Wednesday 29 September 2010

WIP Wednesday: The Quilt of Dooooooooooooooom

Hooray it’s WIP Wednesday again which as well as being delightfully alliterative lets me prove to all of us, and myself, that I do occasionally create things and don’t just sit about eating biscuits and muttering. So thank you again to Tami from Tami’s Amis and if you want to see who else is taking part (and how much better their stuff is than mine, natch) then get on over to her blog.

Firstly though, I’d like to share with you my relief that my swap package arrived with its recipient – she is blogging about it on her blog here, go and look, and I am so pleased she likes it, because this was my first swap and I was terrified I would do it wrong. So all is well and I am very pleased indeed that imaginethatanid likes what I bought her, even though I read on her blog that she lives within visiting distance of the Wollmeise shop* (yes!) and was nearly paralysed with stage fright, thinking, there is nothing I can give to someone who has the Wollmeise shop on their doorstep, I might as well stuff a few balls of fun fur in an Asda carrier bag and go and weep in a corner. But all is well so hooray!
Admire my juxtaposition of Marcus Aurelius's meditations with Bridget Jones. I am postmodern, postfeminist and eclectic. Go me
Now onto WIPs. Firstly, this is my pixie-hat-in-progress, using the beautiful Manos del Uruguay I myself got from Xtiand in the Blog Hub swap, and the Woolly Wormhead pattern I won from Gradschoolknitter (I’ve had quite a lucky week, haven’t I?). This is its second incarnation, because my first attempt seemed to be starting out quite big, so I have gone down a needle size and am now knitting the small size and it seems fine (I am hoping it won’t look like one of those things you put on top of Innocent smoothies when it is finished). The Manos is beautiful and I particularly like the depth of colour. It’s a quick, easy pattern, but with enough going on to keep you interested, and I’m enjoying knitting it. Not like the soul-sucking quilt of doom:
It will kill me. It will kill me dead
This quilt has not been easy. It has involved blood. It has involved cutting out 324 identical squares. It has involved pulling a buttock muscle leaning over the cutting board in a way that convinced me I had developed a deep vein thrombosis (I hadn’t developed a deep vein thrombosis). And then in my weakened state, cross eyed from cutting *&%@@ blue strips, I went into the garden to put some nuts out for the squirrel and something bit me eight times on my foot. Eight times! I know it is a stretch to blame the quilt for that, but sod it I am going to. I am now about a quarter of the way through piecing it and if I actually like it when I finish it you must forget this rant, and we will pretend I made it with Love and filled it right up to its adorable brim with Positive Karma.
Does my bum look big in this? Yes, it looks monstrous but directional
And this is my almost-WIP. I am going to make the skirt on the right. I have got as far as cutting it out and will have a crack at it as soon as I have burnt the quilt and danced a jig on the ashes finished the quilt carefully and competently. I don’t think it will be complicated: I do think it will be unwearable, as I have seen it in the shop and it made the mannequin look like the Venus of Willendorf. Now, I am quite a bit bigger than the mannequin was, and although obviously I admire the Venus of Willendorf from a feminist perspective I am not quite evolved enough that I can take her as a fashion icon. Anyway I will make it, and we will see how rough I look. Doesn’t that sound fun? Watch this space!

* For those of you non-Ravelry-obsessed people, Wollmeise is the Sine Qua Non of Yarn. It is the Ultimate. It is as desirable and as difficult to get as the Hermès Birkin bag. I believe it changes hands for huge amounts of money and possibly firstborn children on Ebay. No wars have yet been started over a skein of Wollmeise Sockenwolle but, well. It’s a narrow line.

9 comments:

pip said...

... that quilt is going to be absolutely gorgeous ^..^

Tami Klockau said...

Love love love this post! I feel your pain on the bug bites. I had 6 on my feet last summer. They were so bad I couldn't wear shoes for over a week and couldn't sleep. UGH

The quilt will be amazing and when you finish it, you'll realize it was well worth it. Can't wait to see the skirt!

Irish said...

The quilt is going to look amazing. Can't wait to see the FO.

SillyLittleLady said...

Keep on with that quilt! It will look fabulous when finished :D

And I can't wait to see your hat either, scrumptious yarn

SweetPotato said...

Look at the color of that yarn!! Wow!

Marushka C. said...

I love your quilt of doom! A friend of mine told me after I knitted her a scarf that she thought handmade items retained a sense of the essence of the person who made them. I thought that was the scariest thing I'd ever heard -- that scarf soaked up a lot of curses while I made it, ripped it out, remade it. Now I have decided to believe that if you wash the item carefully in a good wool wash, it removes all the dirty words and negative thoughts that occurred along the way.

Unknown said...

I love the color of your hat.

I haven't tried Wollemeise, so I'm blissfully clueless about it's wonders. Though I agree if I had a swap partner that close to shop I would be in terror of the inferiority of anything I might send.

I feel your pain with quilt. I've been there with a few tops myself. Then there's the one I tried to machine quilt and had the backing wad up in the middle. How do you plan on finishing yours?

Lastly, I feel your pain with the bug bites. Back home, I was an all you can eat buffet for mosquitoes. I was told there isn't mosquitoes down here in the desert. (No standing water for breeding) My neighbors are all phobic of them. 2 ladies sweep all the puddles after it rains and my next door neighbor pours bleach in any standing puddles the other two can't get swept up. Last week, I got eaten alive while sitting outside, not sure what feasted upon me.

Susie said...

Marushka, ;-). Yes, I fear I am often creating the polar opposite of a prayer shawl, I am with you there on the wool wash.

Denise, you have put your finger right on the problem there, right on it. I have no long-arm machine, I have no walking foot, I have absolutely no patience for handquilting and I have no plan. I am waiting for the Universe to tell me what to do. I hope it's got some good ideas.

Thanks everyone for comments and for bite sympathy, I was rubbing antihistamine cream on my foot in the middle of the night and muttering. Flaming biting creature!

Anonymous said...

sorry to hear about your bites! when i was in honduras my legs got covered in them in about 30 seconds! i couldn't shave for 2 weeks! and it was honduras, so it was HOT! i can't wait to see the finished quilt:) and that SKIRT! wow! i really can't wait to see that! :) it is the color that my hair was supposed to turn out!