.  The dark pair was knitted using double knit navy wool, and the rest of coloured sock yarn I had left over from knitting myself a pair of 4ply ...

What can I say? It was a crazy day, but everything is done. I spent most of the day at the computer! 

It took me FIVE hours to complete the labels. I know—five hours to make 30 labels! But they had to be formatted, and some of them needed a little bit of editing. But all is good. 

I had a few other things to print, so I prepped those and was about to load them on my USB to take to the print shop when I remembered they needed to be in PDF format. I wonder if I ...

I'm pleased I have a sock finish, this pair seems to have taken ages.  But only because I don't work on them all the time, I tend to flick from one project to another.   These are for my daughter, I asked if she would like another pair for Christmas.  "Yes please" she said, "I'd like pale blue this time".  So they are done well ahead of time, which is good.

YES --- I like SmartWool as well. I have one pair! When I first bought hiking socks, I bought several brands! It was just that I noticed the bottom disappearing slowly on the WrightSock! 

My SmartWool sock

I just went to their website, and WOW—it's easy to pick what you want, as they have a checklist. It's very civilized. I signed up for the newsletter and got 15% off. I might be buying some new socks today! 

I must check with my brother, as the socks he buys have a lifetime guarantee. They are more expensive, but they ...

I'm home! The girls are happy! Everybody is happy! 

There's a new dog in town! This is Crosby - a puppy just adopted by our neighbors! I haven't had a chance to meet him yet, but I can't wait! I sure hope we get to babysit from time to time! He looks so soft and cuddly! 

Meet Crosby

An update on the Machine Embroidery Retreat: We had so much fun! The two days were long, and I was exhausted. I slept like a log last night. But everyone learned something about their machines and went home much ...

My pink socks have been a long drawn out project.  I received this lovely skein of sock wool from my daughter for Christmas 2023.

It's about time I worked on my purple clam shell quilt again, goodness knows when I last got it out of the bag.  This project came with me to a monthly craft group I recently joined.  We can take anything we like to work on,  there was knitting and crochet happening, needle felting and one lady was setting up a hand loom, that looked rather tricky to me.  After doing big stitch hand quilting around all the clam shells, I'm now up to the borders.  I won't tell you just how old this project is, but believe ...

 My girls assure me that they love my hand knitted socks, so that's what they got for Christmas again this year.  Three pair of 4ply socks, one each for them, plus a couple of other small gifts too.  They probably don't realise how long they take me to knit, but I started early, and had them done with time to spare.

 I have finally finished this pair of socks for me.  This 4ply sock wool is branded Happy Feet, no colour named, just a number, and I received it as a birthday gift last year from Sew Wot friend Mary.    As most of you know, I knit my socks flat, two at a time, and packed the finished socks in my knitting bag on our recent caravan trip planning to get side seam stitched up.  That never happened, and I finally completed this task once we returned back home.  It's about time I finished them.

Although it is now Spring ...

I'm obviously much to busy to do too much knitting while we are on our road trip.  The only thing I've worked on is my pair of pink socks, mostly knitted while traveling in the car.  This pretty yarn was a gift from my daughter Nicky last Christmas, so I'd like to get them finished soon.  They are coming along, I think I'm just about up to the heels by now.   In case you don't know, I knit my socks flat, two at a time.

My pink socks

Not only have I packed my pink ...

 Our last night in the South Island was quite a worry.  A storm came rolling in as the day wore on, and was fully fledged by night time.  We could swear that the thunder was right over head, and each noisy clap spooked Gemma.  She ran around the van looking for a hiding place, hunkering down on the carpet at the foot of the bed, with the overhanging duvet giving her the illusion of cover.  Lightening cracked around us, torrential rain came down, and the caravan was buffeted all night by strong wind gusts.  Dear oh dear, what would our ...

Poor Murphy had a good news/bad news kind of day. I'll tell you the quilting stuff first and then what happened. 

We had Monday Sewing, and I love our conversations. Between the group, we know EVERYTHING! Plus, we get to learn about tools (both old and new), and everyone has a different view of them. It's all good. OK—I confess that I'm VERY opinionated about many things. I'm also the first one to compliment someone on their skills, but sometimes, they also have some very bizarre ideas, and what is that all about? 

I ...

 Now they have been received, I can show the birthday socks knitted for my long term friend from my schooldays, Merilyn.  These were rather special as I used Merilyn's double knit cream home spun wool which she had sent to me, plus a commercial sock yarn.  These two yarns knitted up to triple knit, or 12ply, and make a lovely cozy pair of socks.  This is what remains.

The left overs

I've hunted high and low for a photo of the completed socks, to no avail.  But I can show this one, looks like I have just finished ...