Okay, some more stuff:

Over the break, I finished the Cherry Tree Hill socks in "Fall Foliage". These were the ones with the twisted-stitch rib (k1tbl, p1) that took approximately forever.

I also begain (but did not get far on; I really do not enjoy colorwork, I've decided) the Art Nouveau Rose socks. I have the cuff of the first sock done and am debating about the heel flap, whether to
a. do the rose on the flap in (shudder) intarsia
b. do the rose in (slightly larger shudder) duplicate stitch
or
c. bag doing the rose and just do the dice pattern all throughout.

I also knit the first sock, and up to the gussets on the second sock, of the Lorna's Laces "Happy Stripe". (Perhaps if I had finished those blue-and-gold socks before Jan. 1, Michigan would not have embarrassed itself so badly in the Rose Bowl).

I finished the "teddy bear" (or so the pattern says) out of Noro Kureyon. I still say it looks like one of Piglet's friends or relations.

I also did some sewing - went to The Sewing Studio's most excellent Jan. 1 sale. I got wool (dark loden green with yellow, red, and blue tweed flecks) and made a skirt, made a second skirt and a matching vest out of a burgundy and rose not-quite-houndstooth that looked very Katharine-Hepburn-in-"Desk Set" to me.

I bought way too much quilt fabric, and hit all four of the major quilt shops in the area: Sewing Studio, The Treadle, what used to be Peg and Lil's and is now called I think "Peddler's Way Quilt Shop" or summat like, and a newish store, in El Paso, Illinois, called Karla's Country Quilts. (ooh, look, Karla has a web presence).

I have to admit, of all of those, despite the famousness of some of them, Karla's was my favorite for quilt fabric - it is a medium sized store but is not jamcrammed with fabric (one of the problems with the Treadle is that it has so much stuff that if you go for a quick trip it can be overwhelming). The fabric choices are nice and she picks lines that not everybody has. The store is, I think, bigger than the Peddler's Way one. And it's laid out so that it's easy to find things - the fabrics of a "line" are together, but she also has groupings by color.

I want to do more quilting this winter. I have several patterns in mind I want to do (I really do love piecing more than I love quilting).

One of the books I bought (this is the kind of person I am: from various sources, I received $150 of Christmas money that I was to "spend on [my]self". $50 was used to buy a couple pairs of slacks and a turtleneck on sale, and $100 was used on books) is called "Marsha McCloskey's Block Party.".

It is an excellent resource. It shows how to rotary cut pieces for a large number (over 100) of different blocks. (all of them are 9" blocks, which makes planning a quilt easy, or allows for you to make a sampler quilt or combine a couple different blocks). The thing I really love, though, is the color combinations used for the blocks. I know, it's possible to visualize things in different colors, but some of the quilt-block books I've looked at use either really garish combinations, or all solid fabrics, or something equally unappealing. In this book, reproduction prints - mostly, I would guess, Civil War era prints - have been used and the colors are carefully chosen. It is enough to make me want to make several quilts right now.