Happy New Year

We returned from Ontario on New Year's Eve, and, tired out from traveling, happily slept through the official start of 2007.

My mother in law taught me to knit two years ago at Christmastime, and it is always fun to talk knitting with her when we visit. I continued to work on my seamless sweater, and finished a sleeve. One more sleeve and I'll be ready to attach them to the body and start the fun part. Up to now, I must admit this sweater has been a little slow going with it's seemingly endless rounds of stockinette.



Mum in law had just finished piecing blocks for a quilt, and we laid those out on the floor to arrange the colors nicely before she sews it all up. Here is a photo of her with the quilt.



This is an interesting quilt, because the patchwork colors don't match up into shapes, they are intentionally mismatched, and... it's reversable(!)



It was a little tricky making sure that the arrangement of the blocks looked as good on both sides (not too many darks with darks or lights with lights -- no matching colors next to each other, etc), but we managed quite well with both of us working together on the flipping and pinning.

Mrs. P. is also working on an extremely pretty cardigan. It's all knitted (very small yarn -- very small needles!), including the lace going up the sides of the front. Then, she's added a crochet border all around the bottom and up the fronts, as well as on the bottom of the sleeves. This sweater is tres elegant, and I can't wait to see it when it's blocked and finished. For some reason this photo is sideways. I've righted it on my computer, but it insists on loading into blogger *sideways.* Very annoying, but we can still see the crochet border here...



She's working on the second sleeve now. I think she likes cranberry -- I see the sleeve coordinates with both her manicure and the afgahn on her lap (!)



I benefited greatly from mum-in-law's generosity on this trip. She gave me lots and lots of old duplicate needles and do-dads such as stitch counters, holders, bobbins, etc, she had hanging around. She also gave me some yarn from her stash, and the greatest treasure of all -- a collection of old patterns and craft magazines from the 60's, 70's and 80's. I swear, looking through these old books I thought nothing could be better than to be a feminine-mystique-era housewife and devote oneself full-time to craft projects ;-)



Many of the patterns are classic and lovely. There are some boxy little sweater-jackets I am just mad for. Check out the tiger stripe dress on the middle left. Rrrouw! Some of the others, like a purple hot pants roller skating ensemble, are brilliantly silly.

I can't wait to start knitting some of these vintage patterns. My mother in law is the best -- I feel lucky to have married into such a crafty family.