Q4 finished things (5)

I'm very pleased with my new table top.

Once again, a list of the things I finished this last quarter.

• Rep runner from a guild library magazine, for a guild study group, pictured in an earlier post.
• Two baby blankets (same warp, different wefts) in a weave structure called Summer and Winter, one for a grand niece and the other for a friends first grandbaby.
• I grouted a mosaic table top for the kitchen deck today! It just needs sealer and to be mounted to the base that's been waiting for it; DH even removed the crappy piece of plywood that's been the temporary table top. It needs a name, and a coordinating 2nd table top. Then I'll move it to the garage or someplace safe until after the house painters have finished.
  

  

  Christmas quilt top, just in time for New Years!

• The Christmas quilt top is done and partly basted! I'm declaring the top as a done thing because of the effort involved, and when it's quilted it's gonna count too. Expect that just before Christmas next year.
• I also started working making pillows out of the old worn out Kilim that I rescued when mom was going to throw it away. Sadly, she was right; there's no 18x18 inch pieces that I'd like to have as pillows, it's just in very bad shape. So that's off my list.

So I finished 26 things in 2019. Wow! What's in store for 2020? I have some ideas, but will have to think about it!

Frantic Pre-Holiday Projects!

Runner is done!

I'm in a frenzy of activity right before the end of this year, slightly out of sorts with the holidays and therefore frantic for no good reason to finish some unrelated projects.  There are so many reasons to like and dislike Christmas; of course it's different for everyone yet so much the same... Anyways, we'll be hiking and then making tamales on Christmas with friends, and at some point there will likely be potato latkes, and homemade marshmallows.

Same quilt, more border.

The runner is finished, on the table, and guarded carefully by Z cat! I'm very pleased with the way the colors are working in this room. I needed to finish this piece by January 6th and have done that!

The two projects I'm working on frantically are the Christmas Quilt and the mosaic table top. I've redrafted corners for the Christmas quilt border and am about an hour's worth of work away from starting them! The rest should go together easily and my goal is to have it basted by the 2nd weekend in January. 

Wanna be table top.

DH  hasn't exactly been grumbling about the temporary end tables on the deck, but I can tell he's not pleased with my apparent lack of progress. So I've spent the last two days in the mosaic studio while the arborists were working on the trees. The foreground pieces are done except for the blue sliver and the red partial circle which need to be finalized and glued in place. With beige background and a dark brown grout, I think this piece will be lovely. The second table is cut, bordered and ready to go, but I'm thinking of doing the same colors in another design; not sure I can do two of anything!

Thankful

I gotta make more empanadas...

It's a few weeks after Thanksgiving, but I still need  to say I'm thankful. I'm thankful for my health, my family, my friends, for all God's gift around us. I am particularly thankful this week for all the fun things I get to do on a nearly daily basis. This life has been very good to me!

I don't feel like I've mentioned food lately.  We spend Thanksgiving with a friend and his twin 10th graders... My cooking was okay but frankly I'm suffering from lack of practice. Some dishes were good, others just okay. A couple of days later as I was dismembering the carcass and making turkey mulligatawny soup (yum!) I realized I had leftover pie crust and all kinds of things that go in empanadas: leftover turkey, onions, garlic, potatoes, cinnamon, chipotle, and turkey gravy on the inside; we ate them with cranberry sauce.

Summer and Winter baby blankets

The baby blankets are both done and will be in the mail this week. It makes me smile to send the grandmother blanket as the recipient is Knit Worthy (or Weave Worthy); the other I know will never be acknowledged but I had fun weaving it ,I hope they use it, and I wanted to celebrate their baby.
The name of this type of weaving is Summer and Winter; would I do Summer and Winter again? Yes, in an instant, for a baby blanket  or for something else.

Rep Weave runner

I did mention that my Weave Structures Study group is doing Warp Rep projects; I've finally got weaving on my project. Colors in the photo are crappy but here it is. Weft is  3/2 perle cotton sett at 30 ends per inch; thin weft is 8/2 tencel and thick weft is 12 strands of the perle cotton held together. I'm intending to put it on the credenza in the den that should arrive at the end of January; the credenza is 72" long, and the runner pattern as written is 66" long. If I want the runner shorter, 51 inches long works well with the patterning. If I make it shorter, I really only need to do the final border and I'm done; the other benefit is it would fit on the coffee table. I'm on hold while deciding what to do. I won't take long to decide as it need to be done for the Study Group by January 6.

I've made considerable progress on the Christmas Quilt: I'm done with all the parts I've finished design on.  I'm dithering about what to put on the corners of the border, and if I want the top of the quilt to have the border swag design or just a quilted in design. The argument for a plain top is that it'll be under the pillows anyways; and the skin oils and the other things we all put on our faces at night won't mar the lovely applique. Arguments in favor of making all the borders the same are that the quilt can be used in any direction on the bed, and that if I show it, it'll score better with the judges. I refuse to stall on the quilt while I dither and will make a decision by tomorrow. My hope is to have the quilt basted so I can start quilting at the January knitting retreat.

I've had two days this week where I needed to be at the guest house; I spent my time  straightened out the glass studio  (where studio is a fancy word for garage bay). I spent some time on my first table top and am hoping to accelerate and get better circles using an indirect method. I had leftover thinset one day and used to to glue random green bits to a small concrete cylinder; I also finished grouting the money piece.

On other projects, I've done no more spinning; I've been working on Lake Breeze sweater off and on but making it low priority; I worked on the pillows I wanted to make from the old Kilim but am quickly coming to the conclusion that there isn't a 18" square piece of the rug that's worth keeping. Mom's opinion was that it needed to be thrown away and sadly I am coming to agree with her.  There are other projects queued up and I'll blog about them when they're no longer dormant!

One last photo, taken last Sunday about a mile from our house; there had been enough rain to get the stream running well! What an amazing find. Someone had cemented in some stones in the middle as large stepping stone so it was easy to cross and a complete treat on a Sunday afternoon.