Time's fun when you're eating flies

So, this Mystery Stole. I'm getting a bit worried. I finished Clue 3 last night (horror of horrors, it took me more than just the weekend). I blame this on the obsessive kitty hat making, but I did get seven of the little suckers off to Gaia to sell at Otakon. She had three already, so ten total isn't quite such a sad inventory. I need to try selling them on Etsy, but only after my hands recover from all the acrylic.

So I finished the third clue last night, well maybe 12:30 this morning. Tuesday night... that's a new low. Most of the knitting was done at Columbia Mall before the Decemberists show at Merriweather- I scared a few of the kids hanging out by the "water feature" I think. The rest of it was on the couch while watching America's Got Talent. I hate to say it America, but I'm not so sure about that Talent label.

I probably would have completed it faster, except for the baby blankets I'm working on. Funny how I continue along with my knitting life, completely blase, until the moment I realize I have less than a month to finish two blankets that I started ... 3-6 months ago. I anticipate that the crocheted blanket will be 100 (long) rows, and I'm on 64 as of this morning. Amazing how much you can complete while waiting for the cable guy to show up. The knitted baby blanket will probably be 30 squares, and I've completed 10. So that's some progress, at least.

I'm scared about the next clue for the stole. Instead of 50 rows, we have well over 100. Also, Melanie suggests strongly that we use a lifeline in Row 287. I hate lifelines. They offend me. But if the designer is telling us to suck it up and use one, in this particular row, so be it. I have this sinking feeling this is going all multi-directional or something. I have trust in her that it will come out lovely, but I admit that I'm less in love with it after 1/3 of the stole than I was in the first clue. I still love the intricate border, though, so maybe I'll be able to regain my initial admiration somewhere in Clue 4 or 5...

What I did over my summer vacation...

A little trip in pictures. If you will recall, we last left our intrepid knitter just home from Mom and Dad's. Forget R&R, this was a working break! Here's the evidence:

Posing with a work in progress:


Pieced apples:


Messy work in progress (I love my mother's sewing table. Oh yes I do):


Finished but for the quilting:


I also received my snazzy bag from the Craft Exchange right before I left. The outside:


And print interior/alternate exterior:


And not to be biased, but my favorite project of all?? The Mystery Stole 3, Clue 2 completed about a half hour ago:


Hurray for pretty projects. Did I mention the four kitty hats that need ears? And the charity scarf that needs to be completely redone by Saturday? I'm getting there. I would have been significantly more productive if I hadn't had a stomach bug today, but that didn't keep me from knitting this week's MS3 clue. I did have to rip out three rows, however, since I evidently lost my place while losing my cookies. I'm not sure which bothered me more.

Next post: I take on quilting, the actual hand quilting part, and see how many kitty hats I can knock out in short order. Here's my first kitty hat, back in Bloomington, when I decided it was almost as fun to leave the ends out and go Fraggle Rock:
(Care of Yahoo Photos, which has conveniently sent all sorts of old photos I'd forgotten about into my Flickr account!)

Quilting Lessons

I took a very long bridge-the-gap weekend. Wednesday I had off for the fourth, and by taking Th/Fri off I get a 5 day weekend. Nice! I spent the majority of it learning how to quilt and making a wall hanging.

Yes, there will be pictures. But not quite yet.

This weekend I knit 4 kitty hats (rather, four bases, but not the ears yet). Also 6 or 7 rows of the Mystery Stole, which is a piddly number but I have a whole day tomorrow to work on them. I also knit another bit of a square for the baby afghan.

Much more importantly, I finished a wall hanging to give as a wedding present to a very old friend of mine getting married in two weeks. By finished, I mean I completed the piecing, got the backing on, and my mom was sweet enough to baste it and add the binding. All that's left is to quilt the sucker! Mom taught me the basics, and my stitches were looking almost acceptable on our practice placemat after a few hours, so hopefully another couple hours to practice and I'll be able to whip through and mail the finished project off. I also learned some neat tricks for making squares of two fabrics on the diagonal, without cutting triangles. I hate cutting triangles, so that was a godsend. This got put into use for another quilt project, which is super secret for now.

I also received my craft exchange project from Dallas's exchange group- crafted by the ever amazing and talented Dallas herself. Again, I have pictures to post later, but it is the cutest thing ever! Adorable bag, exactly the perfect shape to use as a purse and stick a small knitting project inside. It fits exactly under my arm, so I don't need to worry about things falling out. It has a cute little rosette flower attached (in hot pink, of course). Best of all? The whole thing is reversible!! I can do sophistocated black, or an amazingly cute and bright swirly print, a bit Pucci-esque. I love it! In fact, I'm already using it as my purse. I went with black for my night on the town tonight, but I suspect that print is going to get a fair bit of use this summer.

One more day of freedom. By next weekend I hope to have a bunch of kitty hats done, and to have completed the second MS3 clue. Here's hoping! Otakon is almost here... so I definitely need to get cracking on those hats, if I ever want to make back the yarn costs...