More Works in Progress

I have assembled a list of the most active works in progress in my knitting and other categories.

First, I have finished the Love From Wooly pieces.

Here is Kit the Kitten wearing her mittens. She has a friend named Tom Kitten, but he didn't come to visit.

Here is Finlay the Fox. He is wearing socks. The photo doesn't do Finlay justice. He really is a total fox.

I also am working on my Jess Sweater. The Prime Alpaca is a dream to knit with. I have the back and one front finished. The first sleeve is about a 5th of the way complete and I cast on the second front.

The Jess Sweater has to take a back seat to the custom project I am knitting.

I have a client who's favorite sweater was losing shape and so she asked me to duplicate it. I have the back and some of the front finished.

The last item on the list today is a project that I began about 2 months ago to help the kids with their fine motor skills. My first idea was to sew buttons and laces and zippers and snaps to one big pillow. I rethunk that idea when I saw someone out here in the internet using pieces of clothing. My new plan is to make individual pillows and label them each with needle felting. I have to think up how to do the lacing one. I haven't started that one yet, but I have some ideas bouncing around.

I will now pledge to finish these projects by the summer. That will be perfect because I will feel more like sewing then anyway.

I hope that Thursday is treating you all well,

Shout out to my mom. Happy to see, or hear, you at home!

Bye,

Jess

wips & future wips

I recently have been introduced to Crazy Mom Quilts.
She makes some fantastic quilts and I looked at my WIP stack and felt a little overwhelmed.
Therefore I am hereby making a pledge to finish everything in my quilt WIP stack by the end of 2008.
I have here a sampling-
The United States and the Sky quilts are both hand-quilting which I rarely take the time to do.
I am quilting around each state and I think that I will do diagonal lines out across the rest of it.














The batting of the Sky quilt is a matress pad, from our own bed, that I am recycling. This doesn't need so much quilting so I traced out a bunch of airplane shapes and am about a 3rd of the way through them.

















The Color Wheel is machine quilting. I have a little less than half of that left.














The World Map panel is, I think, going to back an applique quilt of the back of our house and our garden. This quilt is in my head, and I have pattern pieces that I have cut out and the fabric chosen, but it isn't assembled yet.














The rockets I just think are wonderful.
These may end up as snuggle pillows in the toy room, I haven't decided yet.














As I have said before, I work at a fabric store and the main aim when I got hired seems to be that I would leave each time having spent more than I earned.

They do have to keep ordering panel prints. I am a sucker for panel prints.













Also, I am a sucker for anything with maps, moons, stars, suns, rockets or robots.

I started the Sky quilt because I just kept buying a yard or 2 or 3 of anything that had rockets or clouds or airplanes or stars or moons and I had such a big stack that I decided that I should make something or get rid of it all. That was two years ago that I assembled the quilt top. The time has come to finish these guys.


I hope the fact that spring really is still a month away doesn't get anyone down,

see you soon,

Jess.
Update-
I was asked which fabric store employs me.
I work at Treadle Yard Goods in Saint Paul.
They specialize in natural fiber fashion fabrics.
The silk selection is fantastic.
They also have hundreds of cotton prints.
And even though they are not natural fiber or fashion fabrics there is also a terrific selection of oilcloth and vinyl printed fabric.

Also, sorry for the shoddy photos.
The late afternoon sun was blaring, but apparantly only on half of the floor.

Spring?

It has been said by me that the best musical ever written is about a mass murderer who feeds his victims to unsuspecting pie-shop patrons.
This fact is, in fact, indisputible.
I have to say that my second favorite musical play is also somewhat darkly themed.
Governmental restructuring, war, incest, adultery - Yes, I am talking about Camelot.
I have been thinking about Camelot all day today, and I'll tell you why;

The winter is forbidden 'til December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order Summer lingers 'til September
In Camelot

We have had a rainy day.
I am choosing to see it as more of an early spring somewhat chilly rain rather than a late winter freezing rain.

I choose to think that I, through my optimism, have great influence over the weather.
Hooray for Spring!
Jess.

Advantage: Winter

The Pity Party ends today.

Hello.

I have been wallowing.

Sorry.





The weather is turning around here in Saint Paul.


I really like February. This is Winter's last stand and the battle with Spring is raging.


Monday morning we had lovely dense fog and the temp was in the higher 20s.

















The hug-a-bugs and myself went out for a lovely walk.


The fog was thick enough that we couldn't see across the Mississippi.















This is the storied Fifth Lamp. As you can see, visibility is at about 20 feet.


What greater harbinger of Spring can we have than fog? Maybe birdsong.

It doesn't register with me that we haven't heard birdsong for a while until I hear it again. Beautiful.
This morning it is pretty cold, but I can see an afternoon walk in our future! I think I'll look for the binoculars and we can have a Bird search.

On another note, I have finished the second installment of the Love From Wooly project-
A hat for Bobby the Bat.















Wishing a glimpse of Spring to you all,
Jess

Sacred Voice

I sing with a small a capella group called Sacred Voice.
I joined last year and really enjoy the people and the singing.

We have had a couple of years full of ups and downs.
Last year one of our members had three surgeries.
There have been three babies born to members over the last 9 or 10 months.

Two of our number chose not to return this year.
Our artistic director, who was half of our tenor section, left after the rehearsals had been going for a couple of months and before all of the music had been chosen for the year.
Luckily we were able to find a fantastic tenor and were able to continue with the season.

All of this flux has brought us closer as a group and ultimately it helps the music-making.
This is the closest-knit group I have been a part of since college and it fills a need in my life.

Tomorrow is our first concert of the year and I am a little worried.

First of all, I have to buy new black pants.

Second, I have a cold.

Now, I was a vocal music major in college and I love singing.
It is one of a few effortlessly joyful things in my life.
However, sometimes I wish I could have been good at something that didn't depend so heavily on my health - like science.

Every winter I get this cold, and I feel run-down and my voice gets tired, just like everyone, but I feel so stressed when it comes to concert time.

The Sacred Voice is an 8 voice group.
When anyone is sick it impacts everyone.

I am sucking down the cold-eaze and ricolas and hopefully I will feel well enough tomorrow to truely contribute.

Thirdly, we are all wondering if we can pull it off when we have had such a turbulent time.

We had our final run-through on Monday and I'd say we were 90% ready.
That's not too bad, but I think we would all feel better if it were closer to 95%.

I'll give you the update on Monday.

I updated the fifth lamp look. What do you think?

Have a happy Saturday.
Here in Saint Paul the weather should be terrific!
Jess

Swap goes out today!

Merci Melissa et Lynne pour la bon idee de le swap costume puppees!