The quilt was a hit

So was the cake….

She was so tired today that not even an ice-pole was exciting enough to keep her awake come 5 pm.

And now, at last, I am going to knit. Let’s just hope that I can remember how.

And no-one else is dead either, well not in my family anyway. I think this might be a record gap between posts for me. I have no real excuse for not blogging, oh apart from this being a knitting blog and I just haven’t been knitting.

What I have done is finish Isabelle’s quilt, and a matching pillow slip too, but I won’t be taking any photos until I can actually get it out during daylight and get some good shots. I feel anxious about how to photograph something so large with no large or well lit place to display it. I have been working madly on Mem’s new website, and so has she, I am getting anxious about whether the end result will be good. I have been feeling anxious about Isabelle’s birthday party. I have been feeling anxious about changing fertility specialists and upping the interference with nature this month. I have been feeling too anxious about Carla to actually pick her up and start knitting. I just can’t decide whether to go with the original pattern or my own reverse engineered in-the-round version. I have been thinking about the TV meme daily, afterall it would give me something to say, but yep, you guessed it, that makes me anxious too. There is nothing on at the moment that I like enough to actually want to announce to the world that I watch, and yet the TV is on every night.

So um, I guess the title of this post should have been “I’m not dead but I am anxious”, though it has to be said that one thing I am not anxious about right now is dying, and that is something, right?

Back to the TV thing, I really have been thinking about this a lot. When Isabelle was 3 months old and I first caught her trying to figure out what that screen was on the other side of the room I was horrified and we immediately instigated a no TV while she is awake rule. Despite the fact that there were a number of shows I watched religiously back then I lobbied hard for getting rid of the thing. Jesse, who watched virtually no TV, refused. We kept it but we stuck to our “only while she sleeps” rule until we started moving around the country when Isabelle was 16 months old. Suddenly Play School became my best friend and now Isabelle watches more television than I am comfortable with but I just don’t know how else to get through the day… I on the other hand no longer have any shows I care that much for and these days I knit, so I don’t pay attention anyway. So what TV couldn’t I live with out?

Play School
Bear in the Big Blue House
The Fimbles
The Hoobs
Boobah
Pingu
Bob the Builder
Postman Pat

Not all in one day of course, but you get the picture. I still wish we could just get rid of the Television but now that it is her that is addicted it seems so much harder. Or maybe it is my dependance on her addiction that makes it harder. Whatever the case I don’t see us getting rid of it any time soon and meanwhile the most important thing on it is ABC Kids.

I really, truly, am going to start knitting again soon. Very soon, maybe even tonight.

Look what came in the post yesterday! When I bid for this on Ebay I really didn’t expect to win it so I was very pleasantly surprised when I did. It’s in immaculate condition (did the original owner even read it I wonder?) and it was well less than half price. I did some other shopping yesterday too, I went and bought a walking foot, and while I was there accidentally bought an overlocker, a singer, complete with all the extra feet and also less than half price. I seem to be developing a craft problem….

Back to the walking foot, I also bought some new needles and machine oil for my little sewing machine. Came home, got sewing and WOW, what a difference, I can honestly say I had no idea how much easier it would be. I expect I will finish the stitch in the ditch quilting tonight and maybe even start preparing the binding. I am starting to believe it will be give-able (if not exactly finished) by next weekend.

I know that this is still not knitting, the knitting is coming, eventually. In the mean time I have finished this months book-keeping, made good in-roads on the web development job and tonight I have spent an hour or so on my knees with 170 safety pins and am happy to say that I have basted the layers of Isabelle’s quilt together.

I tried doing some of the quilting and it didn’t go so well. The good news is that I am confident I will actually be able to sew straight lines. The bad news is that the 2″ by 2.5″ table I work on is woefully inadequate as a workspace and Jan was right, the top layers are bunching up, so tomorrow I will see if I can get a walking foot for my machine. I don’t know how I am going to fix the workspace problem though…

And now for the question. I am planning to stitch in the ditch around all the squares and the seems between the borders. I am then thinking I will go round the edges of the appliques and make similar shapes in the plain squares for decoration. The question is - can I put the binding on once I have done the stitch in the ditch along all the seams, but before outlining the appliques? I am worried about time you see. I have to have this done by Sunday week and I figure I can give it to Isabelle without the appliques outlined (and fix it later) but I can’t give it to her unbound…

If you have any other tips of the quilting and binding processes please feel free to share, I suspect I will need all the help I can get.

I think I mentioned when I started this blog that I tend to be a one big problem at a time kind of person. Well I my blog is suffering from my one-thing-at-a-time-itis. Carla is still there at the top of my knitting pile, I even pulled her out and knit 2 rows on the weekend. Yes, two rows. Of my swatch. Yep, that’s 40 stitches. It’s sad, I know.

On the other hand I have reconciled about 10 bank statements paid a bunch of bills and generated a whole bunch of invoices. The things is I have about 10 more invoices to go, then I have to send them. Then I have to generate and send statements. Blah, blah blah. Book keeping sucks.

I have a website to rebuild, which all of a sudden is needed next week and I have less than 2 weeks to complete Isabelle’s quilt. And I feel compelled to do these things one at a time. It feels like I may never knit again. BUT! I promise that I will knit again, no more than 2 weeks from now, and that when I do I will be knitting a like a woman possessed… at least I hope so, autumn is looming and I want to actually wear some of those things in the queue!

So I am very sorry if I seem somewhat boring in the meantime, if it is any consolation I am bored too. Rock Chick has sent me a meme. I fear that I am going to find the answers embarrassing to admit, but given the lack of knitting content I am probably going to fill it out anyway - at least there will be something to read.

My story is neither as dramatic, nor as wittily told as Stephanie’s and neither would a photo be as disturbing. But I am a copycat none the less. This afternoon I slammed my thumb in a window while trying to unstick the damn thing and get it closed. My thumb is not black and blue, but it HURTS and I am not even going to try to knit tonight, when I finally have the chance.

That last small job on Isabelle’s quilt top, which I thought would take 1/2 an evening has taken two. It may have taken longer than I expected but the quilt top is, at last, complete and the time has come to baste the layers together and quilt the thing! I am feeling a little intimidated and choosing not to think about it for a while.

This leaves me with no other choice but to pull out my BBBB and start ripping, ’cause February is for fixing and I am running out of time!

I assembled Isabelle’s quilt top last night. Now I have to buy batting, backing and the fabric to add a border like this. I am thinking a thin strip of green, a wide strip of pink and then green or purple binding.

I am unexpectedly getting on a plane home in less than 2 hours as my Nana has had a heart attack. She is as ok as she can be, but it was severe and they are running out of options to help her so Isabelle and I are off to see her while we can. I am taking the makings of Carla with me, but don’t be surprised if I come home with a Sophie instead (not made from Cotton Tape of course). I grabbed some Cascade 220 from the stash just in case Carla is too much to get my head around while away.

I may or may not be able to post while I am gone. And now I am off to deal with the fact that I had a HCG trigger shot this morning to make me ovulate, right before I got the news that I won’t be here to make use of it.

ok this is not even remotely knitting, but I need help. I have Isabelle’s quilt laid out on my lounge room floor in the order that I had originally planned. Jesse is still at work so he hasn’t seen it in person yet but he didn’t like this layout in the pattern, he thinks the numbers should be out of order. What do you think? Are there any changes you would suggest or do you like it like this?

or what about this one:

Sorry the photos aren’t better, even standing on a chair with the camera as high over my head as I could reach this is as good as it gets… They were taken at night too, so the colours are a bit off…

It turns out that I am not quite so tense as I thought. I finished the first piece of my secret project and it was too big, I had to go back down a needle size. The second try was fine and I am now working my way through the third piece. I should be done by the end of the week and back to working on something I can actually show you.

Next cab off the rank was supposed to be Carla, but I think I am going to join Alison and do some fixing in February. It’s time to go back to my first real project and fix the final edge of my Big Bad Baby Blanket. After knitting the moss stitch up the sides too tightly and having to painstakingly redo them I then over compensated and the final moss stitch edge was just too loose. I tried to tell myself it was fine, but every time I think about the BBBB I know that I will have to reknit it at some point. February seems like a good time to fix it.

In other news I have cut all the squares for Isabelle’s birthday quilt. Half of them have appliques which have also been cut and fused onto their squares. I am now onto the sewing part. Below are the squares I finished last night, there were some that were half done and many more that I have finished tonight. I think the appliques will be done by the end of tomorrow night’s session with the sewing machine.