Easter Mumblings

 


First up: 50 Snuggles made by our K4 group. I took them to the Oakland County Pet Adoption Center yesterday. Hopefully, they'll be used up soon as one goes home with each adopted cat and I'd love to see all the ones we saw yesterday find their forever homes. (Not sure why Blogger wants to shove the photo to the far left, but the HTML doesn't seem to like to be edited.)

Another lap-robe for the Ann Arbor Veterans' Hospital. One of our members is going to take the tote & a half of the ones we've completed to the hospital this week.  I'll take this one in tomorrow so it can make the trip too.

I found an unfinished hat from the marathon hat knitting session of  last summer & finished it. It will be the first of the 2013 "collection" as I switch from lap-robes to smaller projects for summer. Right now, I'm working on a new toddler sweater with a neat rust, brown & turquoise variegated for the body. I have a skein of matching brown I could use for the sleeves & yoke, but may dig around in the yarn bins to see if I have a skein of turquoise.

About 20 years ago, I found an antique quilt in a shop in Royal Oak. Because it was pretty tattered, I was able to get it for $10. There were about 5 blocks, including the one above, that weren't torn so if I folded it just right, it looked nice on the top of my refurbished antique trunk. I love the Carpenter's Square pattern & the colors, so I've been thinking right along of recreating the quilt if I could find the right fabrics.

Last week, Hancock of Paducha had free shipping, so I started browsing. Trying to find exact matches for old fabrics is difficult, so I usually go with something that's similar & looks old. I'm happy with the stripe on the left even if it isn't predominately rust like the original & love the acid green on the right. I'm not positive about the other two. While they're nice reproduction prints, I'm not sure that they'll work.  I still need to find the little pink stripe that was used for background in the blocks, so it may be a while before I can start - that will give me time to decide. And yes, I'm thinking seriously about getting back to quilting after about 6 or 7 years of only doing crafts for the K4 group's charity projects.

On the other hand, I found these two prints. I've been looking for ages for fabrics that are reminiscent of the pink roses on a brown background that I see so frequently in antique quilts from the late 1800's. Hancock had these two and they'll make great additions to my stash.

Spring Is Supposed To Be Here

Yes, it's supposed to be SPRING as of this last Wednesday, but.....  That's right - snow & way below average temperatures for this time of year. It's a balmy 20° outside at 8 a.m., forecast high of only 35°. All I can say is "BRRRRRRR".. We should be in the mid-40s. It's not snowing right now and a good part of the snow cover in the photo has disappeared, but there's more snow forecast for today & tomorrow.

I've been working on more lap robes for the Veterans' Hospital. One of our members took the last batch down in January and was elated by the response that she received from a staff member. He told her that the veterans loved these amall afghans.

 We usually make them wheel chair size at 30x36" - but she was told that they could use some larger ones up to 40x48". It's surprising how much longer it takes to make one that size.  This is my first one of the larger size - as you can see Max & Quinn thought that a lap-robe on the floor meant time to pose..

And to start a bit of a dust up.. One of the reasons that these photo sessions are few & far between. All three of these lap-robes are crocheted using the Box or Brick or Brain-dead stitch. Personally, I like the last name as after the starting row, it's one of the easiest patterns other than straight double crochet.