Panic and the Never-ending Socks

Panic attacks suck.  There are certain things I really need to get done that send me over the edge every time I even think about them.  Remembering what I need to accomplish in a given day is hard enough as it is without those tasks sending me running for cover under the nearest quilt.  So I get behind, and that makes the whole situation worse, adding one more thing to the list of things I can't stand to think about.

Thank God for Xanax.

I have been getting some knitting done, and finally finished a pair of lace tabi socks that I started in 2008.  Only 4 years to knit a pair of socks!  That's actually pretty good for me, socks are not my favorite thing to knit and I will do just about anything to avoid knitting the second sock.  Sadly, most people like wearing socks that match (I do to if I am being perfectly honest about it), so my one-sock knitting thing isn't very useful.  At least I got this set done.  The second sock is a tad looser than the first, but I think it will be ok once I wash them.  I'm quite happy with how they came out and am looking forward to wearing them with my flip-flops on my way to aikido.

Since I managed to finish this pair of socks, I started another in a fit of irrational sock-optimism.  I had gotten the yarn for this pair in 2005, possibly earlier, and I meant to knit them for my then-SIL.  That relationship broke down, so the project languished.  I've got one done and just finished the patterned cuff for the second, so I have some hope that I might actually get them done before the moths get to the first sock.  The color (pink!) is fun and the cuff bit was interesting to knit and very cute, which seems to be keeping my interest.

Next up will be sweaters for the fall and winter!  Sales and sewing orders are starting to pick up, which means I will have less time for knitting but if I start now I should finish one or maybe two before the holidays.  So far this year I have no major holiday knitting planned, which is sort of nice.  There are a couple of sewing projects, which I really need to start now.  If business it like it was last holiday season I won't have much time to work on anything for myself after the end of October.  Here's hoping!

Quilts!

I've taken up quilting in the last year or so, because I really need another craft in my life.  It's actually sort of fun, and I have a lot of scrap fabric that I can't use for costumes or much of anything else.  Using it for quilts, I feel like I'm being a good hippie and reducing trash.  Of course, I also end up buying a lot of quilting fabrics but I was doing that anyway, I just didn't have much to do with the fabrics I was getting.

Anyway, the first real quilt I did was a gift for my brother last year.  This summer, I finished #2 and #3.  I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, though I need to get better at the machine quilting part of the process.  Trying to wrangle a 70 inch square quilt through my machine is tricky and I ended up with some funny little bubbles on the backside.  Using the walking foot on my machine helped a lot, I suspect the rest is just a matter of practice.

The first quilt is lap or throw sized, I didn't really bother to measure it but I think it's about 50x60 or so.  The whole thing is done in nice cozy flannel, so it's very soft and will be great this winter.  The dog loves it already.  The piecing was easy, but for some reason the the boarders at the top and bottom get a little stretched out so they don't lay right.  I think the flannel may have stretched some when I was piecing it and I didn't really notice until I was doing the quilting.  The whole thing is scribble quilted, which was fun to do and worked well except for where the boarders didn't fit right and in one spot towards the end where things puckered.


The second quilt was even easier to piece, though the way the pattern was written a lot of waste was produced.  This made me upset, but the end result is nice so I can sort of let it go.  All of the fabrics are Asian-inspired prints I've been collecting over the last year or so.  The whole thing sort of reminds me of the trip I took to Kyoto in 2008.  I wasn't sure about the colors and prints together, but in the end it looks pretty and I'm very pleased with it.  For the actual quilting, I just stitched in the ditch, which created a really nice diamond pattern on the back.  The whole thing is a 70 inch square and I wasn't feeling comfortable with my quilt-wrestling skills to try free motion quilting on this.

Now that these two are done, I'm working a smaller piece that's based on a shoji screen quilt I saw I one of the local fabric stores.  It's going to be a gift for a good friend who just bought her first home.  The top is all put together, I just need to decided on a backing and do the quilting.  Because the colors are so high-contrast I'm having a hard time deciding how to quilt it.  I think I may try some of the invisible filament thread they have now and do free motion scribbling on it.  We'll see.  I'll post pictures one it's done and sent off.

She's back!

Ok, really I never left exactly, I did start a new blog to chronicle my fiber adventures in the SCA and I've had several major attacks of life since my last post.  Lately though I've felt like I needed to chronicle some of my other crafty projects that don't fit into my other blog, and to rant about the rest of life.

Life has been interesting since last I wrote.  I graduated from law school, got engaged, had an excellent post-grad fellowship, passed the bar, found a job doing something I like, got married, lost the job, and got in a major car accident.  That accident has changed my life more than anything I've ever done.  I have major migraine problems as a result and needed hip surgery last year to repair the labrum in my right hip which was only partially successful in eliminating my pain.  I can't work as a lawyer (or much of anything else) because of the headaches and resulting problems with confusion, anxiety and memory so I started a small business making knitting needle cases and bags as well as designing knitting patterns.

Thing are rough.  Married life is not much of a consolation.  It's given me a roof and keeps food on the table, but not much else.  Most days I feel like a glorified housekeeper.  I've found it difficult if not impossible to write for the last couple of years, which is one reason why this blog fell by the wayside.  So has my personal journal.  That has always been a source of comfort and a way for me to process things, be they events in my day or my sometimes confused emotions.  I feel stuck and stopped up and I'm sick of feeling that way.  Hopefully reviving this blog will help with that, if I have to write about something maybe I can start to write for myself again too and figure out what to do with my life.  Again.