Update Slogging on

So remember my goal was to get the rainbow quilt top finished. So I have the fabric all cut even, (note to self, check to see what last blog says), and in one place. And this whole week, I have done . . . . . . NOTHING on it.

Nick mentioned that I was using the entire top of the stereo cabinet for my handspun yarn display and he didn't have any room for his "stuff". So Thursday, I got up with great intentions of working on the quilt-top, but first cleared off all the yarn from the top of the cabinet and from the back of the sofa.

I have had it in mind for several weeks, even a note on my fiber notebook, to check through the handspun to make sure it is all recorded properly, both in the fiber book and in my Ravelry stash.

Before I got started with that check though, I took some cotton yarn, and crocheted a bowl, kind of open. Remember Macrame! Not quite that, but close. I made it the size of the popcorn bowl that I usually use for storing the handspun, and even blocked it over the bowl. I washed it and soaked it in starch. I used the 50-50 formula, half starch and half water, and later realized I should have used all starch. Then I stretched it out over the bowl to dry. My plan is to make two of these bowls (same size??, graduated??) and use a fabric bowl (which I also starched) and create a hanging basket trio, one on top of the other, to hold my fiber. The basket I crocheted is very open. The sides are like a market basket, just chains attached about every four or five stitches, so the handspun will show through the holes. It is really cute. Only took three or four hours, another hour or so to muck about with the starching and the fabric bowl, and it was midafternoon. Too late for a walk and I still wanted to sort through the handspun and compare it to the Ravelry stash and the fiber notebook.

That was finished up in plenty of time to watch Jeopardy. Nick made dinner (if you can call heating up a frozen concoction "making" dinner, but it was good, and the kind I like that he is not so fond of - spinach, need I say more.)

Today, Friday, is my day to go to the kids, but since they are in school til 2:30 I don't have to leave until noon or one pm. So I cleaned up the kitchen, made Welch Cakes, cleaned up some more, unloaded clean dished from the dishwasher, put dirty ones in. I also washed my over 400 yards of three ply yarn I finished Thursday, and a medium single I really like and think I will keep as a single. I restarched the crocheted bowl to see if I could make it even stiffer. I do want it to stand up by itself, although now I am considering using a wire coat hanger to make a collar for it to hand from. I'm not sure now. By the time I got all this done, I barely had time to shower and leave for the kids. I did take the time to swing by the library on my way, but arrived at 2:15, so pretty close to time to walk over to school to get Smiley.

I describe this to show that I am doing a lot of stuff, but just not the thing I tell myself is high on the critical list. I mean, I want to keep the kitchen clean. I really wanted to finish the two yarns. Having an attractive and useful place to store the yarn is a very good thing. Keeping Ravelry stash and my fiber notebook accurate and up-to-date are critical to being organized about my fiber and stash.

Or, are these just excuses to avoid working on the rainbow, which I am desparately afraid I won't like once it is done. I wish I knew.

Traveling

We are on a trip along the Oregon Coast. I have been knitting up a storm. I knit while DH drives.

Yesterday we stopped at a quilt shop in Newport OR and I was inspired. I went home (to the MH) and dug out the fabrics, planned and cut the next section of the rainbow quilt. It is awesome, that I sorted and cut, that I am continuing to work on it.

I am not sure I am going to like this when I get it done, and I won't know until I sew the thing together. Oh well. That is a worry and sometimes a stopper. But I have decided: DO IT ANYWAY. If I really don't like it, then I can decide then what to do. But try it. That is my message to myself.

I have so many ideas for quilts. The shop was really inspiring. She said they specialize in landscape fabrics. They had so many picture quilts, pieced, appliqued, and even pictures printed onto fabric, then quilted. I got the idea that I could take some of my photos, print them on fabric, paint the important parts (in case the original ink runs or fades) applique other important parts over the print fabric, and create quilt blocks as individual as my camera's eye. Mine, in every way. Can't wait to try it.

They had dozens of lighthouse patterns, material, and other landscape ideas. One was a picture of cute water animals. There are sea lions here, dozens and dozens of them, but I think the water animals weren't really sea lions. The flippers and such were sea-liony, but the heads were more like an otter or perhaps a seal, even a baby polar bear. I'm not really up on my mammals of the sea, but these weren't quite right (to my taste).

There was a quilt pattern, or rather ten to twelve patterns, of local attractions, so one could make a quilt with favorite vistas. That was really awe-inspiring, except that I keep wanting to do my own thing, such as the quilt I have planned of Maritime Canada. The idea of choosing 10-12 pictures, printing them onto 8.5 by 11 muslin, and creating a quilt that way is so exciting. I am ready to choose pictures RIGHT NOW.

I want to make a lighthouse quilt for Julie. The Newport quilt shop had lots of ideas, and I was so inspired.

Keep on keeping on.

Live, learn, love, laugh, leave a legacy.

Suzie