Progress

I’ve been trying to make some progress with my Hunter’s Star, but it slow going as my attention span isn’t the greatest.

I was hoping to make this queen size so I’ll need 20 full blocks and 5 half blocks, but I don’t think I’m going to have enough fabric, so I may have to re-think the size – either that or put on bigger borders but I’m not a big fan of doing that as I always think it looks too obvious.  Speaking of borders, my original idea was to put a small 1 1/2” finished inner border and a 5 1/2” finished outer border, but I have no idea what fabric I am going to use.  Nothing like winging it – most people would have this all figured out before they started cutting, but I like to live dangerously.

I’ve also been trying to finish a Hitchhiker scarf so I can start on this!

I saw this on Pinterest but the link provided didn’t take me to the pattern.  Thanks to another kindly Pinterest user, she told me where it came from and I ordered the book and the yarn.  I’m anxious to start it, but promised myself I’d finish the scarf first.  This vest is from a book called Seamless or Nearly Seamless Knits and there are some other very nice patterns in the book.  Since sewing things together is my least favourite part of knitting, this fits the bill perfectly!

I promised you pictures of some of my other knitting projects, but for the life of me I can’t find my model Bruno!  Before I got sick, I cleaned out our spare bedroom and packed away most of my very many bears but I was sure I left Bruno out as he made a great model and he was very special to me.  I have no idea where he has disappeared to so now I’ll have to go searching.

Here he is modeling a Ruffle Scarf I made a year or so ago.  How could I misplace something this big?  Maybe I did pack him away – who knows – I have no memory anymore, not that it was so great to begin with!

It’s very deceiving looking out the window this morning – the sun is shining and it looks like a gorgeous fall day, but the temperature is hovering around the freezing mark.  I really hope we aren’t in for a long, cold winter as I already missed spring and summer this year! 

I’ve been looking at all the pictures on Facebook from Quilt Market and it makes me wish I was going to Houston.  I’m sure all the stores will be e-mailing all kinds of new goodies to tempt us just as soon as they get home.  Of course, I’m not buying anything – not a single thing – until I use up some of what I already have.  Does that sound familiar? 

 

It’s Been a Long Time

For those that don’t know, I’ve been sick, really sick.  While I don’t want to go into all the morbid details, here’s the condensed version of what happened.  I went to Emergency on February 25th with really bad asthma symptoms.  While waiting in Emergency for a room, I developed the Tamiflu, then got double pneumonia and was on a ventilator for 9 days in ICU.  Following that, my lung collapsed 3 times so I had to have a chest tube inserted and back to ICU I went.  I was allergic to the Heparin they give you to prevent blood clots and hemorrhaged and eventually ended up with a blood clot in my lung.  Since I had been off my feet for so long, I could no longer stand or walk and had to learn to do that all over again.  After 87 days in hospital, I was finally released. 

When I came home that’s when everything hit me.  I could barely walk, I needed help going up and down the stairs, my breathing was very laboured and I generally felt awful.  I guess you can’t spend that long in hospital without going into a deep depression and that’s what happened.  I’m still struggling and trying to claw my way back to some kind of normalcy.  They say if you go through the motions, then eventually the pleasure will return – I’m still waiting.

I’ve missed my blog as it serves as a record of what I’ve been doing on the quilting and knitting front, so I’ve decided to try and start over and record what I have been able to accomplish.

In late July, I decided to start on something small and made some quilted cards, embellished with Swarovski crystals. 

The exposure on this picture is terrible, but you get the idea.  Since I still wasn’t ready to tackle anything on a larger scale, I decided to make Christmas cards.

While these are really easy, they are very time consuming.

I was doing the Border Creek Station Mystery Quilt before I got sick and luckily was all caught up on the clues.  I managed to get the top finished just in time for the reveal at the end of September.

 

My Aunt has been amazing during my recovery and came over every day at 9 a.m. to help me make it through the day.  She encouraged me, walked with me, comforted me, helped make meals and I know without her I wouldn’t have made the progress I have.  She is truly an amazing generous person and I love her with all my heart.  She brought her knitting over with her and always had it in a paper carrier bag, so I made this for her to carry her knitting.

 

Two of my daughter Sandra’s favourite things are shoes and Halloween, so this seemed an appropriate table runner for her.  Darren & her are having a big Halloween party this year, so I thought this would look good on their table.

I’ve had a Hunter’s Star on my to-do list for many, many years.  I bought the fabric for it at least 6 years ago and I bought Deb Tucker’s Rapid Fire Hunter’s Star Ruler at MQX in 2009!!!  I thought it was time I got started, so this is my progress so far.

As you can see, it’s not all stitched together yet, it’s just placed on the design wall.

I’ve been doing a little knitting too, but I’ll leave that for another day or I’ll have nothing left to show you.