circle of diamonds

When my husband and I first met I made no pretense about my hobbies. Within a few weeks I was happily knitting and/or crocheting while we watched movies together on the couch. He was very supportive, but I do recall him saying it was a really neat hobby, but I wasn't going to start knitting shawls and doilies and old lady stuff, was I?

Ummmmm.....

Oops. Looks like I knit a doily.

Oh well, so what, it was fun! I am always looking for a new and interesting challenge to keep growing my needlework skills. This was a combination of knitting in the round, lace, and using cotton thread.

I'm not planning to knit up a hundred of these and drape them all over the house or anything, but I might make a few more. They are a small, satisfying project and they do look nice here and there.

This one is at home on the piano, snuggling with my fiesta ware vase* and candlesticks.

Well, it's 80 degrees and a bit humid (barf), I have one kid with sniffles and one home sick from school, and nowhere to be this afternoon so I think I'll get everyone settled down for a rest and spend some time with my alphabet cross stitch. With a glass of ice water. In front of a fan.


*Oh my word! I have thought this was a vase since I received it as a wedding shower gift ten years ago, but looking it up I discovered it is actually a utensil crock! No wonder the opening is so wide...I just thought, since it was given to me with the candlesticks, that it was decorative and meant for flowers!

lots of spring sewing

I know, I know, first I'm all, "I'm back to blogging!" and then I vanish for weeks. My excuse is that allergy season has hit HARD this year and I've been really miserable. No one wants to listen to me whine, so I've just stayed quiet. 

The upside to hiding in the house with all the windows closed is that I've had lots of time to sew. In fact, I've done more sewing over the past several weeks than I've done in the past several years. I don't have photos of everything because much of it has gone into immediate use. 

We found that this year it is impossible to fit Daughter into any store-bought shorts. And believe me, we tried. I dragged that poor child to every store in the mall to try on every brand and style. If they fit in the waist they gave her wedgies. If they were long enough they were too loose. There was no winning. Even the adjustable waist kind were hopeless. Absolutely nothing fits. So I started out by making a total of 9 pairs of shorts between my two kids. Some for wearing out, some for sleeping. Because in addition to no shorts for Daughter, when the weather turned warm I also discovered my son had no warm-weather pajamas. 

These kids and their nonstop growing. Sheesh!

So let's see, there were shorts and pajamas, two dresses for Daughter, three sleeveless tunics for me (one lawn, one linen, and one "mystery fabric" that's some sort of lightweight cotton), some pique capris for me that were so ridiculous they went straight to the donation bag, and the above "church shirt" for my son. (That's what we call shirts with collars around here, to keep him from showing up at the breakfast table on church mornings in a t-shirt.)

Hopefully I'll be feeling better soon - usually the end of May brings the end of the severe allergy season - and I can get outside with the kids and better photograph some of the stuff I've been making. 

Oh, and lastly, here's a stern warning for the sewists out there:

I can't believe I'm even showing this, I'm so ashamed of myself, but I thought it might help someone else. I was stitching the collar on my son's shirt, and using lots of pins because it's fiddly. Somehow I broke the cardinal rule of NEVER EVER sewing over a pin (it was buried in multiple layers of fabric). The needle hit the pin and bent so badly it's now curved. I am hoping and praying the needle bore the brunt of that stupid error and my machine is ok inside. It seems to be fine so far. But let this be a lesson, friends. Never, never, never sew over pins! I don't care what your mom or your grandma or the old lady down the street who taught you to sew says...it is NOT a good idea, ever. You can do potentially hundreds of dollars of damage with one little pin.

I'm off my soapbox now. Hope you're all having a good weekend and may the pollen counts where you live be low!

x stitch

Oh, I'm also going through a bit of a cross-stitch obsession.

This is my latest (not my own design):

I'm on the second-to-last alphabet for this center section and then it will be on to the elaborate floral borders. So. Much. Fun. 

birds

Finished the Birds in the Air quilt top today!

It's 56" x 64" right now but needs borders. I have no idea what to use, but it definitely needs something plain and/or neutral to give the eye a place to rest. Gosh, this is a busy quilt top...I'm not sure if it's awesome or awesomely bad. 

Here's a closer look:

Pretty wild! I used everything but the kitchen sink in this. I have to live with it for a bit to decide on borders, then I'll get it quilted and take some better photos of the finished product. For now I'm packing up the sewing and getting started on some spring cleaning. Daughter's 8th birthday party is this weekend and the house is a wreck. Maybe because I've spent all my time sewing lately? Yep.

look for the helpers

For Boston.

knitting with beads

Over the winter I decided to give knitting with beads a go. It is SO FUN! And very addictive. I'm now on the lookout for shawl patterns that can be enhanced with the addition of beads. 

Here are a couple I recently finished.

Swallowtail shawl, modeled by my soon-to-be 8 year old. This used about 1.5 skeins of knitpicks sock yarn (Essential in the "grass" colorway...so old they don't even make it anymore).

Gosh, it's hard to photograph the beads. Can you see them?

How about now? I used them in place of the nupps, as many people have, throughout the lily of the valley portion of the shawl. It's much easier than the nupps and gives a different look. I like the sparkle! I used most of a tube of size 6 beads that I got on sale at AC Moore, so this was a frugal and fun way to get into beaded knitting.

And here is my second flower basket shawl, knit from the same kind of yarn as the swallowtail (Knitpicks Essential, this time in "pumpkin"), also beaded (same kind of beads as the other shawl in a different colorway) but this time only in the border pattern.

Basically anywhere there is a *yo, k1, yo* in a pattern you can add a bead. It's not hard but it looks so pretty and people think you're really awesomely talented when they see it! Oh, and I added an extra repeat or two of the main flower basket pattern because I knew I could get a bigger shawl with the two skeins of sock yarn I had.

I just took these photos today, our first warm day of the season (75 degrees!). Also the first day suitable for knitting outside:

Lovely.

testing the waters...

Hello? Anyone there?

It's been awhile. A very long while. I've received some really nice emails inquiring about my well-being and I want to thank anyone who has been thinking of me.

Last summer I finally reached a point where the world did not feel very solid beneath my feet anymore. The "breakdown" I'd been waiting for since losing my second child (in 2006) finally manifested itself and I began suffering from unmanageable anxiety. My family and I suffered through this all summer until I could no longer get up in the morning to care for my children and I asked my husband to take me to the doctor and get me some help. I don't want to go into it in any more detail except to say that through a combination of medications and counseling I am finally starting to feel like a normal person again. I will also add that if you or someone you know or care about is suffering from anxiety or depression (especially prevalent in times like these when the economy is bad and people are hurting financially), encourage them to get help. It makes all the difference.

Through it all I've continued to create. In fact, I count that as valuable therapy. I noticed many months ago that I felt most calm in front of my sewing machine, guiding fabric along, soothed by the monotonous sound of the motor chugging along.

My son strolled in while I was sewing today and took this picture. He is 4, so this is at his eye level. This is where he has seen me the most over the past couple of weeks. In fact, he doesn't call this the dining room anymore...it is simply "the room where Mommy sews."

I have a couple large bins of quilting fabric here, amassed over 10+ years of sewing. But I would rather have quilts than piles of fabric so I've set a goal to empty those bins in 2013. 

To that end, I've been scouring quilting books for inspiration and when I see something I like I jump right into making it. But then I also FINISH it, which has always been a weakness. I guess I'm maturing or something because I want to actually see these quilts done, and quickly. The log cabin above is about 20" square and needs borders. Then I'll quilt it and hang it somewhere in the house. I should add that I will allow myself to purchase fabric for borders/bindings if necessary, and of course thread and needles, but otherwise my goal is to use what I already have. Therefore you might notice some repeated fabrics. I'm hopeful it isn't too obvious, though, because I'm using many very different, very scrappy patterns.

Today I am working on a quilt called "Birds in the Air." I don't believe in piecing triangles, so these are all made starting with squares. The large squares (made from 1 light and 1 dark triangle) are all made, but the smaller pieced units (the "birds") are more tedious, so I am making a small pile at a time and then...

...assembling them into blocks and rows. Otherwise it gets boring. I like to see where I'm heading, it keeps me inspired.

There's more, lots more. What do you think? Would you like to see what I've been up to? I'm off to make dinner and then head out to knitting guild tonight, but the machine is sitting here, ready and waiting for me. I'd love to get back into this online community and start sharing again.