Love the cables!

I like cables in quilting, but they are difficult to do well by machine.  On the other hand, cables look wonderful in knitting and are not hard at all.

This sweater was finished at least 6 weeks ago - just didn't photograph and then when I did, I didn't post the pictures. 

This sweater was made from the top down, without any seams - first time I've done one of those.  It has a small applied I-cord to finish the neck, sleeve, and lower hem - first time I've used that technique on anything but my plaid afghan.   There were three varieties of cables, and the way they moved around on the front kept the knitting very interesting.  The pattern, Siesta, by Carol Feller, was free!

The yarn came from Diane's inventory after she closed her big business in Oregon.  I spent a little and got a lot of yarn for my money.  I have projects lined up now that will take me through the next couple of years.


Here's a fun photo only one of my friends seemed to notice on Facebook, combining a quilt and a knit: 

It was the last night of the Shindig when they finally gave the quilt to a ticket buyer from Maryland. Alice is the one behind the quilt and Ann is standing next to her.  Ann's husband Russ took the photo.  We have to plan next year's quilt now - no hand piecing this time!

Some catching up with block programs

I got more behind on the Hexathon blocks preparing for my trip to Chicago than I realized.  I finally finished four of these before the pattern for the fifth one came out last week.  Here they are, in whatever order Blogger decided they should be in, which has nothing to do with anything I can figure out.

This one I pieced traditionally.  It's was not easy, though it doesn't have that many pieces.  Lots of scrappy pinks and magentas from that batik scraps collection I was given.

This one I just finished today. It too was traditionally pieced.  It was much easier than the one above.  Those fabrics were hand-dyed by Vicki Welsh.

This next has foundation-paper-pieced triangles so it went together pretty easily in spite of the oddly shaped pieces. The turquoise blue is also from Vicki - the darker is a commercially dyed fabric.

I also foundation paper pieced this block - it was quick and could have used up more batik scraps, but I decided I wanted these turquoises and I didn't have enough of that in the scraps.  The semi-solid is also from Vicki.

I never want to attempt this at 8 inches again. The gray fabrics around the star were batik scraps, the other colored fabrics are from a selection of batik fat quarters Joyce gave me. I decided to try my hand at a color concept I read about years ago.  I think I got what I was going for, though you can't see it in this photo - the yellow is really much brighter than it appears.  And though this is far from perfect, some of what appear to be wrinkles are actually just the prints.

Ready to see what next week brings, I went back through all the old posts on Barbara Brackman's blog and wrote down the options for simpler blocks she gave us with some of those - I'm going to try to be more sensible than to do this sort of block again!

And finally, there was a nice 12 inch block for the Westering Women project.  This is called Chimney Rock.  I decided to use the medium gray fabric to look rocky - it will give me a place to quilt but looks a little sad in the corners with the snazzy stripes.  Lots of Y seams in this block, but at this scale, the piecer has a little wiggle room.