The motivating factor that finally got me to finish this up was FunQuilts coming to speak to our guild this month. When I saw that on the schedule earlier this year, I figured that was a sign from the universe; it would be great to have this quilt done for show and tell after the lecture. I figured it would be even greater to take one of the classes they were doing that weekend as well, so I took that Friday off so I could be in The Role of Color in Your Quilts session. Given that choosing colors and fabrics is my favorite part of the quiltmaking process, one I’ve read a lot about and taken other classes on and feel pretty confident in my ability to do, I wondered how much I’d get out of this class but figured at the worst I’d get to spend a day thinking about and doing things I liked. I got so much more than ever expected—the class was excellent. I wasn’t sure ahead of time which half of the FunQuilts duo would be giving the class; it turned out to be Bill Kerr (the first thing I learned is that his last name is pronounced “cur” like the first part of “current”, not “care” like the guy I used to work with who had the same last name). Before class started, I had the skiing quilt folded in front of me and was snipping stray thread ends (I’d finished the binding just that morning and hadn’t had a chance to clean it up yet) and wondering when the best time to show it to him would be when he finished a conversation with another student, recognized the pattern from the little section that was visible, and came over to see it. I basked in his comments and then it was time for class to start. The day was a good mix of lecture and hands on explorations, with illustrations from other disciplines in art and design besides quilting, though there were plenty of quilting examples as well. We even got a sneak peek of their new fabric line. I already knew a lot about combining fabrics, but I learned so much more throughout the day. The first exercise involved interpreting a painting in fabric, which was fun if a bit frustrating, but I especially liked the second task in which each student got a pair of prints to combine with other fabrics into a 5 x 5 grid. The pairs of prints were nothing we would have ever picked to go together; I got a green, lime, and brown graphic wavy stripe and a delicate, painterly pink and tan floral. It was very interesting to see what everyone did with their pairs and hear Bill talk through each of the combinations and point out what worked and why. I found the whole experience very energizing. As we were packing up after class, the other half of FunQuilts stopped in and I was fortunate enough to be able to show my quilt to Weeks Ringle as well. I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

I am proud to say I used only fabric from my stash to make my blocks for the swap. The guidelines were pretty flexible; the key one was that the blocks had to read blue. Having started and failed to finish an all-blue quilt before, I knew I’d have to introduce some accent colors to keep myself interested. I found a large scale Kaffe Fassett print that was mostly blue with touches of pink, red-violet, and green and used that as my focus. I complemented it with a royal blue Fairy Frost, three light blue tone-on-tone small scale prints (a dotty/vine-y one, a stripe, and a marble which I wouldn’t have used if I’d had more of the stripe), and a wonderful batik that had blue and turquoise and pink and purple and yellow and green in it. To keep things simple, I chose to do only one block design, an Evening Star variation. That block is one of my favorites, so I’ve made a lot of them over the years and knew I could do a good job with the pieceing. I cut the outside pieces larger than they needed to be to allow for trimming down to size and then I was off and running with the chain piecing, which I fit in all through June in between my trips to Washington and Ohio (where I bought more fabric than I’d used for the swap blocks, sigh).

This swap went much better than the only other one I’ve done (that was back in 2004 with people from one of the LiveJournal quilting communities). I think there was only one dropout of the sixteen people who signed up, as opposed to five of eight in the earlier one. I’m waffling about signing up for the next swap in the group, though. Not only is there the time issue—I’ve got plenty of other projects to do—but this one has slightly more restrictive guidelines. On the one hand, that should result in a more uniform set of blocks that’s easier to make a cohesive quilt from, but on the other, I’m not sure I’ll enjoy being quite that constrained, though maybe it would be a good challenge for me. Like I said, waffling.

And I needed that yarn, because I finished the pair of socks I started back in April when the Yarn Harlot came to town. The yarn is Regia Design Line by Kaffe Fassett, master colorist. Interesting as the colors are, I don’t think I’d use this yarn again; I found it a bit rough to work with. I used the Queen Kahuna book to do the toes (classic side increase style), foot, and short row heel, then used the Roundabout Socks pattern for the cuff, since it met my desire for something a little more interesting than the plain stockinette or ribbing I’ve done but not so complex I would need to keep looking at the pattern. I did mess up the pattern at one point, then messed up the sock even worse trying to fix the error (dropping a bunch of stitches intending to work them back up in pattern was not smart to try while drugged up on Sudafed), but it all worked out okay in the end. Well, mostly okay; I got impatient to be done and skipped the ribbing at the top so my bindoff curls a tiny bit—but that part is hidden under my pants so I can live with it. (On the plus side, I really seem to have gotten over the perfectionism that caused me so much stress when I was younger.)

I used eight colors of KnitPicks Swish (several of which they discontinued while I was working on this project). I made a file in Paint ahead of time and planned out which colors were going to go where, but once I got knitting, I ended up changing things as I went along. By the beginning of May, I had four noodly strips knitted and was ready to block and sew. With the help of this tutorial from Knitty and my trusty Vogue Knitting book, I was able to do a decent job with the mattress stitch joining the strips. I didn’t always get my intersections lined up, but none were too far off. Then I got my longest cable and picked up stitches all around for the border. I hadn’t thought about the border while I was doing the center; it’s only luck that caused me to have one color I hadn’t used in any of the backgrounds on the outside blocks, so I started with that purple and added a couple stripes of other colors before finishing with the purple. This was back on May 24th.

For a short while, I was excited—I’d finished the blanket before the baby was even born—but then I decided I didn’t like the corners. I pulled and poked at them but they insisted on staying an odd pointy shape (which I hadn’t really noticed as I knit since the border was all bunched up on the circular needle). So I ripped the whole border out and redid it with fewer increases at the corners and I was much happier with the finished product. Usually when I finish a baby gift, I take pictures and give it away as soon as I can, but this time I knew I’d have to go to the post office before too long to mail off the quilt blocks for a swap, so I folded up the blanket and stored it away until last week when I finally finished the quilt blocks and go them ready to go. I’m not even sure when exactly I finished it—sometime in the first half of June, I’m pretty sure. At any rate, it’s in Chicagoland now and Miss Annabel is barely a month old, so that’s all good.

I’m not going to do a full-blown goal check-in for June, since there’s not much progress for me to report. On the weighing less front, I lost two pounds, then went to Washington and gained five and a half, came home and lost four and a half of them, went to Ohio and regained four, came home and lost three of those, then had family come to me and gained them back plus a half, two pounds of which I lost again on Monday. I didn’t get around to adding anything to my workout routine, but am pleased that I kept up with my running even when I was away from home (June ended up being a few miles short of my May total, but I am getting faster, so the calories burned went up). I was gone so much and so busy when I was home that I didn’t organize anything, just barely kept up with the mail and stuff. July is looking like it’ll be calmer, so I hope to have good things to report a month from now.