the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad quilt

I finished my snails quilt!  But I had more struggles with it than any I've done before.

The piecing itself was more difficult because of a few really tiny pieces. They frequently got sucked into the needle plate and I was ready to pull my hair out by the last snail!  When I was ready to sandwich the layers together, I laid strips of leftover batting down instead of buying a new sheet of it. I was nearly out of adhesive spray but was determined to complete this step, so the various layers only got a light misting instead of a heavy dousing.  It seemed to work, but once I started quilting, the layers separated as I constantly rotated the quilt and shoved it through the small throat space of the machine.  Unbeknownst to me, the back became detached and started to wrinkle and bunch, and soon that extra fabric caught up in my concentric spiral stitching.

So you can see that because of the pleating, the quilt backing no longer reached the edge of the quilt.  I could either pick out all that stitching (NEVER) or sew new strips of fabric along the edge.  I chose the latter option and did a contrasting color to make it feel more deliberate.  It was a ton of work but now I can say...it's done.  In the end, the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad quilt turned out all right!

Here's the spiral design!

I've already started another quilt!  It's a sampler quilt, so every block is different.  It's definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone!

I had forgotten to post this baby cardigan I'd knitted for a friend's daughter.  I am a total convert to lining baby cardigans now.  It only takes a little while to whip stitch a soft piece of cotton fabric to the inside!

I also started a pair of Halloween socks.  I had this yarn from years ago and wasn't sure what to do with it, so I thought, I'll just add skulls!

But alas, I forgot my cardinal rule to never knit light-against-dark designs where I have to catch and carry the dark yarn behind the light.  It ALWAYS shows through on socks because they're stretched, although you might be able to get away with it on a hat or looser sweater.  I ended up frogging this sock and starting another!  Hopefully I'll be able to show an entire sock next week.

Lots of wildlife to be seen around the house this week.  Our cats keep us informed about new arrivals.

Here a titmouse tidies up in the gardenia tree outside my office window.

A Ceratonia undulosa - a waved Sphinx moth - rests on one of our screens.  They're nocturnal and so never active during the day.

More empty webs around the yard.

Male spiders abandon their webs in the fall to go hunting for mates, but female spiders only abandon the web if it proves to be in an unfruitful location.  I haven't seen the female garden spider in the top web for at least a week, so that must be the case for her!

Although we'll be in the mid-90s through the week, we're supposed to hit the upper 70s by Sunday. I'm so excited for fall weather to really start!

Have a great week!

Dracula makes a pre-Halloween visit to the Upstate

The hurricane in Florida didn't cause more than a heavy rainstorm here in the Upstate, but it ushered in a brief period of blissfully cool weather.  Just enough to get a few leaves to start changing...

...a few days of heavy dew...

...and a certain fall-loving girl very, very excited!  Thankfully we didn't have any real damage from the wind and rain, mainly minor leaf debris.

Once the storm had passed, I went into action.  I switched out my summer fabrics in the living room, took down the "summer" fireplace mantel and put up the fall-themed one, and gathered tons of acorns to make some fall centerpieces.

I put away my summer clothes, pulled out the flannel sheets and blankets and started washing...and it was back to 88 degrees within 3 days, with no end in sight.  ARGH!

On the positive side, we've still got some late-season flowers blooming here.

Some absolutely gorgeous spider webs, mostly occupied.

Lots of activity.  Our anoles are still out and about.

Look at the back of this leaf hopper.  Do you see a face too?  Perhaps a horned devil?  Maybe I've been reading too many books!  I've had trouble finding much information about this, other than a few vague references to it being a "Dracula" leafhopper, because of the face in the "coffin" of wings and the fact that it's a sucking insect...although it sucks sap, not blood.

Typical for the fall, we see the deer every night.

And our solitary beaver has taken a wife!

They're very active at dusk, nibbling on the green shoots and branches at the pond's edge.

This is, of course, one of the busiest times for squirrels, too.

I'm going to take comfort in these signs of fall and try to be patient for cooler weather.  Have a great week!

Knitted sweater and better weather!

I have curtailed my baking quite a bit, but one of my favorite baking websites is Sally's Baking Addiction.  She has a monthly baking challenge that I just started participating in, and I love it!  The September challenge:  piping sunflower cupcakes.  I bought my ingredients and set aside some time, only to discover that I didn't have the right leaf tip needed to pipe the cupcake petals.  ARGH!  I substituted a different tip, but between the incorrect tip and the near-90s temps, my petals were a little droopy.

Todd's office still liked them!

I also made one of my old standbys, half chocolate chip and half chocolate cookies.

And now that it's basically PUMPKIN SEASON (despite the forecast of, you guessed it, near 90s again by the end of the week), I'll be baking a lot more.  Next up, oversize pumpkin muffins with crumb topping and browned butter oatmeal pumpkin cookies with cinnamon chips.  Hooray for my favorite season!

Despite my sore fingers, I'm knitting on.  I started knitting a pair of gloves, but chose a yarn that contained silk.  Silk doesn't have any "give" (like cotton) and kills my fingers.  So I quit halfway through...

...and re-knitted in green wool.  I knitted the right glove in the Portuguese style, but my fingers hurt so much by the end that I used my old "clutch and throw" method for the left glove.  As you can see, it's significantly smaller, but fits so much better.  The right glove is a bit too big but will work (I'm thinking about layering with those small, tight gloves from Target).  I blocked the left glove after this picture was taken to make it a little bit bigger, so the difference is less noticeable.  Layering gloves will be fine because my hands are always so cold!

I also finished my sweater...hooray!  I knitted it to be two sizes smaller than I am currently, but since I knitted it in the Portuguese style, I think it's only one size too small.

I had a friend at the gym model it (she's a size S/M) so that I could at least see how the neck laid on the shoulders.  Taking into account both poor lighting and a poor fit on my model - I love it!  It's all blocked and waiting for cooler weather.

I have been working on my Snails quilt, but very slowly.  Our cats are very pleased with this development.  If I leave a piece of fabric out too long, a cat will claim it.

The same goes for quilts.  My Snails quilt has been in the machine so long that the cats think I've really been making them a giant bed.

I've finally had to admit to myself that while I love choosing and cutting fabric and love the actual piecing of a quilt, I despise the actual quilting of it.  I've practiced and practiced...

...but despite the addition of a quilting table, special gloves, and a slippery surface to quilt on, I stink. For my Snails quilt, I chose to quilt a giant concentric circle.  I thought it would be really easy.  But you're constantly rotating the quilt, shoving it through the tiny throat space again and again...such a pain.  Also, when quilting concentric circles, you have to stop and start (when adjusting fabric) every few inches or so.  When you start quilting again, your needle jumps, leaving an obvious jag in the line.

I was ready to pull my hair out, but thankfully someone advised me to "pool" the fabric around the needle before starting to stitch again, and that does minimize the jag.  Todd suggested that I bite the bullet and pay someone to do my quilting - it costs around $130 - but so far I'm stubbornly sticking to it.  I'm forcing myself to put in 30 minutes a day and hopefully it will be done within a couple of weeks!

Speaking of cutting up fabric, I got a package of fabric scraps through the Random Acts of Kindness forum on Ravelry.  I *love* receiving random scraps of fabric.  I took a couple of hours on Saturday and cut them up into common fabric sizes:  2", 2.5", 3", 3.5", 4", and 5".  I also have 1.5", 2", and 2.5" strips.

I would probably never purchase, say, watermelon-print fabric...but it's going to be so fun to use in a scrap quilt!

We're slowly sliding into fall in South Carolina.  Cooler evenings mean Scrabble time by the pond.

Todd is finally able to do some home improvement projects in comfort, like digging a water-diverting trench around the house.

Here's hoping for more cooler days ahead - SOON.  Have a great week!