So what the heck have I been working on since last Wednesday? Seemingly a lot and not much all at once. I have been trying to get the quilt top for a roman shade finished. I finally finished the piecing, now I just have to make it into a roman shade. Here’s just the top:

I need to line it, put the velcro on the top, attach hardware to the board (after cutting it down to size), put in the battens, sew on the rings and finally attach it to the wall. All that will take a few more hours, and an overnight wait while the battens’ glue dries. Maybe this week sometime. I’m using the instructions at this web site to put it together as a Roman shade. I ordered supplies from her for this shade and one for my daughter’s room. I really like the lightweight battens & the pulleys she provides. They really do the trick to make the shade go up and down smoothly.

Hardangervidda
I decided to cast on for the body and see what length the sleeves need to be made when it’s done. I’m going with the suggested needle sizes, and it’s a lot easier to deal with a 40" long circular than a 12" one or DPNs when doing fair isle. Here’s a shot of what I managed to get done lately:

You can see the purl ridge in the middle where I’ll fold over for the hem and get a nice crisp edge. I think I have another two rounds to do before I can attach the provisional cast on back in by doing a k2tog across two needles. I’m getting smoother with my two handed fair isle technique too. I’m definately better at it in the middle of the day when my dexterity is up, vs late at night. Oh – and this is almost one complete ball of yarn in the main color (size XL).

Cute Bag!
Another thing I did this weekend was work on my critter blanket, which is boring – but I picked up this totally cute little purse this weekend that is now holding my critter blanket project:

It’s really too small for the critter blanket, but it was the only project I had that would go in it right now. I think it’ll be a perfect sock-project bag.

And other days you can’t. I haven’t done much knitting the past two days – I got a replacement laptop from the shop and am busy "exercising" it to see if it will really work. I have until Monday to decide to keep or return it for a full refund. If it gives me ANY problems, back it goes. So far so good, but I haven’t really done too much with it except install software. Next on the pile is actually knitting related – The Sole Solution, which I received as a gift a while ago, but haven’t really used much.

Hardangervidda is staying on gauge using DPNs. I inquired of Wendy how she does her sleeves when they are at the small part – and she uses circulars the whole way – all the way down to a 12" length. I might have to give 2 circs a try as I’m not doing any fair isle on this portion of the sleeve as it gets too big for DPNs, but not big enough for only one circular. Of course, that would mean — buying another needle! My other project – not much progress on the critter blanket. My knitting group meets on Saturday and I’m looking forward to some good knitting & social time.

A possible new project idea that is bouncing around in my head – a felted knitting bag. My current bag doesn’t have stiff enough sides, so it always squishes my projects somewhat when I put them away. This is a problem when I am using DPNs and the stitches slide off the ends! I do love the way it looks.. I made it out of some fabric I had leftover from making myself a windbreaker-style jacket in the late 80′s early 90′s, and some quilt fabric.

I’ve taken to carrying my project in a basket just like this one (mine has double handles, but no colors on it), but I get lots of "ooh what a nice picnic basket" from my less enlightened co-workers. Plus there is no lid, so if it rains or anything my project might get a bit damp on the way to/from the car.