Working like mad on too many projects to admit to… (with fever breaks in bed with the cat and a lot of hot tea). I’ve been cleaning my studio, an ongoing project that will probably take the rest of my life. I found a humiliating number of knitted socks in progress, but in several cases, I was embarrassingly convinced that I only found half the project, so I did the only logical thing – set them aside and began another pair of knitted socks. The new pair has a chance of getting finished…. Sometime in March, I’m absolutely sure.
For several weeks I’ve been tatting a lace edging for a tablecloth. I was astounded to learn it would be 13 feet of edging before I was done. Now I’m done. Ginny W has the tablecloth; her mom did the embroidery and we’re all adding tatted flowers to the ornamentation. This is going to be auctioned – and it’s already a beauty (even without the edging). The auction proceeds will help support our annual convention. Somewhere along the line, I realized I could keep things from tangling by winding the edging around a piece of cardboard, measuring here and there for the corners. The edging is the simple one everyone learns at the beginning of tatting:
R: 5-5-5-5 CH: 5-5 Repeat until you’re crazy. For some of us this doesn’t take long.



This is what 13 feet of edging looks like. Ginny’s so smart, I’ll let her do the final joins after she inveigles her mother into sewing it on.
The homeless quilts are now in Kansas City, to be given away during the homelessness marathon, February 23-24 (public radio stations and several public TV stations as well – if you can get Pacifica, tune in between 6 pm central time and 8 am the following morning). Sixteen quilts, in case anyone wants to know, filled 4 large black plastic garbage bags. I was told they’d cushion a lot of the broadcast equipment on the ride out.
I made 14 of those quilts, and would you believe the cat came downstairs in the middle of the night and tossed fabric scraps hither and yon? Clearly the only thing to do was to work some of them into quilt squares, which takes more time than I would have believed possible. I need those elves when the shoemaker is finished with them – at least to keep the cat in line. A week’s worth of sewing while I’ve had the flu resulted in enough squares for one quilt - but a mountain more was discovered - I'm sure the cat did it just to frustrate me. I couldn't have quite THAT much around, could I?



Here’s the culprit, resting from her labors. On Bill, who has a slight fever. We’ve been flu-ish. When I went to the clinic Friday, the nurse said brightly, “Oh! Real flu! We haven’t seen much flu this year.” I think what she meant was, “Everyone else was smart enough to get flu shots, you suffering from stupidity as well as bronchitis?” But being a trained health professional, she was much too kind to say so.

I've now completed 10 homeless quilts - the three most recent are festooned artlessly around the messy studio in front of a leaning tower of completed ones in my messy studio. I haven't been cleaning up, just cutting, sewing, tying - and then on to the next one. I figure I've got enough materials and enough energy to make maybe four more. In my "spare" time - this being a snowed-in day without other work - I also completed 8 Seneca Santa hats and worked on a totally pedestrian tatting project - tatting 13 yards of edging for a tablecloth. It may be pedestrian but it's also quite inspiring... that is, I'm very inspired to finish it and move on to something else, but alas, it is not the work of a moment!