Keeping Warm.

My experts in the field of keeping warm were not willing to comment, so I left them cuddling up to their quilts. Needless to say neither Coco (top), or Felix have been very impressed by the weather outside this week. Visits to the outside world have been very brief and they have demanded cuddles to get warm again once back inside!

This is the view from my bedroom window.

As I write this, Felix is snoring on the chair I use for working on my sewing machine. Coco is snuggly asleep on my bed.

The next photos show things I am, or shall be working on in the next few weeks. The first is a part-made quilt top which I started some time ago. It started out as an autumn quilt, but didn't continue beyond this size (20 inches square). I rather fancy making this up as a large lap quilt with a fleece backing.

The next fabrics are those I shall be using for a quilt for my mum. She asked for a quilt to cover her leather chair. This will have a fleece backing and will be around 72 inches square when finished.

The floral fabric at the bottom of the photograph is the upholstery fabric covering the main chairs in mum's livingroom. This is my next big quilt project.

The next item which really just needs to be assembled is the lining for this cotton fabric shopping bag. The bag does not have a lining and is rather floppy. I shall be using some heavy-duty interfacing between the lining and the bag to make the bag stand up. This will make it more useful to me when I take it shopping.

I have been busily working on finishing this little project over the past couple of days. This is a little needle case kit which I was given by some friends when I left my teaching post in the summer. I shall use it to house my collection of needles. These are in a tin which does not close properly at the moment. I was prompted into starting this when my needle tin fell onto the workroom floor............ You can imagine the resulting mess. The tin is quite a large one. It used to hold my sketching pencils.

This is the second of two hats I have made this week. This one is double sided, so I can wear it in a number of different ways. The design is "Very Warm Hat" by Elizabeth Zimmermann from her book "Knitting Around." It certainly is cosy and warm to wear.

The green yarn was already in my stash, left over from a lovely thick aran jacket I knitted some years ago and still often wear. I bought the cream aran weight yarn as a contrast.

My latest knitted project is the delightful sock design Widdershins by Brooke Chenoweth Creel.
I have been using the bamboo yarn, Happy by Wendy in the colourway Pisces.

This is the gentle cabled design on the top of the foot.

The bottom of the foot looks like this. I just love this self-striping yarn. It is so pretty.

The design knits up really quickly too. I started the first of these socks yesterday evening and its already just over four inches in length. Perhaps I shall be able to finish them both before the weather improves.