Healed and back in action!

Technically, I've been okay since about the last week of July. Technically. But there was so much knitting and sewing to catch up on that I've only just sat down now to tell you about it!

Let's see. First, I finished my blocks for Sarah of Sew What Sherlock. You *may* remember we started a bee a loooong time ago. But life got in the way for several of our members and so things fell by the wayside for a bit. But we're gathering momentum once again that will hopefully see us through to the end!

Sarah's quilt is going to have a bunch of paper pieced arrows (the pattern is her own design and available for purchase) with low volume background blocks with a variety of shapes and patterns.

The whole this is very scrappy. It's going to be so lovely when it's all put together! Above are my background contributions.

 A shot of the arrows in their entirety. Please excuse the feet ;)

And a sort of close up of my favorite block. I just love pinwheels.

I've been working on other stuff, too. Photos to come soooon! :D It feels so good to have 2 working arms again, I can't tell you...

Dead Stop

Last week I pulled the right trapezius muscle in my shoulder while walking my dogs. The smaller one saw a quail family and wanted to eat it and jerked my arm harder than I thought possible. This has rendered me basically useless. I haven't been able to knit, sew, or really use the computer at all. I missed a couple of days of work because most of what I do all day involves the use of the computer and it just hurt too much. I'm still not 100%, but the muscle relaxants prescribed by the doctor along with heat packs and pain killers have been slowly helping me heal.

This has been driving me absolutely insane, of course. I hate not doing things. I don't even like watching TV usually unless I'm also working on something. But that's been my week. When I take the muscle relaxant I can't even read much because I just fall asleep. In other words, I have been soooo bored and all I want is for my shoulder to get better so I can do things that I like to do again!

But in the meantime... Here is a picture of the shawl I'm working on. Or will be working on again once my shoulder heals.

The pattern in Zilver and it's free on Ravelry. It's a fairly simple pattern and easy to memorize, which I like. It's a nice project to work on when I just want to relax. I love it so far! I might even be finished if it weren't for my shoulder! I chose a free pattern for my first shawl just in case I didn't like knitting it. But! I've found I like knitting shawls so far. I definitely see more in my future.

You may be wondering how I managed to type all this out if typing is agony. ONE HANDED. Yes, this was all painstakingly and slowly typed out with my left hand. Here's hoping there's only a few more days of this and then I can get back to doing thing with both hands. That will be a wonderful day...

Knitting, knitting, knitting...

Craft-wise, that's all I've been doing lately. But I've also been reading a lot of books. And thinking about trying to find balance between all the things I like to do instead of obsessively doing just one and neglecting all the others for large chunks of time. Not that I've actually figured out how to do that, but I've been thinking about it...

I'm making a sweater for Mario. I don't know if he'll like it or wear it, but he picked out the pattern and the color. I chose an acrylic yarn to make him more likely to wear it. Things I know about Mario: (1) if an article of clothing is too expensive, he won't want to wear it for fear of ruining it and (2) if he has to hand wash it, it won't get washed. So acrylic seemed the best way to go. If anyone is curious, it's Lion Brand Heartland in Black Canyon. The pictures aren't great (it's really hard to photograph black, I'm finding). It's really just black with some gray flecks in it. It looks much better in person, trust me!

The pattern is from Knits Men Want. I think the title of the book is cheesey, but it was one of the few patterns I found that he actually liked. I showed him so many pictures of Ravelry! But this was THE ONE. So I bought the book and went to work.

I'm just about to put split the sleeves off on some scrap yarn and continue the torso. Exciting! The miles and miles of stockinette may not be incredibly entertaining, but it is meditative. Very enjoyable at the end of a long day. And it's helping me get faster with my continental knitting.

Other things that are difficult about sweater photography... I can't spread it out because my cable is too short :(

My goal is to have this be a wearable sweater by the end of the summer. The end of the summer in Tucson, of course, is pretty much mid-October, though, so I have plenty of time. I've made really good progress so far, so I'm very optimistic!

I'm also knitting a shawl, which is more interesting to look at. But I'll save that for another post :)

A Finished Quilt!

Yes, you read that right! I finished a quilt!

I made this on commission for a customer through my Etsy store. I don't really sell quilts there anymore- I'd like to focus on knitting/crochet accessories- but this customer bought a quilt from me last year and asked if I would be willing to make another. So of course I said yes!

I really love how this quilt turned out. I drew up the pattern myself, but it's fairly simple. I star in the center with flying geese radiating out from it on a background of low volume squares. It measures about 60" x 60" and I quilted it with an all over meander (for speed, mostly, but I just love the way this quilting pattern crinkles after it's washed!). I love it so much I'm just a little sad it's already sold. Maybe I'll have to make one for myself?

As much as I love this quilt and as much fun that I had making it, I am glad that it's done! I have a couple of plans for more bags and maybe even a needle case and hook case for the shop that I want to get working on. Now I can start focusing on those :)

Hope you're all having a wonderful week!

Rediscovering Knitting

First of all, thank you for the encouraging comments! You guys are the best :)

There are a couple of posts around here about things that I knit. Such as this Honey Cowl, this scarf and this sweater (which I actually finished... even though it's a pretty sad/weird sweater). But then I kind of stopped knitting for a while. And crocheting. I was a one trick pony for a period and that trick was sewing.

But now I've picked it up again and I have to wonder.. Why did I ever stop? I have been enjoying it immensely and have been finding myself trying to sneak time in here and there just for one more row or a few more stitches. The result? Well. I finished the ugly sweater mentioned previously. It's ugly mostly because I didn't follow a pattern, had no idea what I was doing, and picked it up after setting it down for months and I couldn't remember anything about it. So, it was a little wonky. The arms are too long and the ribbing on the cuffs and bottom don't really match in tension (I think I must have used different sized needles or something). But it was DONE and I was SO HAPPY.

So then I decided to re-knit some reading mitts. I made one once, not sure if I ever posted about it. But I made the wrong size and had to frog the whole thing. I was so sad! After that, I just shoved the whole thing in a bin in my sewing room and forgot about them. That may have been the moment I gave up on knitting for a while. All that hard work! And for what?? (Never mind that this was all my fault and the heartache could have been avoided had I just measured my hands).

But I decided to give them another shot, this time with the benefit of actually knowing how big my hands are so I could choose the right size (I know, seems like such an obvious thing, right?). And well, now they're done! Both of them! And they fit! And I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OMG. Seriously, guys. The other day while I was sitting in the car with Mario waiting to meet a guy from the internets about trading cars (yes, that's pretty much my life), I was wearing my pretty new mitts (even though it's May in Tucson and woolen mitts are really not necessary) and reading a book about dyeing yarn. I was the picture of yarny contentment.

I haven't really put down the yarn since then. Right now I'm working on a sweater for Mario and am eyeballing shawl patterns. I'm thinking something easy and free for my first every shawl. Like maybe Zilver? I'll keep you posted!