I have been killing my back for the past few nights, but dammit, I got all of the peices cut out for that quilt.

I've had this grid board for a long time, and I apparently bought a rotary cutter at some point, because I found that little beauty just waiting for me in my sewing box when I opened it up last week. I guess I've been subconciously wanting to sew and make a full quilt for some time; it took a complete knitting burnout to turn me towards it. 

At heart, I'm a knitter. It's my go-to craft; socks, lace, scarves, whatever is handy and easy to cast on with. I love the varieties of yarn, the different textures and colors and the amazing independant dyer movement that is going on drives me crazy with variety (hence, I have a yarn stash of ridiculous proportions). But occasionally, I get bored with it. I need to put it down and try my hand at something new. And I'm pretty sure that it's the Knitting Olympics that did it to me this time; knitting an entire sweater in a span of two weeks can make you cross eyed. In walks quilting, with the gorgeous fabrics and it's promise of easy projects, and I'm hooked. But we'll see how I feel after I've sewn together thirty log cabin squares and then put those squares all together in some sort of a pattern. I've only got two of the squares together so far, but I think they'll go faster now that I have a clue as to what I am doing. 

ETA: All right. Pictures taken.

And the only cure is MORE COWBELL!

(So, my last entry? I went to edit something in it, and I don't know if it was my stupidity or a server hiccup, but BLAMMO. It was eated.)

Okay, maybe not. But the cure IS more quilting. Since I don't want to die of the fever, I was forced to take a stroll through eBay looking for ideas. This is what I came up with:

Those are fat quarter packs; the first one has 8 total, and the bottom has 7 (I bought two of those, so I'll have 14 fat quarters). The top one will be for keeps, but the bottom one is for a special project for someone that I need to cheer up. I'm not what you'd call an advanced quilter, though I do have a lot of enthusiasm. So I went on the hunt for a project that I could do a bit at a time and if it wasn't perfect, really, it wouldn't be a big deal. I do have the Turning Twenty book which seems to be the standard for quick, easy quilts, but this caught my eye at the grocery store:

It's just a bunch of strips! I can do that! I think. I want to have the quilt top cut over the next week or two, get it peiced, and then I'm going to do something so heinous, you're not even going to be able to control yourself: I'm sending it out TO BE QUILTED BY SOMEONE ELSE. I know, right? But my machine just can't handle all of that fabric; I don't have a long arm quilting machine, and I need to take classes to know how to use one, and I want this quilt to be awesomeness personified. I'm still going to bind it and blindstitch the hem all by myself, but as someone noted in a Rav forum (I belong to a quilting group on a knitting forum. Go figure THAT one out) if you don't quilt it yourself, you're not a quilter – you're a TOP MAKER.

Consider me a top maker…this time around, at least.

Remember that fabric I showed you a few weeks ago? Look at what it has become:

The second one is a bit blurry, but we've been overcast for the past few days. I'll get a better picture when I get a chance. But the big point here is that during the making of these quilts, no one died, or threw a hissy fit, and no sewing machines were damaged or pitched off the roof of our house. I think that the machine and I actually came to an agreement on how to work together. And! The walking foot! I ordered the right one, attached it properly, and used it. 

I am a genius.

The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the entire quilt through the machine on the longest passes; you think it is no big deal, but then you try wrestling with five feet of batting and fabric through a machine while you're trying to steer it down a rather narrow line, and then get back to me. We'll chat. I took breaks during the quilting and managed to knock out four squares for a baby blanket, knit in good ol' boring stockingette, but they are finished and blocking as I type this and will be mailed off next week. I'm on a freakin' roll, y'all.  Up next: I'm tackling the Forest Path Stole, which I'm currently up to the second tier on, and pushing through the cross stitch stocking that will end up being my daughter's for Christmas. And somewhere in there I'll manage to go to school, work, and take care of my family. When I can fit it in.

I know, edge of your seat, right? But I did manage to finish it within the time I was given. And here's proof:

I did modifiy it; when I went to knit the sleeves, they were so heavy that I doubted that it would ever get used. Here in Texas, there really isn't a need for a heavy, thick sweater; for most of the winter, I wear long sleeved shirts and throw a jacket or coat on over that when I go outside. Heavy sweaters are pretty useless 'round these parts. I wanted to make something that I'd get some use out of, so off came the sleeves and i just knit a few rounds to lengthen the armholes a bit. There is a definite difference between the skeins that I used; I can see it in this picture. Most of the lace is a tad bit lighter than the garter stitch or the bottom three inches of the sweater; it's not horribly, unwearably noticeable, but it's there.

This sweater made me realize something: I don't really like knitting sweaters. I get an itch to knit one every so often, and after I'm done with it, I always think the same thing: that sucked. I'm not saying that I'll never knit another sweater in my lifetime, but I'm saying don't be surprised when I'm trading off all of my worsted yarn for lace and sock yarns. There is just something so soothing about a nice, thin lace yarn that I just don't get with worsted.

I've moved on to my winter projects: a stocking for my daughter (we've all got cross stitched Christmas stockings, so I gotta get hers finished), and the Forest Path Stole. The stole may turn into my next lifetime project.