Sunday, April 19, 2009

Getting Back into the Groove Slowly

This is my department at work - or more accurately the people at my location. Yes, that is Easter Baskets you see in our hand. We had a team building activity which happened to be an Easter Egg Hunt. We're all over 40 and even though it was corny we had a good time. Hopefully, I'll have a different position on this team in a few weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!
It's been slow going getting back into the sewing groove after coming home from vacation. No day of sewing like I planned in the last post. This morning I finished machine stitching binding on a table runner. There wasn't much left to do and I have not started the hand stitching. I also added the stems on the Peony block and sewed part of the block to the right (Blogger, why are you cutting my pic off at the right side?). I have to figure out Y seams (is that the right term?) to finish it up. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I didn't sew before starting to quilt in October so my experience is pretty much limited to straight seams. I still haven't trimmed up my blocks - for some reason that freaks me out a bit!
Last week on the way to mom and dad's for Easter I cast on for Alex's Bolero. I rarely get so much time to knit so this has moved along pretty quickly. When I took the picture below, I saw the pooling on the sleeve. I may decide to take it out and reknit but I'm going to finish the other sleeve first. If it looks similar, I'll eave it. The fabric of this sweater is turning out darker than I expected. The yarn should be in soon for the collar and ribbing and I'm hoping that will brighten things up a bit.
I'm feeling a bit stuck with quilting right now. I don't have any classes scheduled and I'm stuck with those y seams. I'm hoping to get some time (and be in the mental spot to deal with it) in the next couple of weeks to figure it out and move forward and be inspired. I started quilting in October and have not completely finished one project. Part of it is because I want to FMQ my own quilts - I'm not sure how realistic that is though. I do have 2 finished tops that can be quilted. I don't want to be the type that never finishes everything. First of all, it's expensive and not finishing just seems wasteful. Secondly, while I'm not a production quilter (or knitter), I do want to be able to have the full experience of cuddling up under a quilt I made or being able to give a quilt away to family or a friend. Hopefully things will slow down in other areas of my life and I'll have the energy to be more inspired! On that note....I think I'll pull out that table runner and see if I can work towards my first completed quilting project!

8 comments:

Debbie said...

It certainly looks as if you and your colleagues have a good time together. That is so important when you spend so much time together.

Your quilting looks wonderful. No one would beleive you are still new to this! Your mojo will come back. You've accomplished so much in a short period of time...maybe its time to marinate a little:)

Alex's bolero look wonderful. I personally never mind the color pooling with the variegated yarns and enjoy how the mystery unfolds. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Anonymous said...

Everything looks great! I love the stems on peony block. I hate pooling too, though on a kid's sweater if both sides match I think it could work. As for the blogger photo cut off, (I use wordpress so it might be different) you can change the width in the code that represents the photo. I just figured out the mathematical proportions to make the height match the new width. In other words your picture is wider than your text, so the right side gets cut off.

Unknown said...

Hey if someone would hide them good enough I'm not to proud to say I'd hunt eggs myself! hehe! Sounds fun!!!

I'm so jealous of your quilting talents! Your doing such a great job...

Variegated yarn is so interesting to knit with you nevner know what your going to end up with and sometimes it isn't good..

Candace said...

Looks like you all have a great time together, Jackie! Check out this You-Tube video for Y-seams:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQA28NnH_S0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2Fvideosearch%3Fq%3Dquilting%2By%2Bseams%26rls%3Dcom%2Emicrosoft%3Aen%2Dus%26oe%3DUTF%2D8%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF%2D&feature=player_embedded
Cheers!

Simone de Klerk said...

How fun is that, to go hunting eggs! Real team building (O: I like that. The bolero is gorgeous. I can even see myself in it. And the blocks - I love the colors and the patterns. Looking forward to see your finished table runner!

Micki said...

I love the bolero. I love to knit too. Thanks for visiting my blog. I used to live in Arizona many many years ago before I got married. I taught English on the Navajo Reservation in Monument Valley, so I enjoyed seeing the pics. It brought back many memories.
I will be following your blog...hope you do mine too.
Micki

Unknown said...

I got overwhelmed when I first started quilting because I didn't want to pay someone else to quilt my quilts, but I was scared to do it myself! Finally one day after hours of looking at quilting tutorials online, I took the plunge and just did it. I think if I spent half as much time in my quilt room as I do on the computer, I would have 100 quilts done!

Aunt Spicy said...

The peony block is adorable! And I am petrified to square off my blocks as well!