The Leafs didn’t choke.

I know it looks that way. 4-1 up with about 2 minutes to go in Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs and somehow they lost.

But the Leafs didn’t choke.

They got carried away and then realized at the last minute and saved their Plan A.

No one joins the Leafs expecting to win a Stanley Cup. If you can remember a time when the Leafs hoisted the Cup, you are way too old to play hockey in the NHL.

No, the attraction of playing for the Leafs is you get to play for one of the oldest franchises in the league in a real hockey town. The stadium is always packed. Your fans will travel to games in Detroit, Ottawa and Montreal and plenty of Leafs fans winter in Florida so even away games often have a sea of blue and white in the stands, madly cheering for you.

They don’t stop coming to games if you lose. And boy, do they get excited when you win. Who wouldn’t want to play in front of a crowd like that?

The NHL season is pretty gruelling. It takes a toll on your body. The guys who get into the playoffs top that off with an even more gruelling and intense playoff season extending into June.

Golf courses in the Greater Toronto Area open sometime in April. The Toronto Maple Leafs is one of the richest teams in the league. They don’t need playoff hockey revenues, ticket sales and so on to keep the books balanced.

Leafs players get to play hockey in a great environment all winter and then when spring comes along they get to play golf. The way it was meant to be.

Now this year, the regular season was shorter. And spring was late so when it ended the golf courses weren’t open yet and the weather wasn’t really calling out “Let’s play golf.” They got into the playoffs.

They won 1 game away early on and then went down 3 games to 1. The weather was still not calling out “Let’s play golf.” so they picked up their came and came back to force a 7th game.

They were now on a roll. They were winning. They’d come back from 3-1 down to tie the series. People were excited. They kept playing well. They went 4-1 up. It looked like they were going to get through to the 2nd round.

And then someone — I have no idea who — realized what this would mean. They’d be playing hockey in the last half of May! The weather is now rather nice for golf. There’s a long weekend coming up. HOLD ON!!!

And they let a couple of goals in to tie it up and then lost it in overtime.

Phew. That was close!

Someone ought to handsomely reward whoever noticed and congratulate the team on figuring out how to lose a 3 point lead with 2 minutes left on the clock. Because that folks, takes real talent.

The Leafs didn’t choke. They realized, almost too late, that May is not a month for hockey.

The sun is shining. The grass is green. They are golfing. They way it should be.

We started with 3 East Friesian/Lacaune ewes and 4 North Country Cheviots. 3 of those were yearlings, born here in late March/early April 2012. 1 of the 2 year old Friesians had not lambed last year.

All of the Friesians had multiples: 2 sets of twins (from the first timers) and one set of triplets. Mostly ewe lambs. 1 ram lamb.

The 2 yearling Cheviots had singles (one ram, one ewe). The older Cheviots both had twins (2 ewes, 2 rams).

Everyone lambed during the day (YAY!!!) and only one needed any help. We are even wondering if Mat was maybe a bit too keen for that one and she might have been fine on her own.

We now have 7 ewes and 13 lambs.

Our plan is for a flock size of 10 ewes. We think that’s about what will work on our available pasture (which we are still in the process of fencing and bringing back to proper pasture). We buy hay for the winter so keeping the flock size small makes sense on that front, too.

We will shear in a few weeks. I have plans for the fleeces involving sending them to Wellington Fibres for processing into yarn and then knitting sweaters.

I’m not sure that knitting a whole cardigan in 11 days is a good thing. I’m now without a large knitting project again. And I’d rather not buy another sweater’s worth of yarn.

So I got out the small stash amounts and made a few small things.

Another cowl:

This is the same pattern I used for the purple one. And I’m still not out of that grey yarn!!!

I’m sure I had someone in mind when I decided to do a blue version but darned if I can think of who now.

Baby hats:

I also pulled out the leftover yarn from the Fiddlehead Mittens kit I knit a few years ago. This is Tanis Fiber Arts Yellow Label DK. It’s superwash so suitable for baby stuff. (Though I tend to agree with the Yarn Harlot that you hand wash the baby… and you can just throw hand washable baby knits into the bath to soak after you take the baby out.)

Anyway, the mittens are long gone, due to a puppy (also now gone) who liked to chew on mittens but the colours were pretty nifty.

I decided to knit roll-edge stripy hats, making the colour progression up as I went along.

Of course I ran out when I got near the top of the 2nd hat (right at the end of that broad red band). Luckily I knew a friend of mine had been designing and knitting sweaters with this yarn so I tweeted her an SOS and she put some small amounts of her leftovers in the mail. I might even have enough left over to make some tiny shoes.

Friends of ours are expecting twins, so these have a good home to go to.

After watching the whole quilt part of a Craftsy class on quilting large quilts on a small machine, I went and got some invisible quilting thread and did a bunch of stitch in the ditch to stabilize the quilt.

I’m glad I did this as the spray baste didn’t really hold the wool batting very well. Note for the future (if I ever do this again).

Also, although I used a walking foot and was pretty careful, the batting is so poofy that it is hard to avoid the top layer moving a bit. There are a few places where there is a tuck at the end of a line. And I had to be really careful at the edged to make sure I still had 3 layers as I didn’t make the batting and backing that much bigger than the top (only a couple of inches on each edge).

Right now it looks like a poofy comforter. I’ve stitched around each of the squares, along the seam between the border and the main part of the top, and around the edges. As you can see in the photo, Donner thinks it is really comfortable.

I’m now thinking about what I want to quilt on the rest of the quilt. Today I started watching Leah Day’s Craftsy class on filler patterns (vol 1). I still haven’t located my Angela Walters book.

My thinking is tending towards a checkerboard approach: choosing 2 ways of quilting a block and alternating them over the quilt. Probably time to get out some paper and a marker and just doodle a bit.

I'd seen a pattern on Ravelry that was a similar style, showed her and …

This is Woodstove Season knit in Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran weight superwash wool, in colour Dove.

It's a fun knit and moving along nicely.

I had quite a bit of the grey wool leftover from my cardigan. Although I'd already knit a pair of mitts for Freya with it, I figured I'd get something else small out of it.

Well, that stuff just keeps on going.

I started with this cowl. On a project this size I don't knit a gauge swatch and it's a bit smaller than the photo in the pattern suggested but it fits Freya really well.

Then I tried this one. The pattern uses a yarn with long colour repeats for the dots and stripes but I was using stash yarn so I paired my grey wool with purple alpaca. I think it works out really well. It'll look even better when I've sewn in the ends and washed it.

I still had grey left so I decided some Fletcher mitts to go with that cowl would be a good idea. I made the first one with a purple foundation triangle and the second is the reverse. The cuff gets knit last so despite appearances, those mitts are actually the same size.

All of this isn't going to use up the remaining grey yarn, either. I have a few colours of that alpaca so I might just knit up a bunch of those stripy/dotty cowls.

Before washing

This does need fairly close quilting. That envelope shape in the top left doesn’t feel right at all after washing. I’m pretty sure the bat has held together but it feels thin.

The narrower stripes on the top right feel better, which suggests that about 1″ is really needed.

I think I could quilt it less closely but I would definitely want a thicker batt inside if I were to do that.

The pebbles (bottom left) feel FANTASTIC. This quilting pattern really makes good use of the poofiness of the wool batting. The pebbles themselves are poofy. The texture of this section is great. I think I’m going to use that pattern in the 6″ borders of the Pandora’s Box quilt.

The left side of that feather (which I was trying to do from memory because I’d misplaced things) also feels good. The back and forth close squiggles are nice, too.

What I need to do now is really look at the patchwork on the quilt and make some decisions about whether a lot of close quilting is going to be too busy. Might do some in the block borders and then just stitch in the ditch of the 4-patch centres. I’d leave them altogether but fear they will be too thin feeling.

Now might also be the time to actually view that Craftsy class on quilting a full-size quilt on a home machine. Paid for it ages ago.

That’s the Pandora’s Box quilt with the wool batting in it. Spray basted because it’s quick and easy. Rolled around a long cardboard tube.

Before I went further I consulted with some of my FB friends who I know have more quilting experience.

The general consensus was that I should do a test swatch to see how it quilts and how it washes.

Before washing

Today, that’s what I did.

Because the wool is a bit poofier than the cotton batting I normally use, I need to be careful when quilting. The top fabric tends to get pushed a bit even with a walking foot. You can see some puckers in there.

I purposefully did both straight lines with a walking foot and free motion stuff. It was nice to quilt.

I also made sure there were densely quilted areas and not so densely quilted areas so I could see if, when washed, the batting moves around or bunches up in the less densely quilted areas.

Although I do have a hand wash cycle on my machine, I decided that my preference would be to throw it in with a regular load so that’s what I did with my test swatch.

after washing

I think it shrunk but I didn’t measure the before.

The most noticeable thing right away is that there’s a lot of wool fibre that migrated out of the middle.

I’ll need to wait until it dries to see what else went on.

I seem to have misplaced my copy of Angela Walters free motion quilting book, too. Between those 2 facts, I’m going to switch to knitting for the day.

Scrappy Trip Around The World

I’ve blogged about this before: When I started it, and part way through.

I have the main part of the top all pieced and some pieced borders.

I know how much fabric I need for some solid borders, backing and binding.

Next steps: Buy fabric for borders and backing. Figure out whether I need to buy batting or have some lying around.

Farm print placemats

I’ve never blogged about these. I’ve picked up various farm themed fabrics in the sale bin at local stores. Some of those prints (like the pigs) have been in my stash for much longer — picked up at quilt fairs in the UK before Freya was born and long before I ever imagined having a farm.

I designed 2 different layouts using a mix of 8″, 4″, and 2″ (finished) squares, and mixing in some coordinating solids from my stash of scraps.
I’m not sure how much I like these but I suspect they will grow on me. Or, as Andrea says, someone else will like them.

I have 6 placemats pieced. Clicking on the photo will take you to the Flickr group for the whole set.

Next steps: Buy backing and binding fabric. I know I have batting that can be used for this in the cupboard.

Egyptian Print lap quilt

I mentioned this in a post about piles of fabric I had lying around.

Pieced parts of this are done. I have also calculated how much fabric I need for the solid strips, backing and binding.

Next steps: Buy fabric. Make a pieced strip for the back.

Pandora’s box

This has been around for a while. I’ve written about the main part of the top, the finished top, and the back before.

I have a top and a back for this. I also have wool batting made from my own sheep in a box around here.

Next steps: Sandwich and baste. Decide how to quilt.

30s prints Floral Bouquet

This was started so long ago I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about it. I did mention it in a new year post in January 2012 so it was started before then.

This is made from a jelly roll of 30s prints and the saved linen/cotton white on white fabric from a duvet cover (the underside of which wore through). I’m using the Floral Bouquet pattern in Pam and Nicky Lintott’s Jelly Roll Quilts book.

I have pieces cut and started the piecing. Not sure if some bits have been knocked off the table by the cat and got lost under things but working on the assumption that I would have found them in recent tidying.

Next steps: More piecing.

Related posts:

Quilt Dreams (on the quilts I’m sort of thinking about based on fabric I have lying around the place)

Once I realized that it had been almost a year since I started this project, I was motivated to get moving. This Wednesday I took the time to quilt and bind the 2nd of the pair of window coverings.

I was stuck about how to quilt this one. I did the side borders to match the other quilt but I wasn’t sure what to do with the asymmetric log cabin squares.

In the end I got out the walking foot and did some outline quilting. Here’s a close up of one section:

Now all I need is a couple of curtain rails and Freya can have a dark room.