I just finished these socks this morning. I think I've knitted over a dozen pair of socks, mostly for myself, but some were for my DIL and 2 DGSs. I learned how from a lady at church and it is getting easier with each pair.
My LQS has a couple special ways to keep you coming back. For one thing, they have a punch card (actually a key ring with a plastic punch card on it). When it is all punched, you get $25 of free fabric. I finally finished a punch card. The reason it took me so long is that sometimes I forgot it and I had to start a new one. You can't combine them. Also, you don't get punches for anything on sale, and since I buy mostly from the sale bolts in the basement, it takes a lot longer to get one card all punched. This is my first one and I have lived here 4 years!
The second thing that they do is give you 25% off the week of your birthday and you can use the $25 card to pay for it. Since my birthday was Tuesday, I planned my shopping trip for Wednesday morning. My DS#1 gave me a gift certificate of $1 for each year of my life and combined with the $25, I had a nice round number to spend!
I saw the table runner pattern for Nordic Stars in the November/December 2017 of McCalls Quilting Magazine and used part of my $ to buy fabric for it. I took 2 pictures and neither one turned out very good, but I'm including both of them so that maybe you can get the idea of what it looks like. The pattern looks easy, but it was kind of hard to get everything lined up just right.
There are 4 shades of blue and a white background.
Here are some of the other items I bought on my shopping trip. A new ruler by Creative Grids. I had read good things about these rulers, so I thought I would try one. So far, I really like it.
I bought 2 different white on white fabrics that maybe you can see if you enlarge this picture. I used the bottom one with the snowflakes for the background of the table runner. I didn't have much good white fabric, so I hope this will last a while.
I also got a couple different red fabrics as you can never have too much. I should have enough fabric to last a while, but you never know when you will need a particular color for something, as well as fabrics for backings, etc. Even though I keep sewing all the time using up fabric, it doesn't seem to decrease much.
I entered my Dear Jane quilt in the Yamhill County Fair and got a 3rd place ribbon. I will also be entering it into the Oregon State Fair soon.
This weekend is the 2nd weekend that I will be a vendor at the Powerland Steam Up Quilt Show. Powerland is a place of interest mostly to men, but to give the ladies something to do while the hubbies are busy looking at all the antique steam engine tractors, etc., they started a quilt show several years ago. This is my second year as a vendor there. If you are near Brooks, OR, this would be a good weekend to attend because the weather is supposed to be very pleasant. The quilt show is in the air-conditioned Truck Museum.
Hope you have a quilty weekend!
