Getting on with it. I've made a winter wall hanging of our lake. Sue gifted me a fall wall hanging a couple of years ago, and I just thought I should have a winter one too. Can spring and summer be far behind? I have to admit that I've not been getting friendly with my new sewing machine as I should and I am not the pro machine quilter that Sue is, but - well, it's done, just don't turn it over and look at the back Okay?
The fabrics that I choose for this piece are indicative of winter. The water has a snow and ice cover with dog foot prints crossing it. The trees are pines. The inner border is snowflakes and the outer border is frost.
Now it's companion piece done by Sue Strauch, quilter extraordinaire.
I am so happy to say that I've got the BlueBell sweater almost finished. It's off the needles and ready to have the sleeves inserted. I'm not looking forward to that job. I have just a bit more knitting to finish on it. The lace trim goes around the neck and has to be knitted from each side, kitchenered together at the back and then sewn onto the neck. Almost done, can spring be far off? Here are a couple of photos, the color is actually a lovely dusty lavender but probably won't show up as such.
This was a fun sweater to knit, the anticipation of the finished sweater kept me going. Would I change a few things, you bet! I would short row the shoulder shaping and then do a three needle bind off to eliminate having to fuss with sewing the shoulders together; I think that I would rather pick-up and knit the sleeves from the top down to eliminate having to inset them but I'm not sure about that.
All in all I like what I see and am looking forward to trying it on.
My knitting basket holds all sorts of projects. Some started and put down for lack of interest; some started and put down from frustration; some just on paper with yarn ordered; some ongoing and some finished. I like the finished ones the best, and then the ones that I've not started yet!
I like a challenge. Trying something new will entice me every time. Sometimes I like to knit something simple, something that is a no brainer so-to-speak. Sometimes there is something that just must be knitted, with a time schedule for finishing and all. Whatever the reason, I like to knit. I find it very relaxing and most projects allow me time to let my mind wander. I don't often watch TV; it's on in the background but I am usually not really paying any attention to it.
I just sit, knit and think.
On the subject of food and the D word. I love to eat, I love to look at food, I love to cook food, I love to think about cooking food BUT, I don't love my love handles. That being said, I can also say that I am trying, really trying to lose about forty or fifty pounds. If you look at the meter on the blog you can see that I did manage to lose ten pounds. Then something went wrong.. What you say. Three meals eaten out, a rib roast and some stuffed shells. A bump in the road? I sure hope so.
I have been walking with himself and the dawg, but not faithfully enough. I was supposed to join the Y in Granby, CT and do three days of swimming and other stuff, but a nasty cold got in the way of that. Joining is on the schedule for next week.
I think that I need to preplan our meals so I can plan the fat and calories out of them. I used to plan our meals for two weeks at a time and it made life much easier. I think that if I do some planning it will also help with the food budget.
We shall see.
We put our bird feeders right outside the dining room slider for the winter. We have been enjoying the daily activity and spending much time raping on the window to scare the squirrels away. We have grey, black, red and flying squirrels. Our bird count varies by the day and the weather. The yellow finches are beginning to color up. We have purple finch, a couple of different woodpeckers, cardinals, bluejays, junko, titmouse, and a couple of more whose name slip my mind right now.
I did say that we are all enjoying the activity didn't I?
