knitting goodness

I took a little road trip last night to see the Yarn Harlot speak at the Ann Arbor Public Library. It was crazy to see so many knitters in one place! I ended up watching her chat from the room with the closed circuit feed because I didn't arrive in time for a seat in the live action room. She gave a great, inspiring, and hilarious talk (she sounds just like her blog/book writing!). And, I was able to finish up my second ball band dish cloth while I listened. I love multitasking!

The Cobblestone Pullover is coming along, slowly but surely. At least now it's looking more and more like a real sweater and not just a mish mash of knitted parts! I think I've figured out the whole short row thing (fingers crossed), so now I've just got to finish up the yoke and pray that it fits Jon! I'm not so sure I've got it in me to knit another sweater, though. Those dish cloths are so quick, easy and instantly gratifying! Maybe I'll change my mind once I have a finished object in my hands...who knows?

And finally, this little treasure came in the mail for me earlier this week. A Matryoshka doll from rosehip. I've been admiring these dolls for a while now and was so happy to have a chance to buy one when they first debuted. It's even cuter in person!

potholders

a little birthday present for my Mom, who is celebrating today! Happy Birthday, Mom!

patterns from Lotta Jansdotter Simple Sewing

embroidery design from the Sublime Stitching book

She'll be debuting her new blog soon. We started setting it up together tonight. Once she starts posting, I'll let you know.

Improvisational Quilts

Yesterday afternoon I headed over to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn to check out the current exhibit: "Improvisational Quilts of Susana Allen Hunter." The quilts were beautiful in their simplicity and utilitarian nature. I especially loved her hand quilting patterns. If you are in the area and want to check out the exhibit, it is open until April 27. Here are a few of my favorites and the rest are in this flickr gallery.

After seeing the exhibit, I met up with some friends to see U2:3D. Great show! It was almost like seeing U2 live, but a lot less expensive than the real thing!

more progress

Well, my first sweater is slowly starting to come together. I had a hard time getting used to using the dpns for the sleeves, so I had a bit of a hold up in the progress department for a while. I was definitely feeling like I had 5 left hands trying to maneuver the yarn around the needles that were slipping all over the place. Luckily, I have gotten used to the awkwardness and the second sleeve is starting to come together a lot faster than the first. I can't wait to finish up the sleeve and get to the fun part of combining all the pieces to make the yoke. I have got to finish this sweater before spring comes!

quilt show

I went to the Oakland County Quilt Guild Spring Show yesterday after work. Seeing all the quilts was like perusing the flickr quilting gallery, but in 3-d instead...so inspiring!

Unfortunately the lighting in the display room was horrible and I only had my little point and shoot camera with me, so the photos I did take were not so good. Hopefully you'll be able to see past the blur and wonky colors to see some inspiration yourself!

This was just part of a huge king sized quilt. These triangles are actually about 6" long on each side. Great inspiration for a scrappy quilt!

This reminded me a lot of the Dear Jane quilt blocks but in an updated version. This must have taken the quilter forever!

Part of a large vintage Christmas quilt from the 40's. I really love the look of the watercolor, Georgia O'Keefe style flowers. The centers of the flowers used french knots for a beaded look.

Loved the color combo on this quilt.

This picture definitely does not do this quilt justice. A king-sized diamond double wedding ring quilt. Stunning in person! Loved the bold, bright colors.

A log cabin quilt made with Aunt Grace repro fabrics. Love the classic vintage look of this.

A fish quilt with bright colors. Each of the fish had different quilting designs to give them unique scales.

Love the vintage redwork. I almost bought the quilt kit for this, but decided that I'm done embroidering tons of quilted dolls for now. :)

The Hungry Caterpillar!

My favorite quilt of the show...love this log cabin beach scene. Aren't those umbrellas adorable?

the kitties want more screen time here!

I shot these photos last weekend when I caught Shinji and Jon catching up on some bonding time. Shinji has a major crush on Jon and often looks up lovingly into his eyes as they share a special moment together (much to my dismay). Shinji has always been jealous of me because I took Jon away from him. In fact, just after we got married, I woke up to find Shinji sprawled out between us, pushing us toward opposite ends of the bed. Jealous much?! Shinji still sleeps between us, but he has finally started to warm up to me. One out of ten times he will even choose me over Jon. Success!

Lately, Shinji and Nuku Nuku have become very enamored with the world of blogging and emailing. They're always trying to help us out by pushing the space bar to scroll to the bottom of the page while we're reading and by highlighting text whenever we need to do a quick copy/paste. And they're especially good at helping us type posts and emails. They're spelling isn't so good, so they often type words that contain only one letter continuously, but we're holding out hope for improvement in this area!

And, horror of horrors, Nuku Nuku has figured out how to press the "num lock" key on my keyboard with her paw. The first time she did it, I was majorly panicked because I thought my computer had died, but luckily, I figured out what she had done just before I went to call the Apple helpline. I'm glad I didn't embarrass my self with that question: "Only the 9 center keys are working, and they are just typing out numbers. What should I do?" I'm a smart one, you know!

Stay tuned...the kitties are pressuring me to finish their cat nip toys. Will I finish them before the cat nip goes stale? Hard to say...

little gifts

I recently finished up these two projects and was able to give them to their recipients on Easter...

a pillow for my sister

My sister saw this pillow and requested that I make her one. I love having a functional way to display embroidery that doesn't show the messy back side. The pattern is the Kurt Halsey Artist series from Sublime Stitching. I finished the pillow off with a patterned fabric border and backing. This fabric is from a Kaffe Fasset line, but I'm not sure of the exact pattern name.

and a purse for my aunt

I don't think I'll ever tire of making these cable knit purses. They're such a classic pattern and I really love using the Lamb's Pride yarn. I have to hold myself back from buying more of this yarn in different colors whenever I'm at a yarn shop!

Pattern: Cable Knit purse pattern from a class I took at a local yarn store

Needles: 10.5

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky - Persian Peacock