FEBRUARY FINISHES

Ok - don't faint - I'm on a roll with finishes lately.  First up - in our local chapter of EGA - it has become an important directive that we all have nametags to wear at EGA sponsored events and at our monthly meeting.  We are all extremely excited to be hosting Ellen Chester of With My Needle  later this month for the Ladys Worke Box project.  We have 17 lovely ladies coming for class and 3 are from out of state and 4 from other parts of Florida who are plural members of our local chapter.  I can't wait to show you photos from our fun day with Ellen.  Want to come and join the fun ???  We might could squeeze in one more person.

So in preparation for this and other upcoming events - I got myself busy and designed a nametag. This design is by Sheri Jones, Patricks Woods. The lovely scissor fob and nametag chain was designed especially for me by DF and fellow chapter member and beader extraordinaire Becky. She knows I adore green and she made the fob first and then I begged for a design that would have little clamps to hold this or any future nametag. I think she did a smashing job. The fob looks so cute with my bunny scissors.

Friday night I was on a mission to finish up the nametag - I set about doing the actual finishing - I am gaining confidence with some simple finishing lately.  However when it got to the trim - shoot - I didn't have anything at all that would cover up my messy edges.  I really really needed to have this finished so I could wear it to our Stitch in Public event on Saturday morning at the local quilt shop.

So I happened to remember this gorgeous yarn I had that I thought might work out.  I found it pretty quickly and while it looked pretty good color and texture wise  it was too flimsy for edging.  With necessity being the mother of invention - I tried fiddling around with it and ended up crocheting a chain and then tacking on the crocheted chain for the edge trim.  VIOLA!!!!!!!!!

I rooted around in stash and found some BBD fabic that I thought looked pretty good and thus the nametag was complete. 

Here is a shot of me wearing my newest knitted finish - the Eustacia cowl by Shibui.  For any knitters out there it was made with 2 strands of Shibui Silk cloud held with one strand of the lucious Shibui Stacatto.  There is a cardigan in my RAV que made with this same combination of yarns that I am really coveting.  BTW - I attribute that double chin thing going on to the fact that I was looking down at the screen on the IPhone LOL 

A lovely new start - Color Affection shawl - A wildly popular design that thousands on RAV have made.  I have stayed away from this design because it was just agony trying to pick 3 colors that I thought complimented each other.  I started with Madeline Tosh Well Water - the pinkish one is Dahlia and the tiny dark ball is Black Currant and this is MT sock.  I had to reward myself with a new start since I had a finish.

Last weekend I attended the Olde Green Cupboard retreat which was held on Kingsley Lake at the Camp Blanding National Guard facility.  Kingsley is a beautiful lake - it is actually very near the lake where my parents live.  I spent many a happy day on Kingsley lake as a teenager.

Heres a shot of the main room where 180 quilters had 3 - 5 happy days sewing, laughing and also taking classes with two national teachers.

There were 7 of us there hooking.  The sunsets on the lake were gorgeous and lots of people ran out every day to take photos and see the sun setting on another beautiful day.

Being around all those quilters and then being in the LQS yesterday left me in a weakened state.  I succumbed to a small purchase yesterday.  There were some Moda booklets called Candy Store or something like that.  They had tiny 2.5" squares in the display which are used for projects in the booklet.  OK - so I'm a sucker for sheep.  One of the designs looked like it should be easy enough - 12" x 12" with a cute little appliqued wool sheep - right up my alley - right?  So maybe next year at Camp Blanding - I will be quilting too - HOPE NOT but I am going to be brave and try this tiny project and we'll see where it leads.

I am hoping February will contain a flurry of finishes for me.  I finished ANOTHER design yesterday but I will save it for a future post hoping that I can find a suitable trim for it and get the actual finishing done on it too.    We are having wonderful cool weather here in NE FL - in the 30's at night which I just adore.  Love to be able to wear my hand knits - it's also makes for perfect hooking and knitting weather.

Hope you are having a FABulous February so far - thanks for visiting my blog - I love each and every comment.