Happy New Year

 Christmas is over, New Year's is over, tomorrow is the GA Senate runoff and Wednesday, congress counts the vote.  I can feel the stress melting away.  Next Sunday, I have a hand appliqué class with Becky Goldsmith.  It's a zoom class, and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm going to set up a spot in my comfy chair and hand stitch the day away.  (Don't tell her, but I haven't even begun to prepare for the class...oops!)

Rob was very sick until Wednesday, but then he started to feel better and by Thursday, he was taking down decorations and packing them away.  I didn't catch whatever he had and I am very, very glad.  I spent the week knitting, but more on that later. 

I wanted to talk about this quilt a little today.  I know it's a holiday quilt and the holidays are over, but there was so much else to talk about the last couple weeks, and I didn't get to this.  I made this quilt in 2011.  I was doing a lot of heavy filler quilting then.

Hopefully, you look at that and think that it's all the print of the fabrics...until you get close and see that the shapes are made from the quilting and filling in the backgrounds.   

I traced the images out of coloring books and enlarged them and traced again onto plain white paper, then quilted through that to get the images onto the fabric.  Then, I pulled the paper off and filled in the background with dense quilting.  The string of lights even has both plugs quilted into it.  

I filled the center blocks with Poinsettias that I echoed at 1/8" intervals to fill in.  The sashing between the blocks is covered in echoed holly leaves.

And, the outside border is filled with bows that I filled around with pebbles.    

It took thousands of yards of thread.  It was all cotton...silk was still out of my price range then.  I wish I'd kept up with how much.  The center with the 9 stars was from a picture of the block I saw that was made in three shades of green.  I'm drawn to that and have a few quilts that are made of multiple shades of green.  This one is a lot of fun and we hang it in the dining room every year.  It goes really well with the red, green and off white apple dishes in the china cabinet.

With Rob sick, I had several days to myself and spent them knitting and resting in case I got sick.  I started the sweater 5 times before I got it right.  It was a different cast on and I couldn't get it to work, so ended up using the method I'm familiar with and that worked perfect.  Then, I started the body three times.  Once, I got to row 12 and then had to pull it all out down to the ribbing.  This pattern is seamless and works the whole body at one time, from left front to right front.  I've got a lot of stitch markers in it to help me keep track.  Those markers can be a pain but  I had a few places where I crossed over the needle and accidentally created a stitch and all those stitch markers made them easy to find without having to pick out a row.  I'd like to say it's relaxing, and it is, but it's also very complicated and I can't just relax into the pattern and zone out yet.  Hopefully, I'll get there.    

Well, that's it for me, except to report that only one slice of cake was thrown away...I know that sounds like good news, but it's not...that means I ate most of a three layer cake, frosted with cream cheese and butter and sugar.  I have committed to not get on the scale until at least Jan 15.  Starting today, I'll be back on my regular schedule and there is hardly any junk food in the house.  That should help.  

Everybody have a great week!  It's the first week of the new year and anything is possible.  

Be well!  Lane