Side tracks and tangents

It's been a long time since I've posted. Is the novelty wearing off so quickly? No, I've been so consumed with reading other blogs that I've neglected my own. Since I haven't done much about advertising my blog nobody is reading it but me so there's no pressure to perform.

I got an amazing gift recently which has inspired this post. Saturday AJ, my aunt, came to visit us to celebrate A's 9th birthday. She brought brownies for A because she knows that A likes brownies much better than birthday cake. As delicious as they were the brownies did not inspire this post. The antique quilt did. Here's one photo of AJ with the quilt.

AJ with 1852 quilt

This quilt is truly an amazing piece of work. I will put more detailed pictures in another post. The ones I already took didn't come out clear enough to warrant posting. This quilt is an album quilt and there's a block that has "Jemima Richmonds Album 1852" stitched on it. Other blocks have different names stitched on them. The stitching of these names is amazing. The names are all done in the tiniest cross stitches I have ever seen. The name blocks are muslin (I assume) and the cross stitches are done over two threads of the muslin. A couple of the blocks have initials in the names. The period after an initial is a single cross stitch and is difficult to see with the naked eye. AJ has been investigating our family genealogy for years and is familiar with several of the names on the quilt. This might be the piece that gets me out hunting down names and familial connections.

On the knitting front... I have done some work on the swatching I discussed in my last post. I'm in the middle of the last swatch. I got side tracked because A needed a pair of mittens. I started and finished them since my last post. She's got them with her at school so I'll have to wait until later to get pictures.

My current project is a capelet for K for Easter. When I finish it I'll make a matching one for A. They got matching Easter dresses and I think they'll look very sweet. Poor J probably won't get any new knitting this Easter. He does have a new shirt and tie. We just have to work on finding some pants. New shoes for all three are on the shopping list as well. Here's the current condition of K's capelet.

K's capelet

I'm knitting it with Adriafil Navy. It's a chunky, cotton/acrylic blend. On size 9 needles it goes pretty quickly but it's very tiring for my hands. The yarn doesn't have any elasticity. The knit fabric is pretty soft to the touch and I think the girls will like them. Here's a badly composed shot of K's capelet with her dress. The dress is sleeveless.

K's Easter dress and capelet

Okay, that's it for now. I'll post pictures of A's mittens and details of the quilt at another time. I'll leave you with some evidence of what K has been doing while I'm at the computer.

K self portrait