A Fairly Productive Weekend

I accomplished a few things this weekend. Friday night I finished this, which I started Thursday night:



No it's not a beanie for someone with a really strangely shaped head nor a thumb-less mitten. It's a cast sock. As in a sock that goes over the end of a cast to keep the toes warm. My friend Angie (who has the *worst* medical luck of anyone I've ever known) is going to be in a cast for a few weeks. She works in a very chilly computer room, so despite the fact that summer might actually have arrived here on the North Coast, I made her a sock. It worked pretty well till I got to the 3-needle bind-off. I'm not real sure what I did wrong, but I played musical needles for about 10 minutes before I got the stitches on in such a way that I actually could bind off. If I'd been using DPNs it would have been easier. Once I got it figured out, it was OK. Good thing it's dark yarn -- hides a multitude of sins. :) Angie, don't look too closely!!

Yesterday I ran errands and got caught up on all the magazines I got in the mail this week - Quilter's Home, Quiltmaker, and Creative Machine Embroidery. I must say that while there were a few good things in there, I was much more inspired by the the Creative Knitting magazine I got last week. Maybe because knitting is newer to me and I don't have that "been there, done that" feeling.

After the reading, I finished Miss Mousie. Well, sort of. It turns out, you need to pay attention when knitting something that actually has instructions. Go figure. I managed to biff something about midway through and had to frog (rip out) several rows. Then the yarn split when I tried to put it back on the needles. I got it back on and trudged ahead, even though not all the stitches made it back on the needles right. Then when I got to the decreases for the head, I read the first two and stupidly assumed that they were all the same. They weren't. So instead of ripping it out again, I just added a few rows of something that sort of resembled the proper decreases. At that point, I decided to cut my losses and sew it up, stuff it and give it directly to the cats. I didn't bother trying to make the adorable little ears or take pictures of it for the blog. I did braid a tail for it though. I'm not sure if the cats appreciated it or not. It was on the living room floor when I went to bed last night, but I haven't seen it today. I think I'll try to make another one at some point. If/when I do, hopefully it will go better and then be blogworthy.

One more note on Miss Mousie: if you recall, I wasn't using the recommended yarn, which was a double strand of 1-weight yarn. I was using a single strand of 3-weight on the same size needles. I don't know if that contributed to my problems or not. And I don't know how the "math" works with yarn. Do 3 strands of 1-weight equal 1 strand of 3-weight?

Today I did the laundry, which leads me to a question - is it wrong to do laundry on Sunday and if so, why?? My cousin informed me that her mother will haunt me for making Sunday laundry day. I guess it goes back to the idea that Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest. But I work full time, and usually spend Saturday doing things like grocery shopping, and running errands (like yesterday). Sunday is the day I stay home and can get things done around the house. I hope Aunt Mary Alice will forgive me!

While the laundry was running, I went outside to enjoy the nice weather. I pulled a few weeds, cut the dead stuff out of the rhododendron out front, and the roses out back. Yes, I know I should have cut back the roses last fall, but I truly am horticulturally challenged. The only reason the roses survive at all is because I ignore them for the most part. Fortunately, not many of the neighbors were outside or they'd have been blinded. I was wearing shorts and if my skin was any lighter, I'd be transparent! Truly awful.....

After the pruning, I came in and finished the pillowcases that go with the pool quilt. I had one put together already, so I assembled the other one and embroidered both of them. Here they are:



I didn't have enough of the pool fabric to make two with that as the primary fabric, so mine is the reverse of John's. And there was no way the embroidery was going to show up on the print, so adjusted. I think this worked out well, though.

After dinner I worked on a wall hanging commissioned by my cousin for her minister, who is moving. I got the top and back assembled and it's basted. I'll take pictures later in the week when it's done. Karen if you're reading this, it's about 25" square.

Now it's time to collect all the cats from the kitty hammock, close up the sewing room and head towards bed. I can't believe tomorrow is Monday already. Why do the weekends go so fast???