The Duke's Quilt - at long last

It took me nearly two years, but last night I finally finished the quilt for the Duke. 

The pattern is from Tricia Cribbs' Turning Twenty Just Got Better. 

 I love this idea.  You can make a twin quilt (70" x 86") with only 20 fat quarters and fabric for the back.  You use almost every bit of the fabric.

Time to get the Quilts out (or finished!)

This is a quilt that my grandmother made for me and gave me 12 years ago when I graduated from high school. I love this quilt. It is soft and comfy, and perfect in every way. The only problem is that the Duke thinks so too. Often when I go looking for it I find it, with him cuddled up beneath it! Sometimes I join him, but the quilt is only a twin size quilt, so then we are pulling and tugging and it just doesn't work. A new solution had to be found.



Last winter I purchased the fabric for a quilt just for the Duke. I let him choose from one of the Turing Twenty quilt patterns (of course he chose the most intricate one!) I got a good start and then, like everything else it got put on the back burner as I struggled to finish school and be a mom.



It has been on my TO-DO list all summer. I even took it to Utah and worked on it, but I forgot some of the pieces, so it didn't get finished. Well, today while Little Sir was happily playing with his friend and their nanny, I got the top done!!! Now of course the quilt isn't done, but I am "outsourcing" the quilting and the binding, cheating? maybe, but the Duke will be happier with a finished quilt and a sane wife.

Tragedy

It is a sad sad sad day


When a hand knit baby sweater accidentally gets thrown in with the wash.

and FELTS!!!

And then, if that weren't bad enough, the Duke picks it up and mocks me about it. He wouldn't even let me take a picture of him pretending to cry over the mini felted sweater. (You will just have to create a mental picture.) He has no knitting empathy.

The only silver lining is that I have enough of this same yarn to knit the same sweater again if I want, and, it was only going to fit for another month or so. I will just have to knit a bigger one.


In other news, I have been doing a little bit of quilting. I saw this fabric at Esther's and I HAD to make Little Sir (our little owlet) a quilt out of it. I have the square pieced together. The sashing and the back will be out of the green dots and the binding out of the brown stripes, cut on the bias.

Don't worry, I'm not picking up a new hobby. I have no intention of even quilting it. As soon as I have the sashing sewn on it will go in the mail to The Queen and she is going to take it to her local quilting shop to have it quilted.

But really, isn't it adorable? It helps to make me feel a bit better about the sad felted sweater.

Royal Preparations. . .

So, the Queen is multi-talented. In addition to her knitting she also quilts. Upon arrival in Yarnnation,as is tradition when royal family members visit one another, she presented the Duke with a gift for the royal little alien.



My heavens, is it legal for things to be this cute? For those of you who know our royal pup, Maggie, yes that fabric holds a very good likeness of her. Any little alien, boy or girl, will be pleased as punch to be cuddled up in such cuteness. This is the quilt that I have snuggled up with for naps a few times in the last couple of weeks.



WE LOVE THE QUEEN! LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

We also did a little fabric shopping at our favorite fabric store, Ester's.
(And I heard for a little bird there that they might be launching an e-commerce site soon!)



Here is the other fabric I picked out for the alien. A little bit vintage and fun. (This went home with the queen to make it's transformation into a quilt. I am NOT picking up another hobby- at least not right now.)



The print is a depiction of Jack and the Beanstalk. Supper cute!


Here is what the queen picked up. No baby in mind, but whoever he or she is will be lucky! Isn't that print so cute!


I have been working on this,



which will be come this. It's Jamison, which I never thought I would like to knit with, but I do. Out of Jamieson's Simply Sheltland 3, which I never would have guessed I liked so well, and I do.



I tried it on at Churchmouse, and it is going to make a supper cute maternity top, that will easily convert to a non-maternity top.



I've also been working on these (as if knitting were not addictive enough.) The yarn is Lamb's Pride's Cotton Fleece. I like this yarn, but it blocks in a strange way, which may just be that I am not used to blocking cotton. The baby blanket (the only one I plan on knitting for ANY of my kids, they will have to share) will be made of a total of 16 miters, making up four blocks, each 14" by 14" (35cm by 35cm) with a border. It will be a "car seat" blanket. It's good to keep knit blankies small.


OK, that's all for now. . . more to come!