Tuesday, March 22, 2016

February Finishes

I have a friend I email back and forth with nearly every day, even though she just lives down the street and round the corner. She's busy, I'm busy, so we email. I went to an operetta with her Sunday, and she complained that she'd been doing most of the writing lately. She said she won't hear from me for several days, then I write her a five-page email.

I've been like that since I was a kid, hating to sit down and write, procrastinating, then spending an hour writing a really long letter. My husband deployed often during our 30+ years of married life, and it drove him crazy too. Now here I am, doing the same thing with blogging. I guess it's feast or famine with me, and it's a habit I'd sure like to break. I am not, however, going to write a lengthy blog post today. I'll spread it out over a few days. Maybe, lol.

I have been off in ten different directions in the sewing room over the last month or so and having a ball. I did finish three quilts in the month of February. Two were ufo's, and that's always a good feeling.

The first Quilt of Valor for the year has been finished, and I started the next one right on time on March 1. Credit where credit is due: "Tree Farm Throw" from a Thimbleberries booklet called Triple Treat. It is perhaps just shy of the required size for a QOV, but I think it will do. I named it "Let Freedom Ring".

The Candystripes quilt is finished too, and I am SO glad to have this one out of my hair. The top of the next charity baby quilt, with the 36-patch blocks, is finished and waiting to be quilted.

Lastly, my Lazy Sunday is finished at long last. Other than the fact that I wished I had mixed up my background fabrics, I like it a lot. I quilted it with a feather pantograph--I love feathers. Another project I am very happy to have done and on a bed. Yay! February was a good month!

Credit where credit is due: designed by Bonnie Hunter, published in Quiltmaker magazine.
















I finished a couple of knitting projects too. I'm not a hat person but decided I might be a headband person. Sometimes my ears get numb when the winter wind is blowing, so I knitted this up in just a day with some chunky Malabrigo I'd forgotten about in one of my bins.
I also finished this Honey Bee sweater from a pattern on Ravelry. I knit it with Berroco Remix, a favorite yarn of mine. The knitting and seaming has been done since November, just needed to set in one sleeve. Occasionally procrastination does pay off; not so in this case, I could have been wearing it all winter. We just had 4 or 5 inches of snow yesterday though, so still some winter left up here.

Progress with the kitchen redo is glacier-like. The new drywall on the ceiling is up, but there is nothing of interest to see yet. We're considering laying cork flooring, which we have no experience with. Glue-down seems to be the way to go; multiple bad reviews for the click together tiles, especially if it gets wet.