Shamrock Knits

Machine Knit Baby Shower Gift

I haven't worked much on the crochet baby blanket or the quilt lately. I seem to go in phases of what I work on. Instead, I've been reading some books on time management and transitioning into a new environment for supervisors. I did, however, work on this baby blanket for a former coworker. It was done on my knitting machine (LK150) in about 5 hours. I could have shaved off some time, but it's been awhile since I worked on the machine.

I used Bernat Baby Jacquard yarn, so that's the striping you see. Instead of the garter stitch borders, I did ribbing. That's easier to do on the machine. I'm off to the baby shower this afternoon, so I hope she likes it.

Road Trip, My BFF Joann, and Mojo

Road Trip

I had an awesome holiday weekend. It started out by Robin and I taking a drive to Starved Rock. Along the highway, we see signs for quilting stores. Who are we to ignore that? We went to one store that was within 10 miles of Starved Rock. It was a little hard to find, but a really nice store. Both of us bought some fabric. Here are some pics of the day.

 Doesn't it look like there's a clock carved into the wood?

I've been getting into black and white pictures as well. Gotta love digital cameras so you can switch back and forth.

My BFF Joann

Joann's had a major sale going on this weekend. I spent about 2 hours shopping on Saturday and another hour on Sunday. I bought fabric, batting, and tools for the quilts I plan to make for my cousins for Christmas. Sorry, no pics of the fabric.

Mojo

I've got my sewing mojo back! Not that I had a ton to begin with, but I haven't done much after I took the sewing class at COD. I actually got a lot done. I would say that I have about 1-2 hours left for the top of the quilt. I've been going pretty slow and made a few mistakes here and there. I think I might be able to finish the top of the next one in a weekend, if I'm able to dedicate fully to it.

There will be a separating row above each square in the same black and white fabric. I got a little carried away with the chaining, so I might have to rip out a couple of pieces. All in all, I think it's pretty good for a second quilt. Kathy hosted a couple of quilting lessons at her house for our knitting group. We made a simple nine patch quilt and then I started a log cabin quilt. I don't have too many blocks of the log cabin done, but I'll get back to it after the holidays.

Beautiful Blogging and About Me

Someone nominated Robin for a Beautiful Blogger Award, which is definitely desired. She then nomiated me for some unknown reason. LOL

Here are some things that you may not know about me.

1) I have low/no self-esteem. I was fat as a child (nicknamed Miss Piggy) and grew out of it somewhat as an adult. More on the chucky and curvy side than fat. My weight fluctuates like a yo-yo.

2) I don't like to talk about myself much or like to be in pictures. This probably relates to #1.

3) I was recently layed off. I don't have any bad will against my former company, but items #1 and #2 are definitely a hurdle in a job search. It has made me realize how bad I was with keeping in touch with people. That's something I'm working on improving.

Enough with the Debbie Downer items ;)

4) I'm a collector. I collect first edition hard cover books (mostly mystery), DVDs (have about 300 movies), yarn and now fabric (as most knitters and sewers).

5) I support the troops through BooksForSoldiers. I used to be more active in sending care packages, but I got a little burnt out. I've got shelves of paperbacks, puzzles, games. pens, used DVDs in my basement ready to go. Each box is about $15 for shipping, which is not bad, but financially not a good time for me right now.

6) I'm a Facebook game addict. Right now I can't stop playing crazy quilt software. Ironic, right? I don't post very often (like here), but I go and play the games too often.

7) I'm an only child with an extended step family. I have a stepfather, stepmother, stepbrother, and two stepsisters. One of my sisters has been my housemate for over 5 years and we're three months apart in age. Made for interesting coversation during college bar days (same last name).

9) I've been trying to exercise over the last couple of years. I was doing extremely well between my personal trainer and starting to run on my own. My #3 item has put a dent in that schedule. You would think I have all the time in the world to exercise, but I find myself less motivated. I think it's a mix of guilt that I should be doing something more productive (looking for a job), no regular daily routine anymore (go to gym after work), and I really hate working out. I did feel better overall and was definitely looking better than I have in the past. I haven't stopped all together, but sometimes it's weeks before I get back to the gym.

10) I take pictures of flowers when I go on vacation. I'm having difficulties with my computer, so this is the only picture I can post right now. This is a picture from a California winery. They plant flowers and roses near the grapes as an early frost warning system. Effective and beautiful.

Update: My computer is feeling better now. This picture is from Arizona. My sister and I were walking up Camelback Mountain and this was on the way there.

Can't have flower pictures without one from Hawaii. This was in a strip mall parking lot.

Here's one from House on the Rock. There's a small, but beautiful, Japanese garden there.

 

Crocheting for Babies

Despite the lack of posting, I have been knitting/crocheting. I'm not as speedy as Robin or Kathy, but I do get something done occasionally. The first is a crochet log cabin that I finished in June. This is for a former coworker who had the baby at the beginning of July. Now I just need to get together with her.:)

 

This is a simple half double crochet throughout. I had wanted to do a couple more rounds of trim, but I ran out of yarn. GASP! This never happens to me as I have a tendency to overbuy. As in, "I don't know what I'll do with the yarn, so I'll buy 2 bags in case I make a cable sweater or something." So, I overbuy on the "good stuff" and only get 1 skein of each color for the acrylic baby blanket. Don't try to understand the logic here.

The next baby blanket is for a cousin. He just had a baby girl, but since he lives in San Diego area, I don't think they'll be needing it right away. My sister and I just went there in July and are thinking about taking a few days again before the end of the year if we can work it out with my miles.

 

It's a simple repeating fan that I found in a stitch library. It originally called for three colors, but I already had these four from a previous purchase (was going to be a knit log cabin). Using odd number of colors is the ideal thing to do so that when you're changing colors, the appropriate yarn will be there to pick up. I decided to do two rows of the muted pink in the first repeat and then it's skipped in the second repeat. I cast on too many stitches so this orientation will be reversed. In a baby blanket, I don't think it really matters which is the long or short end.

New York in a day

Robin mentioned that she was going to New York and back in a day for a fabric-filled day. Basically a fabric crawl (think pub crawl with fabric). I was able to use my miles so I tagged along. We had an awesome day! We started out at Starbucks, shopped at two fabric stores, had lunch, shopped at two or three more places with another Starbucks break in the afternoon. Here a couple of pics from the day.

This is a charmuese fabric and a shell top pattern. I got this fabric for 50% off at Paron's. I also bought a cream 4ply silk for a similar top. That fabric was pretty pricey, so maybe I'll try it first on muslin and then this fabric.

 These are knits that I got at Spandex House. Our trip was in the garment district. It was so cool walking down the street and seeing so many different fabric stores, notion/trim stores, etc. At one of the places we went to, a prior season Project Runway designer was working there and helping Robin with her fabric choices. I also bought some knits from Metro that will be shipped to my house in a few days. It was starting to get too heavy carrying around all this fabric.

It was so great listening to all the women talking about their sewing projects, lives, offering tips and advice. Some of the great people I had the chance to talk with are Carolyn, Andrea, Sheila, Elizabeth, Jen, and Rachel. There were so many more, but I'm so bad with names and didn't write them down. :)

I'm working on getting my spare room more organized. So far, I put in these drawers from Ikea in my closet. I love them. They're filled with fabric so hopefully, I'll be inspired and organized enough to start working on some projects! I have so many on my to-do list right now. The sad thing is that the shelves are pretty filled up. We'll see if I can squeeze in my recent purchases.

Goals? Check!

I'm checking off my personal and work goals. I'll start with the non-fun work goals.

1) Found out in December that I'll be losing my job at the end of May. - Check

2) Update resume. - (Have semi-decent draft done) Check

3) Posted resume and/or sent out - Nope - I've been procrastinating on this since December. I was in denial before since I've been with the company for 20 years. Now I think it's just fear of my self worth and trying to find a new job "out there".

Now on to the funner personal goals.

1) Lose 2 dress sizes - Check! It's taken a year with personal training, but finally there! I was at a size 16 pants and now in between a 12 and a 10. YAHOO!

2) Start running - Check About 2 months ago, I started running for 30 second intervals with walking in between. I added 30 seconds of running each week for awhile and then started adding 1 minute. I just surpassed my first goal of running 10 minutes straight (I did 12 min yesterday).

3) Finish Ravelympics project - Pretty much Check - I just have to do the seaming and weaving in ends. I haven't had much knitting mojo and have only been knitting during my Thursday night group.

4) File taxes - Check (after tonight) - I started last night and will have it finished tonight. For some reason, this year and last year I waited until April. I usually have this done at the end of Feb or beginning of March.

Future goals:

1) GET RESUME OUT AND LOOK FOR A JOB! - I've only got a month and a half of work. I'm getting some severence, but I don't want to count on that and unemployment. I'm afraid it may take a year to find a job. God, please prove me wrong.

2) Run 20 minutes straight. Then 30 minutes. Then try a 5K run. We'll see if I can stick with running and accomplish this by the end of summer. If not, I'd like running/walking to be part of my workout routine. Now that I'm done with personal training (last session was tonight), I need to try to keep up with it on my own. I don't want to be a 16 again. My whole life has been yo-yoing up to 16, then back down to 14 (if lucky a 12).

3) Declutter the entire house. I soooo need to get rid of stuff. I have too much clutter. I feel paralyzed in my house surrounded by everything. This will be on my unemployment "to do" list.

4) Break out of self esteem issues. I have negative self esteem. This is not going to help my find a job or a man for that matter. One of the things I gave up for lent was negative self talk. I need to keep that up and move on with my life. This and the exercise thing are my mid-life crisis issues. At least I'm finally working on them!

5) Start secret crochet project and get back to the trim on my never-ending shawl (started in July).

6) Finish log cabin quilt (sewing) and, in general, get back to sewing. I have plenty of fabric (big surprise). I just need to get at it. This will be an unemployment "to do" list too.

7) Keep in touch with friends and get in touch with ones I haven't talked to in so long. I'm absolutely terrible with calling people. This is not a good thing. I feel like I'm letting friendships slide. I should move this up to number one because it could help with all the others!

Quilting Day

My knitting group got together this past weekend for another quilting tutorial. Kathy gave us one about a year ago, but most of us didn't sew much. Now more of us have machines, so we tried round two. The first tutorial was a nine patch that all of us finish. I wanted to do a log cabin and Kathy graciously agreed. I was able to finish two complete squares that look like this..

I made a mistake on the third square, so we used that as the example for putting it all together and free motion quilting. I don't know if I'm going to free motion with maybe a different color than black or to stitch in the ditch. We'll see when/if I get enough squares sewn to make something. My original thought was a table runner, but now I'm leaning toward pillows for my bed or a lap quilt.

 
I love the fabric colors. I chose the center and back fabric first and picked the other colors from that.

 

Yes, I'm still here

Wow, it's been awhile. I'm still working on the shawl, but I put it away around October. I started another log cabin blanket for a coworker. I used Bernay Softee Baby in the baby room colors. I used the needle size on the yarn label. I forgot that since I'm a loose knitter, I should've gone down a size. It was still fine, I just prefer the gauge in this stitch a little tighter. I do love this stitch - even I don't need to take a pattern with me.

 

The border was several rounds of half double crochet. I think that's my new favorite border. It's quick and not too lacey.

I also took a sewing class at COD with Robin. I'll post pictures of my projects later. I usually knit Christmas gifts for my cousins, but I decided to sew them gifts this year. I found this cute pattern online and got the "old" blue jeans from various coworkers and friends. I think they came out pretty cute. I made 3 snowmen and 5 snowwomen.

I'm going to make a set for me, my mom, and my stepmother. I got tired of making them, so I'll probably bring out the materials again in the summer or fall to work on those. My entire dining room table is covered with snowmen, materials, and my sewing machine. There's just too much "stuff" all around. I want to straighten the house up a bit.

I have other life issues that happened over the hiatus, but I'll post about that another time. Happy New Year everyone!

Lace Shawl Update

I've finally finished the body of the lace shawl I started in July. It's the Shaped Triangle pattern from A Gathering of Lace. I bought the book and the yarn at Meg Swanson's camp. Since this book was originally published in 2000, I thought I'd be ok. Of course with my luck, I have one of the original books with all of the errata in it. Aand of course, this pattern has errors. There was about a week where I kept ripping out and starting over before I realized this. I thought I was doing something wrong. Anyway, here's a picture.

The hand dyed sock yarn is called Old Blue Jeans. Perfect name, huh?

San Fran

I went to San Francisco on a work trip a couple of weeks ago. Attached are a couple of pictures. This one is the curviest/windiest road. The streets to get to it are pretty steep. I walked around alot that day and boy, did my calves get a workout!

The next couple are from Alcatraz. We did the audio tour at night. That was pretty cool. The one thing I love about digital cameras is that you can switch from color to black and white photos in a snap. Most of the black and white pics looked better.

On the audio tour, one of the former inmates said that his niece or daughter taught him to crochet. He then, taught the other inmates. In the front, left corner you can see a pink crocheted blanket.

These last couple are from our day trip to Napa Valley. The morning started out gloomy, but by lunchtime, the sun came out and it was gorgeous. Some vinyards plant roses or other flowers at the end of the rows. They're a beautiful combination, but the flowers are an indicator for weather/soil changes. If the plants die, then there will be a problem soon with the grapes.

This vinyard is where we had lunch. The family that owned it lives on the vinyard as well. The wife is also a sculptor and had pieces throughout the property.

 

I'm resting in front of one of her pieces. It looked like a good place for a snooze.