Plenty of Quilting UFO, But No Knitting UFOs

I have realized the past few months that while I may pick up and put down quilting projects on a whim, that I just can't do that with knitting.  In knitting I am monogamous, but promiscuous when it comes to quilting projects.

I started knitting the red wrap and got distracted on Ravelry with a sock knit-along.  I started a new pair of socks and would generally alternate evenings of knitting on the socks with evenings of knitting on the wrap.  I found that I just couldn't do it.  It made both projects suffer because I just couldn't get into a rhythm of the pattern on either.  I abandoned the wrap while I finished the socks.  Once the socks were done, I've happily picked up the wrap again and am working on completing that.

But I don't do that with quilting.  I usually have two or more projects on which I am 'actively' working, along with a variety of completed tops waiting their turn to be quilted, and other UFOs that are hiding the the closet hoping I will find a glimmer of excitement in them to bring them back into the light and the rotation of 'active' projects.

On reading the forums on Ravelry, I find it hard to imagine why anybody would have knitting UFOs.  Or a knitting stash, for that matter.  (OK, I do have enough yarn to make another 10 pairs of socks, but I know what they are all going to be.  I never buy yarn just because I love it.  Not yet, anyway.)  I KNOW this is entirely hypocritical.  I have absolutely no problem with buying some fabric just because I like it, thinking it will make its way into a project some day.  I have no problem letting a quilt top 'rest' for a while before I take the time to quilt it.  I have no problem putting a project aside because I have lost inspiration, or have no clue or are too afraid to attempt the next step.  But I just can't imagine buying some quantity of yarn because it speaks to me without having a clue as to how I will use it.

I guess this means that I'm a much more experienced and comfortable quilter than I am knitter.  If I had been knitting for 30 years I would have a clue as to how much of what weight yarn I should buy to make a sweater or an afghan or a baby blanket or some other project.  And most of my knitting projects have been small (socks, mostly). I like that because I can play with new stitches and textures without committing to a large project.  Yet I can still knit something useful and pretty.

So, I'll continue to knit projects serially and jump to wherever inspiration takes me in my quilting world.

(Just a bit of eye candy ... ) Goat Island Lighthouse, Kennebunkport, ME at Cape Porpoise - view from the restaurant where we enjoyed lunch on our anniversary.

Where Do They Go

I spend many of my evenings watching TV with my husband and stitching.  I either do some hand piecing, hand applique, hand quilting, knitting or, occasionally, cross stitch or other embroidery.  I like to keep my hands busy.  It makes me feel (perhaps delusionally) like I'm being productive while being a couch slug.

While hand piecing or doing applique, I use short applique pins.  And I usually use size 11 betweens for quilting.  I do have occasions where I drop one of those short pins while trying to move it to or from the fabric and its storage box.  And, on occasion, while starting the next needle-full of quilting stitches, the needle will launch itself off the thread and land somewhere.  I rarely find these pins and needles.  My question is - Where Do They Go?

I have turned that recliner on its back, upside down, and sideways in the fruitless search for the missing sharp object.  I have run my hands over the arms, the seat, the backs, the surrounding carpet, between the cushions and have never had so much as a prick form the apparently vanished metal sliver.  I have tried sort of bouncing the front of the chair up and down to try to dislodge any missing pins into falling to the floor below.  I've even resorted to a rare earth magnet to try to coax the missing sharp object out of it's hiding place.   ...  All to no avail.

So my question stands - Where Do They Go???

I've pondered this for quite some time and I think this is one of those un-answerable questions like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" or "Why is it if I eat a pound of fudge that I gain 5 pounds?" .  The answer to all is "We can never know".

Hand Quilting Completed (HAPPY DANCE!!!)

I have completed the hand quilting on my version of the Florabunda quilt.  (Insert here an image of me dancing around the room waving my hands.)  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  I need to trim it up, make a flange and binding and apply both.  I usually have more hand-work time than I have machine-work time, so I don't know when I will actually get to this part.

So, now that the hand quilting is complete, I've started three or four other projects.  I've been itching to knit, so I started on a wrap using Caron Simply Soft in Autumn Red.  I modified the pattern to make the wrap a bit wider because I think I'm using a yarn that is not as thick as the yarn suggested (but I'm not a terribly experienced knitter, so I'm not entirely sure WHAT I'm doing!).  I had gotten four rounds of cables done and found a few mistakes that I know would have bothered me, so I took it off the needles last night and flattened it out to see if the modifications I made to the pattern worked or not.  On the needles, the end looked wavy, but off the needles it looks like it will lie flat.  So, I ripped it all out and started again.  One of the mistakes was on the very first cable and I thought the stitches I cast on weren't particularly even.  This is how far I got last night.


And, I've got a project I started on the retreat I went on a month ago.  I've gotten all the triangles pieced together and have ironed then and am working on getting them trimmed to size.  Again, I spend less time at my machine than I do hand sewing, so this is somewhat slow going. This is the pattern I will be making with those blocks.  It's from "Scrap Quilts - Fast and Fun" by Patricia Wilens.  Once I get all those blocks trimmed, it will go together fast - if I can spend some time at my sewing machine.

Then I picked up the Tea Leaves pattern again. This is my traveling hand piecing project at the moment.  I made one block a while ago and disliked making it so much I thought it would be an orphan block.  But, I decided I REALLY like the pattern, so I'm working through it and learning new ways to work on the block without hating it. Each leaf is about 3" long and less than an inch wide.  I found that easing the curves together without pinning was making this a little easier, so perhaps this won't be the struggle I thought it might be.  And, I'm putting my new block envelope to good use.

 

And, because it just makes me happy, here are a few pictures from my quick trip to the beach last week.

It looks like there will have to be some work done to move the sand to make that bench usable before the summer comes.  But, I don't think I'll be swimming on this beach any time soon.

Patriot's Day in Boston

I feel a little strange just ignoring the fact that a senseless act of violence marred my favorite day of the year  in Boston and just going on with my normal blog (as sporadic as it is).  I was there, but far enough away to be out of harm's way.  I was near the hospital district after attending the Red Sox game and saw a line of 20 or so State Police motorcycle officers speeding towards the finish line and a steady line of ambulances traveling back and forth.  The whole feel in Boston was tense and unnerving.  I was also there this past Saturday at the first Red Sox home game since the bombing.  The feeling was still a bit tense, but relieved as the immediate threat was eliminated. The tribute to the victims, and all the professionals, volunteers and bystanders who had a hand in helping was very moving.  And, I will be there next Patriot's Day to watch baseball and runners as they near the finish line.  I will never understand why some think that violence will solve anything, but I will not allow fear to stop me from enjoying all the sights, activities and friendly interactions I normally have in Boston on Patriot's Day.

And, to quote Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

Still Quilting, Almost Done

Some days I think I'm truly psychotic.  I have been feeling that the hand quilting on the Florabunda quilt has been taking   F O R E V E R  (said in my best teen sarcastic voice).  I'm nearly finished the quilting on the next-to-last block and was thinking how I am going to miss this when it is done.  How can I feel like I'm going to miss this and wish it was done at the same time?  Craziness.

I went to a quilt retreat two weekends ago and left the hand quilting at home.  I've been itching to do more machine sewing - actually putting together small bits of fabric into larger pieces.  I took along some scraps and sewed triangles that will eventually become a scrappy top.  But, the project I had most fun with was a small machine applique piece.  I saw on a TV sewing program a woman who teaches applique and has her students make an applique 'envelope' to hold pieces in progress without having to fold them.  I thought this was a terrific idea and decided I had to make one.  My first inclination was to make it out of some fruit fabric as the entry into my guild's challenge quilt this year.  But, when I was looking around for a pattern for this 'applique envelope', I found these terrific cat patterns by Val Spiers.  You can see her work and these designs on her blog.  Immediately, I abandoned the fruit idea and decided to make these cats.

The portfolio is a little less than 14' square and will fit nicely into the plastic tote I'm using as my applique design case.  I had to buy the foam core, but everything else is from my stash.

The other thing I accomplished on the retreat was to repair a shirt I had made for my mother-in-law some 10 years ago.  

I did this machine applique with the flowers going over the shoulder.  She gave the shirt back to me probably 2 years ago because she developed thin spots on the inside of the left sleeve.  Apparently she uses that crook of her arm to carry things.  I hesitated to do anything with it for a long time, but found it when I cleaned out the closet and decided it was high time to do this repair.  I opened up the seam on the sleeve, drew these black eyed susans, fused them to the sleeve and did a zig zag around the edges.  Just as I turned the corner on one of the middle petals, the shirt tore again.  So, the lady bug was positioned created and added to the design.

Now it's done and will soon be returned to her.  But, no more repairs - the rest of the shirt is too thin to work on.

New Car, New (old) Project

I did finally get a car.  After narrowing my choices down to 3, I test drove those 3 types one day and decided on a Mazda3.  Then it was just deciding on what I thought was a fair price, and what color I wanted.  I decided on Copper Red Mica which is, apparently, not easy to find.  I did find one at a dealer about 90 miles west of here, negotiated the price and drove the car home the day I saw it two weeks ago.  It's still strange to drive, but fun.

In the mean time, I'm still quilting on the Florabunda quilt and have 3 more blocks to do before that is complete.  This is the block I'm working on now.

I also cleaned out my craft closet (a very small space that was crammed with much too much stuff).  My guild was having a UFO auction and I used that as an excuse to clear out some stuff.  I donated some, threw out a whole bunch of junk and organized the rest.  This is what is looks like now.

 It still looks messier than I want.  I guess I should attack those flags and other decorations hanging on the door next.

Oh, and this is my entire stash (excluding the scraps I've got packed to take to a retreat soon and the plaids on the shelf below) on that shelf.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  There is really not enough of anything that goes together for a quilt, but I'm doing more scrap stuff and appliques lately, so it's probably not bad.  The shelves above and below the fabric have projects  and UFOs sorted into bags.  There are more of them than I remembered, so my plan this year is to finish as many as I can and get them to good homes.

Which brings me to this project.

This is what I'm calling a third generation UFO.  My mother-in-law bought these die-cut hexagons as a project for her mother some years ago.  Laura was my husband's grandmother who passed away 15 years ago.  After her death, my mother-in-law gave me all of her UFOs, including this packet.  I started these blocks a long time ago and they resurfaced when I cleaned out the closet.  I just finished piecing the blocks (by machine) and now I need some fabric for surrounding hexagons.  I'll probably pick up something this week.  I'm not terribly fond of this project, but I think it can look nice when completed.

Oh, and 6 of those UFO projects in my closet belonged to my husband's grandmother.  So, they're not all my fault.  I will take the blame for the other 4 in there, though.

I think I've made quite a bit of progress and have some good plans for what to work on next and for some time after that.

More Quilting, Getting Closer to a Car

It feels really boring to just keep saying "I'm doing more hand quilting", but, I'm doing more hand quilting.  I had done at least 30 minutes of quilting every day this month except for Saturday.  We had a gathering at out house and overnight guests.  Between preparations and entertaining guests, I never found the time to sneak away to the quilt hoop.  If I average out the time, I have spent WAY more than 30 minutes a day doing some sort of quilting, but I was disappointed that I missed a day.  And, the way the rest of the month is going, I may miss another day or two.  But, we'll see.

I have finished quilting the 8th block on Florabunda and have 4 more to go.  I love making progress.

I may have found a car.  I found one on-line at a dealer 80 miles away.  I called to see if they would meet my price and they will.  I have an appointment to take it for a test drive this weekend.  We'll see how it goes, but I may have a new car in the next couple of weeks.