Green socks

Here they are, my new long bedsocks:

The colour is right in the top photo. I used the pattern on the cover photo of Melissa Morgan-Oakes' book Toe-Up 2-At-A-Time Socks for the shaping and measurements but simplified the lace pattern and made it my own.  I think the heel is very pretty here.

It was hard to estimate how far my yarn would go so I started the ribbing early. Binding off looks a bit curly but it mustn't be too tight.

I have been cutting more strips for the log cabin quilt. Still a lot to cut, but it means that I will use up many of my fabrics. and that is the point. Use up fabric, have fun sewing, get a quilt. Win-win-win.

Almost Summer

Suddenly, on Wednesday or so, it was warm again. After a little rain shower the nature just burst into greenness and growth. My green socks are slowly growing too. I'm going to knit them as long as the yarn allows.

Today I made a test block for a new quilt. I have what feels like tons of light blue fabrics, and some brown ones left over from the Shadow Plaid. I have never made a Log Cabin quilt, just single blocks, so I thought it was time to give it a chance. I have always liked brown and light blue together.

I have a fair amount of 2" strips cut already but need more. I'm also going to cut them to the required length before sewing to keep my squares square.

Scilla Sibirica in our garden. I would love to have more but they seem to take their time to spread.

Today I had tea in the garden, in my short sleeves, and really enjoyed the +21 C temperature. 

Chilly Spring Knittings

This isn't funny any more:

On Thursday we got hails and snow several times during the day, and the top temperature was somewhere between 3 and 5C. Every night there are minus degrees. This was not the first snow of the week. No wonder my rhubarbs are only three inches tall.

The chilly weather has been perfect for knitting. First I knitted the most basic men's wool socks I could imagine, with heavy sock yarn and big needles:

And then a fancy pair with hand dyed yarn from Handu. The pattern is my own version of the honeycomb I used for all those honey coloured socks a while ago.

On the needles is a pair of bed socks for myself. Again, a modified version of a published pattern. I'm knitting from toe to top so I can maximize the length of the socks. Cashmere and merino yarn from Handu, feels like a dream. As you can see from the shadows, we are having a bright sunny day today for a change.

I hope you are enjoying the season as well!

The new plaid quilt

Here it is, my new plaid quilt.

It is a mixture of very different shirts which have come to the end of their career in the clothing business or, in one case, never even made it so far but spent some 50 years or probably more as a UFO, cut parts carefully folded with some of the paper patterns pinned to the smallest parts. It could have been meant for me, the pale yellow and grey. A blouse with short sleeves for a girl of maybe 9-10 years of age. Some of this fabric is still left for smaller blocks in another quilt. The obviously female fabrics were my mother's blouses, too small for me to wear so I finally decided to give them a new life. The rest of the plaids are from my usual stash of old men's old shirts. As the previous quilt top only had blue shirts mixed with solid white, here I used all other colours but blue.
It is always fun to plan a new quilt and watch it grow from piles of squares to piles of blocks, then rows and finally a quilt top. The next step is less fun but vital, building the quilt sandwich and pinning or basting it. I have hand quilted only one large quilt in my life, the Grandmother's Garden quilt for my daughter Kaija, and some preemie quilts. I can manage machine quilting on my sewing machine if the quilt is not too big. Maybe I need to start considering these next steps, because this top is already the fourth waiting to be quilted!

Liverworts, Anemone Hepatica, have opened their flowers. I moved these to our garden from "back home" on my last visit there.