Knitting and Quilting

That's what I've been doing lately.

The Mystery Stole 4 is moving along nicely - I completed Clue 2 Friday, the day Clue 3 was released; I started Clue 3 on Saturday evening and knitted about 10 rows before bed. I thought it was going really quickly and that I'd finally progressed to the point where I would be able to keep up with a knitalong. Then I realized that all these clues will need to be done a second time for the other half of the stole. Some of the knitters are doing both halves at the same time but I thought that might be too confusing for me, especially with having to learn to knit with beads. Oh, well. At least I've learned some chart tricks, such as writing in the number of stitches when there is a long run of knit, and highlighting the symbol for a stitch and also all those stitches. That really helps when there are both left-leaning and right-leaning decreases. I'm highlighting the ssk in orange and leaving the k2tog alone. I've also rescued a metal bulletin board from the grandchildren's toy box and am using it for my chart. I cut a magnetic strip the length of the chart, attached a piece of ribbon to the sticky side and use that to mark my row. All of this really speeds the process. There aren't any beads in Clue 3 so it should go even more quickly.

Friday evening the granddaughters arranged my Burger Queen Mystery Quilt blocks for me and I sewed them together on Saturday. Today I added a 1" rust-colored inner border; still need to add two more borders before the top is finished. I'm still planning to piece the backing - need to keep using that stash!