Block one, down and ready to be joined by friends. I’m halfway through the second one, and my plan is to just join them together as I make them instead of stacking them up and doing all of that at the end. Because I will bore of that and give up for good.

I’ve also been doing some test knitting of a shawl for a friend; shawl knitting always looks like a sad lump until you block it, and then magic happens (imagine me doing JAZZ HANDS). I’m really looking forward to blocking this, hopefully this weekend if I can get past the edging.

When I’m not doing either of these things, I’m starting into my training for the half marathon. I KNOW, it seems really early for most people, but it takes me a while to get into the rhythm of running every week on a schedule, so I do the C25K before I start the official training in December. I’m actually looking forward to the half marathon again this year. No one told me that this would get addictive.

I shamelessly stole this block, color choices and all, from Ellison Lane Quilts; I fell in love with the color scheme, so why not copy something that was so thoughtfully provided for me? What I love about the block itself is that you get TWO blocks for the price of one, thanks to the half-square triangles; but that left me with a problem: this quilt was only 9 blocks. An odd number. Should I make another star block, or do something else for the center? You wouldn’t believe how much I struggled over that, and in retrospect it seems completely stupid to stress over something like THAT, but stress I did. Until one night, the center block hit me like a shot, and I jumped up and put it together before I lost the thought. (I’m a little scattered.) I really, REALLY love how this turned out, and I was so happy to give it to my friend this past weekend.

Along with the blanket, though, I also pulled together a toy:

Which also went along with the rest of the toys our Rav group knit, crocheted or sewed for the baby:

This was one awesome secret project to pull off, and since the mama-to-be lives close to me, I got to be the one that presented her with all of this. It was so worth all of the stealth!

A few weeks ago, I got serious about the damn thing and finished it.

That picture doesn’t have ALL of the hexagons; I went in and filled in the gaps on the edges with white hexagons, but have yet to get a completed picture of it. So now the top is done, and I’ve discovered that I’m absolutely terrified to quilt the damn thing. I can’t find a quilting pattern than I like; straight lines won’t do all of that work justice, but I’m a crappy free motion quilter, and I just don’t want to screw up all of that work. I’m considering sending it out to be quilted, but that doesn’t feel right, either. I think I’ll let it marinate for a while until inspiration strikes. Or I just throw caution to the wind and quilt it myself.

It’s an accomplishment to hand stitch each and every one of those into a quilt, no matter how small or large; hand sewing isn’t something that is popular in our culture, although for centuries that’s how clothing and blankets were made. I’m already considering a second one, though, because I find that I actually miss my box of hexagons. I went on a rampage through my ridiculous scrap bin last week and took everything that was about 2.5″ and cut it into squares for use in various projects; larger chunks are still floating around in there, but I feel a little better about the monster that was growing in my scrap basket. So I’m all set for a new round of crazy looks from friends and family while I happily put together another quilt top.

I’m going to use a ton of fabrics that do not match.

I’ve written before about how I can’t seem to use scrap fabrics; I save them, like it seems that any good quilter should, but then I can’t seem to do anything with them. Projects that are supposed to require scraps always turn into new fabric purchases; I’m missing that gene that allows me to look across fabric lines and see where coordination would be good. I worry that one fabric out of place will make me look at the quilt later and hate it completely. Excuse me while I tuck my extreme OCD back down into my pocket, y’all.

It’s odd that I’m so resistant to something the rest of the sewing/quilting community is so very comfortable with, and I can’t place my finger on why it bothers me so much.

Normally, I would just say screw it and continue on with my own way of putting together quilts because this is supposed to be a hobby, something relaxing and enjoyable, and I don’t want to turn it into an internal battleground. The thing is, though, that I LOVE quilts that are scrappy. Love. Them. I see so many quilts on Flickr that show me that yes, it IS possible to combine different lines and looks to make pulled together, super awesome quilts, and if I just ventured outside of my comfort zone, I might surprise myself. And if it’s horribly ugly? I can tell you right now that my kids do not care what  a quilt looks like, especially in the evenings when we’re watching TV in a dark room.

This quilt won’t be about the finished project so much as the creative process; in the past, every quilt has had a clear vision in my mind of what it would end up like, but this one won’t. I mean, I have a loose structure in my head of how this should go (I’m following the Mod Mosaic idea) but I wouldn’t call it structured, at least not to the level of what I normally do. An exercise in coloring outside of my personal lines.

To date, I’ve used approximately 0 scraps.

I seem to lack that gene that allows you to be inspired by your scraps, and to see where they would fit appropriately in with other scraps to make something Super Fantastic. I’ve come to realize that unless I have a specific plan for fabric (or even for yarn), I’m going to end up getting frustrated and quitting the project, whatever it may be. I have to have a clear plan in place before I start something, and the scrappy quilt movement is much more freeform than I can handle.  I’m sure there’s some deep seated psychological crap going on with this somewhere, but for now I’m going to try to combat it by reviewing the fabric I have in my stash and assigning it to particular patterns so that I’m not floundering when I want to start a new project.

Knitting, to me, is easier to stash for, at least with the type of knitting that I do. I stick to socks and lace; these are predictable yardage projects, as I generally know that one skein of yarn will equal one pair of socks and that 400 yards of lace will whip up a small triangle shawl. I don’t enjoy knitting sweaters or larger projects, so I don’t generally have a leftover skein of yarn to contend with and try to work into another project.

Speaking of knitting, I’ve got a finished object blocking in my office – my Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf finally caught my attention long enough to finish the body, knit the other end, and then kitchner them together. Let me say that again – I kitchnered 182 stitches of sticky lace yarn together without cursing, crying, or throwing it across the room. Matter of fact, it turned out rather nicely in the end. The scarf is a little over 5 feet long, and that’s with extra repeats being knit into the body beyond the 30-someodd repeats it required. Once it dries, I’ll snap some photos of it in all its glory.

But now I have this leftover tiny ball of lace yarn….

But, in the spirit of following through, I finally registered this morning. I’ve been running more or less steadily for the past few months in the heat, when time and energy allowed. Now, though, I’ve got to get myself in serious gear and train like…well, like an actual runner, instead of a hobbyist. I’ve got all of the equipment, I’ve got a schedule, I’ve got a training plan, and it is up to me to go and implement it and run, run, run. The trip I made to the doctor last week might be motivation enough, actually, considering that she said things like “borderline high cholesterol” and “lower your BMI” and “immenent death if you eat another chicken wing”. So, on to exercise we go!

Happily, we’ve done a lot over the past few months to improve the food content in our home, and we’re eating a ton healthier than we ever have before; there’s always room for improvement, so improving it I am. My children will become intimately familiar with vegetables like spinach and edamame; I’m learning to like oatmeal (I’m not a fan without heaps of sugar and butter) in it’s raw-er form, and we’re all reducing the amount of red meat we eat. My kids are going into shock from the reduction of the amount of pasta in their diet. My husband is looking at the amount of dietary fiber in the foods that we’re eating, and he’s predicting separate beds before too much longer.  Fine by me; he gets the blow up mattress in the floor of the media room.

Work on the quilt for my sister is going well; I’m at that mindless peicing part, where you’re building blocks over and over and OVER again, so I’m having to remind myself to be careful to not space out and end up picking out stitches and redoing blocks.

I have to make 80 of those (that pile represents 20), then turn those 80 blocks into 20 blocks, and then turn those 20 blocks into one large and in charge full sized quilt. I’m having to hold myself back from knocking out a few of the larger blocks (which takes 4 of these smaller blocks), but I want to get through the full 80 before I do that so that I can lay it out and not end up with an entire block of brown at the end. It’s hard, though, because I’m an impatient girl. I’m going track down backing and binding fabric and get that ordered so that I’m not waiting on anything once the top is done.

So. The plan is this: sew and cut a ton of half square triangles, and then sew them back together into this: a criss cross quilt. I’m obsessed with star blocks lately; I can’t explain it, but the symmetry is very alluring, and I figure I’d better jump on this at once. I ordered a frightening number of charm packs from a lovely seller on Etsy who had super fast shipping and an excellent price, and here I am today, the proud owner of a ton of cream colored solid squares that I cut myself, another stack of charm squares waiting to be sewn to those solids, and 80 HST’s already sewn, cut, and pressed open.

The sheer number of squares to be sewn and cut this time is a little overwhelming; I’m trying to take bites of the elephant by sitting down and doing them a bit at a time, but it’s like the stack of “to be sewn” just keeps multiplying. Which is might be; I don’t know what my fabric does when I’m not around, if you dig my meaning, and I think you do, bow chica bow wow and all that. I’m just hoping that over the next few days, I’ll look up and suddenly, they’ll all be sewn and just awaiting a precise slice down the middle followed by a quick n’ dirty with my iron. This quilt is destined to live at someone else’s house, though, so there is a deadline for completion; I need to get crack-a-lackin’ on it so I can gift it and check it off the list.

Anyway, the past few months have been crazy busy, both with work and quilts (and hey, what’s that, some actualy KNITTING?!).

The hand sewing caught my eye again, and I knocked out a ton of flowers for the quilt that time forgot. Or maybe I forgot. Whatever. Don’t judge me.

People are STILL HAVING BABIES and I’m still having to knock out quilts for folks who refuse to find out what flavor of baby they are having. Like, seriously, how hard is it to sneak a peek during an ultrasound? Ask the doctor to slip you a strip of paper detailing the bits of your baby? I guess it did give me the opportunity to use up the rest of the strips I cut up for the Flower Quilt pictured above (I had about twice as many as I needed), so I can’t complain too bitterly.

This is the Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf from Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia, which I adore both for the eye candy and the patterns. This book is full of nupps; I’m not a huge fan of knitting them myself (note that the scarf above is cleverly utilizing beads in place of the dreaded nupp), but hoo boy do I love the effect they have when knitted by someone who has a good grasp of how to do them. That book is a must have for any lace knitter, if for nothing else than inspiration.

And finally, the always happening sock – there is one around the house at any given time, in some stage of being knit. I’m not huge on following sock patterns for some reason; I have some lovely ones, but I tend to enjoy mindless knitting with my socks, and dragging a pattern around doesn’t really make that possible. I didn’t want to break up that girly swirl I’ve got going on in this one, so I knit in some waste yarn and then I’ll go back and do an afterthought heel on this one (and it’s mate).

Beyond those things, a couple of momentous things occurred: I ran a 10K and another 5K, my daughter turned 3, and I turned *mumblemumbleglurg* another year older. I passed a Macroeconomics class with a 101 average, which I wasn’t actually sure was possible but the grade my instructor gave me assures me that it IS possible, and I’m starting on the Microeconomics class in two days hoping to maintain this streak of A’s. The class I took in the spring, Intro to Marketing, ended up with a B average, but I’m not upset by that at all. I’m just glad that I never have to step foot in that professor’s classroom EVER. AGAIN.

Running is actually going really well, and I’m about to start working on a 10K training program to get my endurance up – that 13.1 mile run is creeping up on me in 6 months, and I’ve got to get my tail in gear if I don’t want to, you know, DIE. Also, apparently my cholesterol is too high, so more exercise and eating less meat is in store for me. Sadly. Because steak is delicious.

Anyway, still alive, still crafting, still schooling and working and doing all of that. And parenting. Don’t forget that one.

I’ve had these fabrics sitting around my house since…well, since the last house we owned, which means that I packed them and moved them TWICE in the past year. I bought them from a local quilt shop in Austin; they weren’t a specific line of fabrics, but just a fat quarter bundle they put together on their own, and the set caught my eye. But then I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with them; I was super new to sewing and quilting, so they were set aside for a while. And then we put the house on the market and my sewing supplies were exiled to Storage, and I totally forgot about them until I was unpacking stuff for my craft room.

With the baby explosion that has been going on for the past year, I was happy to discover that I already had some fabric that could swing either way – I have friends who actually DO NOT FIND OUT WHAT THE SEX IS before the kid is born. Like, really? I would go insane from not knowing, simply because I COULD know if I just asked. I’ve got a nursery to plan, baby clothes to buy, a name to pick out…not finding out does. not. compute. But, since my friends are obviously not neurotic like I am, they are forcing me to come up with alternate themes for their baby quilts. I’m adapting, y’all. Put that in my yearly performance review.

With that out of the way, I’ve finally started on the Big Boy Quilt for my son’s bed. It occurred to me that at some point, we were going to have to move him up to a normal bed; at 5, he is still in a toddler bed because he fits in it. But I think his ego will quickly take a hit when the other kids are pointing and laughing because, hey, YOU ARE IN A TODDLER BED. AT 5. His mama dresses him funny, too, but that’s another story.

Anyhoo.

The kid loves robots. Seriously. He walks around the house, chanting in this creepy monotone voice, “I AM A ROBOT. I AM A ROBOT.” So I cashed in on the current trend and picked up some of the Michael Miller line, complete with Robot Camp fabrics. It’s Bright! And Cheerful! There will also be coordinating curtains, pillow cases and a throw pillow or two in the end.

My husband, the loveable goof, is worried that the quilt won’t be heavy enough by itself as a bed covering. I politely reminded him that we live in TEXAS, where it will quickly become hotter than the surface of the sun, and if a quilt isn’t enough for that kid then we need to get his cooling system implanted into MY body where it would do some good. What do you think? Will a quilt be enough to keep a 5 year old boy warm in the night?

Sent quilts two friends who had three babies between them. (For the math challenged, that included a set of twins). These were SUPAH SEECRET projects, so I didn’t blog about them at the time of creation. Mommies would have known (one mommy is nursery theming with mushrooms, and the other, well, two quilts for twins kinda gives it away as to who they were for).

Knit a looooong scarf, out of two skeins of Manos that I had sitting in the stash:

Started work on a One Block Wonder quilt. This has been a lot more fiddly than I thought it would be, but then again, I’m a super simple quilter; I like straight lines and quilt tops that go together in a single day. This ain’t that kinda party, y’all. It’s pretty, and I’m looking forward to it being done, but I’m not sure I’ll be making another one.

And, I RAN. I ran in the mornings, I ran in the evenings, and on Valentine’s Day, I got up at 4:30 in the morning and drove to downtown Austin, where I stood around for TWO HOURS before the races started (my sister ran the half marathon, remember) and then I ran a 5K in a very shameful amount of time. But the point here? Is that I did it. Proof positive (I’m the one WITHOUT a medal, because they don’t give those to 5k runners. We were lucky to get a banana and a bagel at the end of our race):

And that I plan on doing it again in April. And in May. And maaaaaybe next February, when I’ve committed to running a half marathon. 13.1 miles. Which is further than my DRIVE TO WORK. Seriously. But I’m going to do it; I’m still excited about running, which is a positive thing I think. Of course, after watching my sister limp around after her race, I’m not sure that I”m ready for what I’m getting in to, but she’s going to run the FULL marathon next year, so she will still be in more pain (and have more bragging rights) than me.

February is on its way out, and I’m hoping to finish up another baby quilt, and knock out sleeves for Cassidy. I’m stranded on Sleeve Island, y’all, and I’m struggling to find the motivation to haul myself out of there and finish that damn sweater. It will be done just in time for the heat to return to Texas, so my timing is (as ususal) fantastic. Now, if I had finished it LAST week, it would have been perfect for this:

That would be snow. In Austin. This happens every few years, and it doesn’t stick around all that long, but we get all excited and freaked out while it’s here. Schools close, people stock up on essentials, and anyone that has lived anywhere north of Lubbock starts eyeballing us like we’re crazy. The small amount of snow we got would not cause them to bat an eye, but to us? It’s a juicy disaster waiting to happen. However, throw a tornado our way and we’re out on our front lawns starting up at it, slack jawed, and narrating the whole thing to our camera phone for later uploading to YouTube.