Updates

A brief posting to show off what I've been doing lately.

The first is a quilt my sister asked me to make for her first grandchild.  My niece's pet name for her husband is monkey, so I ran with that - monkey wrench block and the middle monkey is holding a monkey wrench. This came together quickly because the baby was a surprise.  Imagine getting a phone call (nearly a year after applying for adoption) that a baby is being born and it is yours if you say yes.  So, the have a brand new son with about 12 hours notice.  He is adorable!

The next is my progress on Scraptitude.  Sandy from "Quilting for the Rest of Us" blog and podcast is sharing a scrap mystery quilt from one of her guild-mates.  I was planning to do something my my ever-growing scrap bag when I saw her blog post and decided a planned project would probably be better than just cutting everything up into 2" squares, which was my original plan.  I've gotten everything cut up and the first set of 4-patches sewn together.  I'm anxiously awaiting step 2 now which is not due for another 2 weeks or so.

I think the project is planned to make a queen-sized quilt.  I'm amazed that all the cut fabrics for a queen-sized top will fit into a single zip-lok bag.

Otherwise, I'm still knitting socks.  This pair will be for my Mother-in-law for Christmas.  My sock enthusiasm is slowing, however.   I started these socks in August and expected them to be done by now.  I like the yarn, the color and the pattern.  I find I'm having to push myself to pick them up to work on them, though.

Lots of other projects occupy my thoughts, but nothing concrete enough to report on yet.  I'm trying to get my head around a sage green, mostly neutral quilt for some friends.  I'm itching to get going on it, but I haven't figured out what pattern I want to do.  I just know I want a pieced project that flows as an over-all design (rather than individual blocks and sashing, for example).  I've been looking over my clippings and quilt books but nothing has really excited me yet.  But, the search is part of the fun.