It's 3:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon and all I've managed to do today is make a sandwich for lunch. Well, I did get up, take a shower and go to church. I suppose that's why I'm feeling like I'd really like to take a nap!
We're experiencing some bad air quality because of the wildfires in Canada, according to the weather girls. I guess the smoke from the California fires are stopped by the Rocky Mountains, but the ones in Canada are sending their smoke on the winds generated by high pressure/low pressure systems and the air is murky up high. Well, at least it's blocking the hottest rays of the sun and keeping the temperatures in the 70s.
There is some yarn sitting in a box on my table, airing out. It's some 100% wool yarn I bought to make a sweater but it smells! When I opened the box it was in a plastic bag, and when I opened the bag, whew!! It smelled pretty strong, kind of like petroleum. I left it out in the kitchen for a week, and every time I walked into the room I smelled it. Hubster didn't, even when he held it to his nose!
I wrote a note to customer service where I bought it, and they immediately answered with some suggestions for airing it out. They also offered a replacement or a refund at my pleasure. I laid it in the sun for a day but that really did nothing. I'm taking a refund. I don't have to send the yarn back, but really I'd like to just get it out of the kitchen! Is this what sheep smell like?? LOL!
I knit a swatch with it and washed it to see if that helped. The wet swatch smelled Hor.I.Ble! Nope, washing isn't the solution. And knitting it made my hands smell slightly.
Hubster still cannot smell it. I'm not saying where I got it because the vendor has never disappointed me before and I'm sure they told me the truth when they said they never had this problem before. It's either a bad batch or I'm too sensitive to smells.
Speaking of knitting, I'm making a sweater for my middle granddaughter. It's on small needles and in DK weight yarn so it's taking some time. Wednesday night I discovered a booboo and had to tink (knit backwards) about 8 rows, which took me up before the point where you split for the sleeves. It was over 2,100 stitches! I was crying the blues... literally!
See those places in the center where the Vee pattern appears? I missed a couple and since it's the center front, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. So rippit, rippit! Sad, it's so sad when that happens!
Quilting is going well for the most part. I'm working on two things, one is the bonus half square triangles left over from the mystery quilt from February. They're finally being made into flying geese for a second quilt.
These are the bonus half-square triangles... navy and white. I pressed the seams to the dark side, now I'm re-pressing them open, because they go better at the goose points that way. I wish I'd decided which bonus quilt to do earlier, and pressed them open originally!
I think my points look pretty good, in spite of the extra pressing! Four hsts make two geese, which when sewn togehter make a 6 1/2 inch block. I need 32 blocks. For you math wizards, that's 128 hst units!
This could take a while.
The other project I'm working on is Pat Sloan's Traffic Jam. You take all of your 2 1/2 inch scraps and make this block:
I auditioned two different greens for the background. I'm kind of liking this second selection, and I have enough to do green cornerstones with black sashing. This is also a long term project.
Hubby decided he was bored looking at my Escher quilt hanging on the stairs, so we 'redecorated'... I hung Twisted Bargello, a wall quilt I made 8 or 10 years ago. The making of this quilt was a pain. I called it the Bargello From Hell. The pattern had you making sections and taking some out, reversing the order, all sorts of foolishness, to make this twist in the center. The family quilt group did it at a retreat. I may have been the second to last person in the group to finish.
I think it looks pretty good on the wall! With a distance of 10 years from the construction process, I can like it again. It goes really well with my living room!
