Strangely Apropos

Yesterday, as I was sewing little tornadoes on the Oz quilt, there were tornadoes on the ground everywhere, including one less than 10 miles from where my husband and son were working (a farm house with no basement. And no root cellar). It was a hairy afternoon, one of those Interesting Weather We're Havin' kind of days that South Dakota specializes in, with storms popping up on top of storms popping up on top of storms, for about nine hours straight. Over the last two days, we got about 3" of rain (so the soybean pic tomorrow should be good), and a whole lot of rumble, boom and flash.

Though I had the laptop, flashlight and cell phone handy, with the TV on for constant weather updates (they do that here, when it's stormy), ready to make a mad dash for the basement if the sirens went off, I (mostly) calmly worked on the Oz quilt. I got the final borders on, the backing/batting sandwiched and pinned in place, and the entire top quilted. I am thrilled with how it turned out. I will never be a machine quilter's machine quilter, but my skillz have improved steadily with each project. I was able to make little faux tornadoes on the vertical sashings, and outline the rainbows on the squares, and highlight the faces and figures on the panels. All in all, I am happy with it (and I remembered to straighten the edges afterward).

Last evening, I worked on the Entrelac socks- I have about 1 1/2 rows of rectangles left on the second cuff. I no longer have to look at the instructions, which is nice. These cuffs are going to be a little loose on me, though the ribbing is tight enough (and the bulk of the entrelac itself will stiffen the sock). I think if I make another pair (and it's probably safe to say that I will), with the same size yarn and needles, I'll drop down to 7 rectangles (I'm doing the Medium size with 8 for this pair). And I'll definitely need to drop down if I knit entrelac socks with a heavier fingering weight yarn.

Today I plan to get the Oz binding assembled, pressed, sewn on, and tacked down. I shouldn't have to duck any more storms until this evening. I hope.