Getting Back to Normal

That's not quite the right post title, but I'm not feeling creative. :-)

My parents and Karen left yesterday to go back up to Illinois. My parents will fly back home on Saturday morning.

The day after Christmas Karen and my Mom helped me to dye up a pound and a half of the Finn top that Karen gave me for Christmas (see previous post).

Here's the finished stuff:




I wanted a bit of variation among the braids so I'm pleased with the differences.

I can't wait to get started spinning it up, but I have some quilts that need to be finished first. My dear friend Kathy sent some tops to be done by mid-January and I desperately need to get my Mom's quilt finished that I've had for more than a year. (What's that saying about a landscaper's yard that looks horrible, or a plumber's house that has leaky plumbing? Yeah.)

Speaking of quilting, my Mom got me this ruler set to make a Storm At Sea quilt. I'm very excited about it as I've wanted to make one of these quilts for years but I didn't like the methods I knew of to make it. I think this template set is going to make a huge difference in the ease of piecing it.

Here's an idea of my plan:

It's going to be huge—just under king size, at around 95" x 104". We like wide quilts on the bed, but they don't need to be too long since we have a big foot board.

I'll use lots of different blues but I'm thinking I'll keep the background in just plain white. We'll see though. I haven't done the calculations to figure out how much white I need, and I might go with a white-on-white print rather than plain white.

The layout with the border above is from the book that goes with the templates, and it's a great book. The author really plays with the layout and has some really different and fabulous ideas.
That's about all from around here. I'm going to attempt to get thank-you notes out today, as well as some of the Christmas stuff put away. It's almost noon, though, and I haven't showered yet. (Not an auspicious start for getting a lot done today! LOL!)

I hope you're all having a great week so far, and staying warm.