Slow Going & A First!

Not much knitting or quilting has been going on this week. We're ramping up for vacation and that entails doing those things that need to be done. C and J will be taking care of the pups and we'll check in with them daily. Even when we board the pups, we call frequently to check on them.

I have picked up the stitches and am working on the ribbing for Ava's sweater. Can I say that I hate picking up stitches? I never seem to get the correct number or it looks a little wonky. As you can see from the pic below, the ribbing is done in a solid color yarn. The collar will be as well.

A while back, I decided to make a table runner (actually 3 of them) from the scraps from my first quilt. It's actual a pattern specific to using what you cut off from your blocks. It's from Terri Atkinson's book Happy Hour (you know, two for the price of one!). I laid out my backing on the garage floor and used 505 to create my quilt sandwich. I have to say I'm going to have to find somewhere else to do this. I did not like all the bending over and there was a bit of stickiness left on the concrete. I'd love to hear where other quilters do their spray basting.

Then it was on to my first free motion quilting on something other than a 14" block of muslin! I can't tell you how much anxiety I had. There are most definitely some bad spots here where I got a bit angular/pointy instead of the nice flowing curves of stippling. I certainly expected that. It was, however, easier than I thought to get good coverage of the project with the quilting. I have dubbed this project "Only a Mother Would Love" because let's face it, it's not great. So when I'm done, I'll ship it off to Mom who will treasure it! The binding is about 4/5 done on one side.

Lessons Learned:
1. I need to BREATHE!
2. It's ok to stop the needle in needle down position and just think for a minute
3. Look ahead.
4. Relax!
5. Really take seriously those blogs that say have a glass of wine first!