Project #2 Complete!

I am very happy to present the completed scarf for my daughter.  I finished it this afternoon and celebrated with a nap.  The finished piece is approximately 42" long and 4.5" wide.  It's just the right length for her to wear doubled and tucked into a jacket.  I used a soft white acrylic baby yarn, left over from a baby blanket I made while I was pregnant.  There are 25 stitches across, and I used size 6 needles.  I couldn't decide on a style, so every 3-6 rows I did something different.  About every five inches I put a band of seed stitch to give it some uniformity, and between those bands I tried to include some vertical ribbing and horizontal bands.  I was disappointed that the ribbed sections shrunk a little bit, but I guess that's what they're supposed to do, and why we use it on socks and sweaters and hats. There are also sections of basketweave, stockinette, garter stitch, and the occasional adventure with diagonals.  I like the variety of textures in the finished piece.  I started it on Christmas, so it's taken about three weeks of knitting here and there, but it seems like it took forever to finish.  I think that's because it's tiny yarn and I put all the patterns into it.  Bigger yarn would have gone a lot faster.

The quilt (project #3) is also coming along very nicely. I have all the strips assembled, and have been working for the last few days on sewing them together to make the quilt top. I've run into a few problems with blocks not lining up properly.  I'm not sure if it's a single culprit or the combination of blocks made of smaller pieces, the furry knit things bunching in my sewing machine, or just not putting the seams in the right place.  As I lay out each set of strips to pin together before sewing, most of the seams line up fine.  However, I've found a few that did not line up quite right.  A quick trip back to the machine to sew the pieces a little further inside the first seam did the trick.  I think I might be able to get the whole top finished tomorrow!

I'm excited about the quilt that I got a commission to make. I've been out looking at fabrics, and I found a neat piece of software to help with the design. It's called The Electric Quilt Co. Quilt Design Wizard.  I have been just drawing quilt designs on graph paper and coloring them in, but this software lets me do that onscreen with a few clicks.  It's got a lot of neat blocks and thousands of fabric patterns to apply to your designs.  I'm a little bummed that it only runs on Windows, but I have access to that so it's not that big a deal.  I do wish I had the ability to create my own block designs (if the software allows this, I haven't figured out how to do it yet).  But, for the money, it's a fabulous timesaving tool.  I'm looking forward to playing with it more.

Also, I finished An Echo in the Bone (fabulous, as usual) and finally got around to watching Breakfast At Tiffany's.  Audrey Hepburn is gorgeous, but otherwise I'm not sure what the hype is about the movie.  Although I do understand now why Rachel and Kurt had to get up early and have bagels and coffee outside Tiffany's.

To do list: Decide on which knitting project to start next.  I'm thinking socks (never made any before, should be fun).  Continue quilt top assembly.  Look through patterns and calculate how much fabric each needs so that when I go to the next fabric sale,  I won't overbuy.