Paper Starfish

the need for speed. Not really. Actually I feel the need to knit down some of my yarn scraps. I've been organizing a bit and put scraps in their own bin. Now, I'm calling them scraps but some of them are actually almost full skeins where I started into them but didn't use it all. It's mostly sock yarn but also some sport and worsted.

I started making some fish for the A Recipe for Fish blanket:

These are made from leftover Dream In Color Classy, a yarn I love! They tesselate to form a fun kid's or baby blanket and since I have lots of friends and family who are "with child" I though it could be fun. This might give you an idea:

See how they interlock so nicely (once I seam them)? I have lots of leftover blue Classy from the Pembroke Vest.

I've seen lots of blankets on Ravelry made from sock yarn and have though about starting in on some mitered squares to use up some leftovers.

Here's the problem though. I think I'm too.....how shall we say....anal retentive particular about things to really complete one of these stash-busting projects. I'm already looking at these fish and thinking I want to buy Classy in certain colors to have a nice pattern to the blanket. The fact that these leftovers projects are SUPPOSED to be random and eclectic is not overriding my need for matchy-matchy. What to do?

On another note, remember my no-purl Monkeys? Well, until yesterday I hadn't touched them since before I was put on bedrest which was months ago. I'm onto the second sock now though. Making progress:

A few months before baby starfish #2 was born, we started going through bins of clothes from baby starfish #1. After a few days, I came across this blanket:

It's a simple feather and fan with garter stitch border done in a cheapo acrylic yarn. It was one of the first "bigger" projects I made after learning to knit. I would never knit this today. I would use nicer yarn or a more complex pattern, I'm sure. You know what, though? We use this little blanket quite a bit. It gets placed over the baby in the swing when the a/c is a bit much. It gets thrown over the carseat bucket when it's raining. It is soft, washes right in the washing machine and snuggled while nursing. Yay for simple, first knits!

And now for something new..... I'm learning to quilt. Well, I've made a baby quilt before using tutorials from the internet but now I'm taking a real class at a quilt shop to learn the "proper" way. It's going to be a nine patch and I picked the fabrics last night:

There will be lots of plain white Kona cotton fabric in there as well. I love this new shop because it has a lot of modern fabrics in amazing colors and prints. This weeks homework is to wash and press our fabric and gather all of our supplies. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

I'm making progress on all crafty fronts so I thought I'd show a little sampler. No FOs to show but lots of work in progress.

In quilting news I have 12 of my 28 blocks done for my 9-patch. Here are three:

I'm going for the scrappy look although I don't have a fabric stash so I bought all of this fabric new. Shhh. Don't tell.

I'm spinning up some merino for someone on Ravelry. This is Enchanted dyed by Dashing Dachs:

In knitting news, I'm still working on the second sock to my second pair of no-purl Monkeys. I also got the May installment of the GothSocks club yarn and I. am. in. love.

Self striping on the luxe base with cashmere. I need to decide if I'm going to rejoin for another three months. On one hand, I seriously love every skein that arrives and it's near impossible to get in a regular stocking. On the other hand, I now have three skeins with June on the way soon and knit maybe three pairs of sock a year. Is it worth it to keep stockpiling more? Probably!

I don't have any FOs to show but have acquired some new yummies to show! Last weekend I made a little trip to Raleigh for Carolina FiberFest. It was only the second year of this event and it was small but there were some really lovely vendors there. I got a skein of sock yarn in a colorway called Poppy:

and an art batt for spinning in the colorway Sea Glass:

I've never spun from a batt before but this one by Jazzturtle Creations called to me!

I also got this gorgeous self striping GothSock in the colorway Barbigoth (not at the fiber festival):

It's scrumptious!

In quilting news I have 30 blocks altogether and will add a border to have a pretty generous-sized lap quilt. Here they are on the bed as hubby and I arranged and rearranged:

I'm loving this so far. Now...on to mitered corners on the border. I'm scared!