Quilting and other Things

I keep writing blog posts in my head.  That doesn't do anyone much good -- especially me since the its hard to look back on some of the details when its not written down.  I've behind reading the blogs I follow but saw that Cheryl is participating in a 31 day Blog Writing challenge .  I'm not sure I can manage 31 consecutive days but it gives me a goal.  I'm late to the party since it started on Dec 1st but we'll see how much catch-up I can do over the next few weeks. Kathy  has a Slow Sunday Stitching link up that I've participated in a few times.  So I'm going to start there.  Its about hand work.  I've gotten the knitting needles back out again recently and knit a few hats.  One went to my sister as it was a bit snug on me but fit her OK.  I'll make it again for me shortly.  The other one I'm wearing.  I also knit a cowl.  The yarn is a bit heavy so it doesnt loop but it does tuck into my coat and is warm.  ...

I spent a great deal of the holiday time working on the shawl. The main body is finished and ready for the edgings The night before we came home, I finished knitting the border. There is one spot where I dropped two stitches and will try to tie them in. Hopefully it works. I've never had to purl 15 together before and somehow on one of the shells I lost 2 of the 15. This is the sewing machine that I learned to sew on. I did some stitching for Dad then tried to get some work done on steps 1 and 2 of Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery. At first the machine didn't seem to like the thinner thread but changing a needle seemed to solve the problem. The next day even the new needle wasn't helping so eventually I put a regular spool of thread on the machine. That did work better and I got the rest of step 2 stitched. This weekend I've had lots of fun stitching on my regular machine. All of steps 3 & 4 are finished. Now to start cutting lots ...

Over the last month I was suppose to thread paint a quilt top for the Christmas club group and add some borders to $10 quilts for a reunion at the end of November. I also wanted to finish a quilt top in time for the November guild meeting the first Thursday of month. Instead, no thread painting, no borders and the top is still in pieces on the design wall although I did manage to stitch some of the border blocks on Sunday. the love entwined centre is still paused half way through step 2 waiting for me to prepare more appliqué shapes. I've spent the last month and a half distracted by a knitting project. It's a shawl called Art Deco by Nadita Swing. The pattern is from Raverly. Since this photo was taken last week I've completed two more repeats and started a 3rd. I did think about leaving the knitting bag at my sisters on Saturday but figured it would just mean an extra trip across the city this week which doesn't fit into the schedule.