A Beautiful Quilt

After the NAI conference last fall, I pledged to make my grad school friend, Liz, a pair of socks. She, in turn, said she would send something made by hand back to me.

OMG.

Let me just start by saying that to me knitting is fairly simple and although a pair of socks may have between 21,000 and 25,000 stitches in them, I really don't think about that. I actually had to stop and break out a calculator to estimate that stitch number for this blog entry. Other types of hand made items - especially those connected to sewing - boggle my mind.

I can sew, however I do it as fast as possible and get away from the sewing machine as quick as I can. Weird, huh?

So when I got home last night there was a package from NY from Ms. Liz. I really have no words. This quilt was done by hand...by hand....pieced, everything. My hubby and I kept turning it over and over looking at the patterning in the stitches - the quilting was sewn in the shapes of snails, ladybugs, dragonflies, caterpillars, etc.

We posed the little bubbi on the quilt for the blog pic but I'm afraid he doesn't get to use it until he gets over his barfing stage and can use a blanket in bed. Sorry little guy. I just refuse to toss this in the wash. (you can see the cute little flannel quilt that Jess and the god-kids made underneath - that one is "wash n' go" blankie right now)

After I put the baby to bed, I laid the quilt over the banister upstairs. I just sat there and stared at it. All the blocks of material, all the stitching, the colors. I am so in awe of what people can create.

The socks go global

IMG_2602
Originally uploaded by WATERCenter

Holy cats. I never would have guessed that my humble pair of garter-rib socks would go global. Sweet sweet Liz - a classmate of mine - has given the socks their own blog. I cannot tell you how freakin' cool that is.

http://sockandsock.blogspot.com

Homework Avoidance Tactics

I have not improved as a student - at least not in my behavior. I still look for other things to do besides doing my homework. Anything. Stuff I wouldn't do otherwise. Here are some examples of what I have done over the last few weeks before buckling down to do my readings for class: switching out which plates are displayed on the hutch (granted, the ones that were up were Christmas plates, but still), removing the cat hair from all the couches using lots of tape rolls, and this week, reorganizing my yarn stash.


























It had to be done.




















The acrylics were with the sock yarn. Mohair was mingling with cashmere. Who knows what might have resulted! The hubby was pretty disgusted with the size of my stash but anymore he knows better know than to comment - it doesn't help anything. The baby hung out in his johnny-jump-up and was okay with the process until I took away the storage bag he was chewing on. He was pretty pissed after that (see picture).