Monday update

The last couple of days were spent outdoors, so not much going on on the craft side of things. Nevertheless I started another sock - even though it is not yet Socktober...

They will probably be called dragon socks due to the greenish color and the display... The yarn is great and size 3.25 needles get the sock(s) growing fast enough. It is a called Aqua Jacquards and I like how the colored wool pattern shows . It makes simple socks so much more interesting without any complicated pattern and counting of stitches. So they will be added to the list of socks to be completed in October. I had looked at one of my lonely socks, but somehow the starting of yarn didn't match up as in the 1st sock, so I am somewhat irritated and have to look for the perfect spot to start my 2nd sock.

As for my wheel of love, I checked a couple of pinkish fabrics as a background, but they didn't do it for me. So it's back to plan "A" and the background will be white. Maybe I will add a row of 2 - 2.5 inch squares around the wheel of the leftover fabric "Love is in the Air" that wasn't used for the wedges.

And one more photo for tonight: I saw the online version of Quilter's Magazine and they had a preview of the Christmas Mystery by Bonnie Hunter. So here is the current lay-out with a few more red squares still missing ( all the outside squares will be red).

I hope you had a decent start into your week.
Barb

Annual Fall Bike Ride

Despite a greyish rainy looking day, I was on my bike at 7:45am to meet the Friends of Clinton River Trail for a breakfast before their Annual Fall Bike Ride. At that time of day there weren't many people on Paint Creek Trail or Clinton River Trail and it was a nice 8 mile ride. After breakfast in the park I decided to go further West and meet up with the West Bloomfield trail - where I had never been before. It included some "urban riding" through Pontiac, but ultimately was well worth it.

Of course we also got a lot of goodies from different sponsors. So it was a perfect Saturday morning even with drizzle rain.





And still in the spirit of Socktoberfest, I finished the toe of lonely sock # 1. Not yet quite sure how to do the final few stitches, so you can still see the needles in the project.

1 step further

Today I completed another step: the wedges of my Wheel of Love have been sewn into quarter wheels. I needed some extra motivation, but finally got it done. If you look at them this way, it reminds me of a stack of pleated skirts:

or maybe even a Christmas tree:

On a different note I was still looking into another Active Charity Event for this weekend and came across the "Fall Classic Ride" by The Friends of Clinton River Trail. It sounded good to me and I can get to the meeting point by bike as well. And I like to support local activities.

So on Saturday morning I will be biking around 30 miles in my greater neighborhood, hopefully in good or at least reasonable weather.
I hope you will fit some outdoor time in your week or weekend as well.

Barb

Wheel wedges

After a one day blogging break I have at least a bit of sewing to show for.

I finally liked my color placement for the "Wheel of love" and labeled all 52 wedges. Not necessarily one of my favorite things to do, especially crawling around on my design floor.

Since I cut the wedges from a layer cake, and used the straight edge for an outside edge, I am not cutting on a true grain line. Ultimately that is fine for me (though the Quilt police may think differently), but that also means I have to square off the small ends of the wedges.

I mainly did this on the inside curve of the wheel, so my outside curve has a choppy edge.

And I finished sewing one quarter of the wheel, yeah. Only 3 more to go!

On a different note I had another Paint Creek walk and the temperatures are - after a rainy & cool spell - summer like. I seem to remember last year we had to turn on the furnace in September. So right now every day without turning it on, is one day less with a heating bill. Nice - I like it! Let's see if we can make it into October!

Barb

Somehow I ended up with a page break and can't get rid of it. One of the mystery of Html publishing...

Friday

I played around some more with my color wheel - and one thing is for sure: I have to rename it. Taking in consideration the pattern "Color Wheel" and the fabric line "Love is in the Air" and I came up with "Wheel of Love". Maybe that is cheesy or kitsch, but I think it fits!

Here is my latest arrangement and I like it much better than the first attempt.

What do you say? Do you like this color placement? I am open for suggestions.
I am imagining my "Wheel of Love" with a whitish background fabric, maybe with small little dots in pink, brown, red and green. Hmm, we'll see if I find something that will fit. Meantime I will continue looking at it and waiting if this set-up "speaks" to me or if I need to make some more adjustments.


And just because it is Friday, here is another quilt top named "Scotties Quilt". This was a first quilt for me with cutting the fabric according to the print (I forgot the English word/ expression for this). It sounded easy, but ended up being quite time consuming and not very accurate. The fabric print was not consistent in height and length which made it a challenge to get the blocks squared up and sewn together. On top of that it was "printed on bias" which didn't help at all.

And a close up:

Now comes the - for me - scary part of putting it on my frame and quilting it. So far I have mainly done exercises on "ugly" fabric and feel quite intimidated of using a REAL QUILT. Help! In order to push myself, it has already an owner who has seen preliminary pictures - so procrastination is not an option, at least not for too much longer.

As for exercising: I already did a 1 hour walk on Paint Creek Trail. It felt good, especially after yesterday's weight lifting.

I hope you all had a great week - and an even better weekend ahead.

Barb