Half Square Triangles

Completing the Paper Lantern quilt top in a short time made me think I could keep on piecing simple quilt tops that don't take a year. While I was suffering from a nasty cold. I thought of all the shirts I have waiting in cardboard boxes, cut apart and ironed, sorted according to colour. Blocks have been cut from them, but there are large bits left. The blue box is full, especially because I didn't use any blues in the big Shadow Plaid quilt. Dolores is making a red and white quilt to celebrate Canada's 150 years of independence, so I thought I could do the same in blue and white for our 100 years.

I cut the fabrics in 7" squares and made them into HSTs. Ironed and trimmed to 6½".

Much time and 107 squares later:

The 8" Bias Square ruler is perfect for trimming any HSTs. I place the diagonal line on my diagonal seam, and the squares will be not only the correct size but also look correct.

The trimmed squares waiting for the next step.

After the baby sock project I needed something different, so I dug out the scarf I have started maybe two years ago. The yarn is lovely and very fine, 800 metres for 100 grams, alpaca and silk.  The lace pattern is very difficult to follow when the knitting looks like this:

I laid the project aside all those months ago after I had to unravel a whole lace repeat of 18 rows. Now I tried again and I think it went right this time. I didn't want to take the risk of running out of yarn in the middle of the last lace repeat so I knitted less garter stitch between the lace rows. Naturally there was some yarn left. I need to get some kind of urethane board so I can stretch my fine scarf into shape. I'm back to sock knitting again!

Yesterday we saw the first robin of the spring, and today came the first finch. I don't have new pictures of the newcomers so I will show you the treecreeper hiding on our oak in February:

Have a happy weekend!