Tornados, Quilt Stores, and Baby Caps

OK.  What do all these three have in common?  During my recent visit to my daughter in Oklahoma City we heard tornado sirens go off nearby, we visited quilt stores between storm threats, and I knitted baby caps during the threats... that's what! The closest a tornado came to us was about 15 miles, in Norman, but seeing the path and progress detailed on the news and hearing those sirens made it so real.  It was nothing like the earthquake events I am accustomed to in California.  Here you do not have to live the stress- boom it just hits and there you are, you deal. In OK it is like pulling off a bandaid s-l-o-w-l-y.

I took a picture of this blue-toned quilt offered as a class at Quilters' Corner in Oklahoma City.  Since it is a variation design by the owner (and since we viewed it between tornados) maybe it should be called Storm at (OK)C.  While there I dropped off my Baby Heart Strings quilt and Doll quilt with  Mary Ann to be free motion quilted.  I picked up a few rainbow fat quarters, also, but have no pix to show of these.

About those baby caps... My daughter-in-law innocently asked me if I could make a hat just by looking at a picture.  I took it as a challenge and googled a free pattern from the internet and adjusted it. ( Hmmm, is that cheating on the self-challenge to have used a pattern?) Since I have no mini-human models for the caps, here they are worn by inanimate objects. This is a football cap for a friend of my daughter-in law, modeled by a ball of yarn. To the left of it is the picture I used for inspiration.  I started it on the plane flight out from California to Oklahoma and finished it at my daughter's house during the severe thunder storms and- oh, yes- hail. Isn't there some football song associated with "Hail to the Chief"? Bad joke. Sorry. This link was very helpful in determining sizes of clothing and I used it to establish the gage I needed for the size I wanted to end up with, using the yarn I bought purely for the right color brown. 

I found this luscious fall-evoking colored yarn in Michael's Craft Store and so wanted to see how it worked up on a small scale project. I knitted another hat on the plane ride home. Again, since I have no mini-human I used one of the bunnies I had not yet put away from Easter to model the cap.  The  bottom brim of his hat is just rolled up stockinette stitch but for interest I added a ribbed inset to look like a hatband.  The pom pom was made using my 30+ year old Susan Bates plastic pom-pom maker.  I amazed myself that I could still find it!   

A close-up of the yarn shows a rich teal mixed in with the customary fall colors of gold, orange, and olive.   

I googled the pom pom maker to see if they still existed and was surprised to see they are virtually unchanged in over 30 years.  Mine has the same colors in a different order- pink, white, blue from innermost ring to outermost ring.  It is also extremely scuffed up from all the times I inserted the points of scissor between the discs to cut the yarn.  But, ya know, it still feels like an old friend.

 Completed projects:

1. Football knit cap
2. Fall knit baby cap

Ongoing projects:

1. Doll quilt -off to free-motion quilter
2. Pink/lilac/green baby quilt -off to free-motion quilter

No progress :

1. Chicken quilt - made binding, picked backing- think I want to free motion this myself
2. Pumpkin/Iris/Blossom square wall hanging- needs backing, but made binding

I want to start:

• Presents with Bows quilt kit
• The Ghastlies- strip quilt
• Rubber Duckies strip quilt

UFOs I want to ignore for a while:

• Hexagon Mask Quilt - layout begun but overwhelming
• Fire and Ice Quilt- sitting in closet awaiting decision on backing
• Grinch Quilt - ripening on the design wall

This week's stats:
      Completed  projects - 2 
     New projects - 1 (also counts under completed) 
     Currently in progress - to be decided what to focus on next