It’s snowing here … a lot.  We’re supposed to get somewhere between 12 and 16 inches over the next 24 hours.  I’d guess we have about 8 inches now and it’s getting after it.  The thing about snow in Wyoming, especially in Laramie, is that it’s usually accompanied by wind.  Lots of wind.  But today the snow is falling straight down - that’s when we get a lot.  All the roads in and out of town are closed, so I’ll have to get special permission to drive on the closed highway to get home tonight.  I do so love winter in Wyoming.

Last weekend was amazingly productive.  And by weekend, I mean Sunday.  Saturday was busy with working at the quilt store and going to a fancy black tie dinner thingy for work.  The hubby looks fabulous in a tux, but otherwise it was your run of the mill black tie affair.  I’m really getting jaded in my old age.

On Sunday we did some errands in town and then I came home and sewed most of the day while I was doing those lovely household chores like laundry and cooking.  I worked a bit on my Christmas Celebration - I’m still piecing those spikey things, but it’s coming along.  Then I spent some time working on a project that will be on-going until sometime in February.  I joined a group at the quilt store - Club 72 - and there are different projects associated with being in the club.  Right now the project is called Tea Time.  It’s a queen size quilt that you get one kit for each month.  So far it hasn’t been hard, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get much more complicated.

After working on the tree skirt, I needed something kind of mindless, and this totally fit the bill.  These fabrics aren’t necessarily going to work in my house, but I have someone in mind to give this to when it’s finished.

Part of me loves the idea of having just a little bit every month that I have to do and then having a gift when it’s all said and done.  It makes me feel productive and organized, even though we know that isn’t true.

And since we’re talking about productivity, it’s time for a confession.  I have a hat on the needles - Jared’s Turn a Square - and I have about 4 rounds left and it will be done.  I haven’t picked it up all week.  Why?  I love the yarn and the pattern, but I’ve just been completely unproductive.  Maybe tonight.  There’s nothing like a good snow storm to make me crave my knitting.  I’ll let you know.

As I mentioned last week, I took a paper piecing class at the quilt store last Friday evening and all day Saturday.  The pattern is a Judy Niemeyer pattern and holy cow, you can’t believe the detail!  It took me three hours just to cut out the fabric - with supervision.  I didn’t have to figure out what to cut, it took that long just to do what I was told!  The pattern we did is called Christmas Celebration and is a tree skirt or a table topper.

Here is the sample the woman teaching the class made - just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about here.

I chose to make the tree skirt and I wanted mine to look pretty much like the sample.  The pattern uses batiks and has directions for piecing everything - the background, the large triangles … the whole kit and kaboodle.  I just couldn’t handle that much piecing, and I really like the way this one looks, so I did the minimalist version.

This was my first experience paper piecing, and I was a little nervous about what I’d gotten myself into.  In fact, when we were cutting I was seriously thinking I’d bitten off way more than I could chew, eyes bigger than stomach, crazy as a pet coon … the list goes on and on.  I found out that paper piecing isn’t hard, but it is time consuming and requires you to be very detail oriented.  Which isn’t so much a problem for me.  I’m sure that doesn’t surprise any of you.  We started by doing the flying geese.  For those of you non-quilters out there, the geese are the little triangles that go around in about the middle of the skirt. We got one section of geese done in the class, and here’s what mine look like …

The benefits of paper piecing include perfect points and it allows you to make your geese go in something other than a straight line.  So, aside from the time it takes to be exact, it wasn’t bad.

After the geese, we moved to something I thought was a bit easier - the spikes on the outside of the skirt (they’re plaid in the sample).

The tree skirt is put together in 8 “wedges” and in each wedge you have a right and a left spike segment.

We finished one of each on Saturday.  On Sunday I worked on the pattern a bit more and thought that since the spikes were the easiest, I’d start there.  I completed three more sets on my own and in the process cemented the paper piecing steps in my head … I hope.

The last part of the class was reserved for the center.  The center of each of the 8 wedges is done in two parts.  These were by far the most difficult, just because of the long spikes and the somewhat less than logical assembly.  However, everything ended up going together well.

We are meeting as a group again in mid-November to learn how to assemble the pieces into the wedges and then put those together.  Apparently, there are some tricks to it.  My goal is to have all of the pieces done by the time we meet so I can put it together and have it quilted before mid-December when I put my tree up.  I don’t know if I can do it, but I’m going to try.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister called me and said she wanted to learn to knit, which was slightly amusing because she’s always been somewhat derisive about my knitting hobby (obsession?).  But, I’m all for someone changing her mind, especially when it has to do with knitting.  The prospect of teaching her to knit was complicated slightly by the fact that she lives in Texas.  There would be no sitting down with a cup of coffee and a slice of cake and having a sisterly stitch and bitch.  But, with the benefits of web chatting and online videos, I was confident that it could be done.  I went down to the LYS and picked out some chunky yarn that I thought she’d like and would be fun to knit a scarf with.

The yarn is Araucania Limari in color 554 and I picked up some Clover size 13 needles to go with it.  Originally, I wanted a worsted or aran weight, but I couldn’t find anything I thought she’d like, so I went with the chunky yarn and the larger needles.  I sent her the yarn, needles, and my Stitch n Bitch book.  Like many books in my collection, it was perfect for me when I bought it, but I’ve outgrown it.  I love that I could pass it on to my sister and that she’ll get a lot of use out of it too.  I also sent her an e-mail with a link to knittinghelp.com because I thought the videos would be helpful since I wasn’t there to show her how to do everything and the closest yarn store is more than a half an hour away.

I sent the yarn and Stacy and I made plans to video chat on that Saturday morning so we could go over the basics of casting on and knitting.  The yarn arrived at her house on Friday and an hour after she’d unpacked the box she had figured out how to cast on and how to knit by just using the book and the videos.  She’s a natural!  I was so impressed with her.  She said it wasn’t even that hard to figure it out.  We still had our video chat on Saturday and by the time we were done she had about 12 inches of her garter stitch scarf done.

It took her just over a week to finish both balls of yarn and bind off.  Now she needs to weave in the ends and she’s ready for her next project.

She’s decided on a hat she saw on Knit Picks.  I helped her buy the yarn, book, and needles this morning and I’ll help her get started - but she’ll probably have it figured out before we even get together, knowing her.

I’m so excited that my sister is knitting and that she’s enjoying it.  She works nights and she says it’s a great way to unwind when she gets home from work.  I love that this is something we can share and that we have in common.  I’m hoping to get her on Ravelry, but if not, I’ll keep you posted on her progress.

I seem to have real issues being committed to this blog.  The thing is, I want to be committed.  I want a great blog.  I want to be connected to all of my great blog friends.  So, what’s the problem?  Maybe it’s because I haven’t felt like I had a lot of crafty stuff to share, or maybe I’m just lazy.  Whatever the reasons (or excuses), I’m going to try again to be dedicated to this blog and to all of you.

Despite the layoff this summer, I am employed again at the university - in a slightly different role, but still fundraising.  I have a new office and new co-workers, but all in all, things are good.  It’s been a few months and I’m starting to settle in and get my feet back under me.  About two weeks after I started my new job, I found out I had kidney stones … in both kidneys.  I had to have two surgeries - they were both outpatient (they blasted the little suckers with shock waves), but it still required two bouts of general anesthesia.  Not fun.  It took me quite awhile to feel “normal,” but I think I’m there.  I have to change my diet a bit - avoid those foods that are high in oxalates (or at least consume them in moderation) and much to my dismay, black tea is one of the things I’ve chosen to eliminate.  I’m trying to find some herbal teas that I like and I’ve been drinking a little bit of coffee (disguised in a lot of milk and sugar).  Does anyone else think it’s strange that coffee is ok and tea isn’t?  I’m also trying to drink the recommended 12 glasses of water a day.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to drink that much water?  It’s a major commitment - I promise you that.

I managed to do a lot of crafting this summer - mostly quilting.  I made a queen size quilt for my guest room and gained a lot of confidence through the process.  I painted the guest room a dark slate blue and the bedding I had just didn’t work.  I’d had that particular bedding since college, and quite frankly it was time for a change anyway.  The pattern I chose was the Mixtape Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman.  It’s a great pattern, but the fabric requirement and the cutting directions for the sashing fabric for the queen size were incorrect.  It didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but I just had to seam the pieces to make it work.  Now that it’s quilted though, you really can’t tell.

I used a lot of asian-inspired fabrics which make the finished product kind of modern, but I think the white sashing makes it just traditional enough to fit into my house, plus it really helps brighten up the room.  I chose a greenish-yellow floral backing fabric and I picked it mostly because it’s some of that extra-wide backing fabric, so I didn’t have to seam it.  I’m lazy, but I think it works with the green colors in the blocks.

Now I need to get some nice sheets, a white bedskirt (finding a 21″ drop is a huge pain - any suggestions you have would really be appreciated), and some pillow shams.  I think I’ll use some of the scraps I have left over to make a couple of accent pillows to try to tie things together.  Re-decorating a room sure is expensive!

In the quilting arena, I’ve also made a cute lap quilt using some really funky Christmas prints - it’s at the quilter’s right now, but more on that to come.  I’m signed up for a paper piecing class this weekend - I’m going to learn how to paper piece and get a great Christmas tree skirt out of the deal (well, if all goes well it will be great, although it could just as easily be a bloody disaster).  I’ll let you know how it goes and since I’m trying to get back into this blogging business, I’ll take my camera and try to get some in-progress shots.

I’ve been teaching a few knitting classes (socks and hats mostly) and have a great sock in progress.

That reminds me, I’m not going to have enough yarn and I need to see if kpixie has any left (or even something close).  I e-mailed kpixie to see if might on the off chance have a single skein hanging out in their inventory, but I doubt I could be that lucky.  It seems like this always happens to me when I have the perfect yarn and a great pattern.

Ah well, if worse comes to worse the toes will be something wild and crazy.  It won’t be the end of the world.  If I have to go with a different color, what color do you think I should use for the toes?