Sunday, March 8, 2009

Borders

LOTS of progress on Rylee's blanket this week. I finished weaving all the ends in late Tuesday night; I did nothing but ends at Knit Night, and then I took the blanket in to work and wove in ends during my lunch hour, and again while we watched TV Tuesday evening, staying up a little late because I was so close. I finished the upper and lower borders yesterday and attached them. Now I have just finished picking up 260 stitches for one side border and I intend to have all the knitting and sewing in of ends done today. Then I'll need to do some blocking of the edges, and the blanket will be ready about a week and a half early! So there hasn't been much progress on Sofia's blanket this week, but I think I'm still in a good place with it.

Major progress was made yesterday in the constant Struggle Against Laundry. It was a wonderful preview of spring -- 72F, sunny and windy -- and I was able to hang clothes on the line outside, allowing me to do three loads in a day for the first time probably since September.

Pat is away this week. He and a couple of friends are taking a Spring Break trip all the way to Arizona to visit another friend who moved there not long ago. So yesterday when it was so nice outside, I walked to three different libraries in town and borrowed a bunch of books to keep me entertained this week. I've been hanging out in the Sun Room reading, knitting, and listening to podcasts. Now if only I could take the week off of work, too, and do this all week long.

Also with Pat away, I'll probably be spending more time at my mom's and I intend to borrow her camera to get pictures of the blankets. I may need to help her figure out how to get the pictures off her camera, but I'll get some pictures for the blog soon.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Ends and Strips, Farms and Freedom

I continue to be bogged down in weaving the ends in on Rylee's blanket. I'm still less than half done. We are now in the same month as the little guy's birthday, and I still need to do all these ends and make and attach the boarders - and then do THOSE ends.

I'm about half done with the fifth strip on Sofia's blanket. Each of the four borders on that blanket will be at least as much work as one of the strips. The pattern calls for five strips, but once I've got them done, I'm going to lay them all out and see if I want to make one or two more. I'm starting to think I probably won't, though.

I made a lot of progress on the Sofia blanket yesterday; I attended an all-afternoon conference about the future of farming. It was organized by an alumnus from my college, and was a really good experience. I got to meet a young hay farmer who's attending K-State, which was cool because my parents used to be hay farmers and my uncle teaches at K-State (Go Wildcats). I think John did a really good job with the conference. Then in the evening I attended a staged reading of a new play being directed by one of the faculty in my department. It's about Freedom Summer, and if the reading (three days after it was cast) was that good, I can't wait to see the full play in October! So I knit through both of those events and got quite a lot done.

Today I have to create lots of time for end-weaving. My mom and step-dad are out of town for a few days and Pat has agreed to steam clean their carpet while they are away. So I'll go over there with him this afternoon, set myself up in their Sunroom and watch the Major League Baseball Channel with my tapestry needle and scissors. That should help!