I have a confession to make. My knitting has been falling slightly behind, but that is because something ELSE was taking up a huge majority of my time. That something else is called “My Absolutely Adorable Fit-For-A-Princess Pink and Flowery Quilt.” It is so so so girly it’s verging on being ridiculous. No, not ridiculous, I think I am in love with it. I finished the top about 2 weeks ago (sorry!!!) and it is now back from the quilter’s.
So, this quilt was actually quite a special project, because I was working with my Aunt Helen, a very experienced quilter, herself. It was so cool to be able to learn it from someone who is really talented, and especially someone who I care so much about. I always think it’s cool to hear stories about knitters who originally learnt to knit with their Grandmothers, because I really love the idea of a craft being handed down through generations. Plus, when the quilt got back from the quilter’s Helen took me to her sister-in-law’s (Mary) to learn how to hem the quilt by hand. This was mostly because Mary is right-handed, whereas Helen is a lefty through and through. So that was awesome. To be in the company of two excellent quilters, just chatting and sewing away. Mary was telling stories about living with her sister and making quilts together. My favourite one was what they would sit opposite each other, and start hemming and “here directly” (as Mary said) she would come to her sister’s stitches and it would have come full-circle. That would be so much fun, to live with someone who you can sew and chat with the whole time!
Like I said in my last post, I get too excited about starting things, so I forget to take pictures during the process, but I’m working on it! So I don’t have a picture to show you, but I’ll get some pictures before and after I’ve hemmed it (however the after one might take a liiiiittle longer). It actually took far less time than I had imagined it. But that’s probably because Helen helped me with the cutting and basically did ALL of the pinning. But I really did do ALL of the sewing. Helen sewed part of 1 block, but that was only because she forgot. It was so fun to go over to her house after work and sew and “visit” with my Ninny and Helen and hear all of the local goss! It was tiring, but really fun.
Now, I do have SOME pictures to share with you guys. This Friday, after I got home from a gruelling week at work, I had an entire MASS of goodies awaiting me! I recently got a Paypal account, and the wonders of internet shopping have opened their loving arms to me. Firstly, my rucksack which I’ll be taking to Laos this summer got here! It is SUPER tough. I am going to look absolutely hard core and basically awesome. Additionally, one of the 2 books on Laos I ordered on Barnes & Noble got here. I had no idea, but Barnes & Noble can hook you up with second hand sellers so I got the books for about half price used and they still accepted the gift cards I was trying to spend. And last but certainly not least, it is in fact verging on being the very best news of all, MY YARN ARRIVED! I ordered some yarn from Yahaira from Bitter Purl and it arrived a mere 2 days later! It is gorgeous. It came in two HANKS!!! I’ve never had yarn come in hanks! I’m so excited to wind it up and my cousins will be glad to know, because they did such a good job with the yarn from my unwound sweater! I snapped some pictures. Oh yeah.
This weekend, I went on a much needed shopping trip to Cape Girardeau (honestly, I had to look up the spelling for that. Here, we lovingly call it “Cape”). I had driven up there for the first time all by myself to take Jamie to baseball practice last Tuesday, and I nipped over to Hobby Lobby to have a look at the yarn. I also had to peek at the fabric, and I was absolutely in awe. They had the COOLEST fabric 30% off, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it! So I was talking to the cashier about it, and she told me the sale was only on until Saturday! So when I got home, I found an idea of a pattern I wanted to make, but I can’t remember the blog I saw it on! If it comes to me, I will certainly reference it. It’s not even entirely the same one, it’s just a similar idea… ANYWAY! It’s going to be awesome. My family doesn’t necessarily appreciate spending a long time picking out fabric or yarn or any crafty things, really, so there was a lot of pressure to pick the fabrics out super fast and get out of there. It was a little crazy, people grabbing fabrics left and right, getting rid of ones that just weren’t right, but it was so much fun! I picked 8 different patterns and got a picture of them folded up all nice in a little circle:
I’m still iffy on some of them, but we only got half a yard of each, so if I decide to exclude one or two, they can be easily replaced. I’m sure I’d find a different use for them. My favourite one is the one with the butterflies on it! Which one do YOU like the best?! Let’s get some reader involvement :).
Ok, that’s more than enough from me. Hope you all have an excellent week!
P.S: This Easter, I got to die some eggs for the fist time in a VERY long time. I took it very seriously and was being severely rushed by the end of it. I thought you might like to see my b-e-a-uuuuuuu-tiful eggs :)
