Mitten, mitten

I really seem to be smitten with mittens right now. The lace cuff pair are finally finished, not sure what happened but the left turned out bigger than the right and the right fits so nicely!

This is the next pair, pretty basic pattern now but it has thrums!! How cool are they?
They are twists of carded wool that you knit right in.

and it gives you all this lovely soft, warm fluff inside! (Sorry for the glare, can't wait for my good camera to finally get back from being repaired!). She said you need lots of thrumbs, make what you think is enough then make lots more. She was right, I am not half way up the first mitt and I have to stop and make more thrumbs.

And the continuing saga of the purse, why must purse pattern instructions be so convoluted? Some real photos and not just drawings, need to be included so a person has a better idea of what exactly it is they are trying to do looks like! 

Hope to have it pretty much finished by tomorrow.

Then I need to drag out a UFO to work on at guild sewing day on Saturday.

On the countdown to vacation! 

and

linking up with WIP Progress Wednesday and Let's Bee Social

Slow Week

Here is the better image of my first FAL finish of this year.

Sun cooperated and I managed to snap the very last image on my memory card!

Original post is here

Between working full time and the Olympics, this is pretty much all I accomplished on my mitten project. This is after ripping it out two more times to get it sized properly. After all the craziness of the lace cuff, I want something I can actually wear!

Prepping some tops to go to my long armer, last of the tops on the shelf. I DO still have tonnes of UFO's, no worries there!

Tiny bit of progress on the purse last weekend.

I did attend the very first meeting of our local Modern Quilt group, so inspired now to to forge ahead and learn more!

I am off to the sewing room to get the backings pieced and make some progress on my travel purse.

Grow Your Blog prize winner

And the winner is of the prize from grow your blog is.............Carol from http://www.justletmequilt.com/

Congrats Carol

Lace knitting is progressing slowly, I want to get it completed but not likely something I will do again. I will keep to my simple-able to watch TV-patterns.

That odd coloured yarn at the beginning is provisional cast-on, it will be taken out and stitches picked up when I go to make the cuff a circle and continue on making the mittens. 

A couple of drawings, keeping up so far!

And because Monday is help for hexie-aholics at Sarah's blog, I will post a little progress pic.

Have a great weekend! Going to attempt a Switch Off Sunday....wish me luck!
Linking up with Let's Bee Social

Work in Progress Wednesday

and some finishes!

My first Q1 FAL finish. 

I need to do separate posts for each finish so I hope to get hubby to hold this up outside on the weekend. Will try for a better shot to post!

and this hot mess is also done. I bought this at a garage sale as a quick charity project. To make a long story short, it did not quilt well for various reasons but, in the end it will still keep someone warm. 

I am keeping the photo small on purpose!

Q1 FAL finish #2
Original post is here

Work in progress is the travel purse, all cut out and ready to sew. 

Linking up tonight with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

and Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh 

and I pulled out our quilt guild challenge as a reminder to make some more progress!

I am working full time for the next couple of weeks and then leaving on vacation shortly after that so don't expect to make much progress on anything. 

Will continue to draw and knit in the evening and work on hexies at lunch but that may be it.

Sometimes it just feels OK to set the bar low! LOL

Inch by Inch

Try as I might I just could not stay away from the knitting!

Another challenge, lace, and a challenge it is!

I have never ripped any knitting out so much as this.

I think I have the hang of it now, far from perfect but an acceptable first try.

It will be the cuff of a mitten...........eventually.

In the short time I did abstain from knitting I managed to get the first row of my hexie quilt pieced. The second row is about half done. 

With the Olympics on I hope to get lots of hand work (TV watching) of some sort done.

Linking up to Hexie Friday (yes, I know it is Saturday!)

And the snowmen are all quilted, but much to my disbelief I had nothing in my stash that would work for a binding. I am hoping the less than optimal fabric store up the street will have something that will work.
Hope to get it done in time for show and tell at guild on Tuesday.

This pile of ironing, the only kind I like! is this year's Festival of Trees quilt. Every year I say I am going to start early and dang it, this year I will! 

So far I have kept up with my personal face a day challenge, even if I forget until I am brushing my teeth before bed! She is probably my favourite so far. 

Hubby is making french toast for breakfast so I am off to take my coffee to the TV to watch some Olympics while he cooks. Sure hope women's hockey is on!

February Goals

As the calendar turned to February I found myself reflecting on how I did with my January goals. Perfectionist that I am was disappointed to only see half the things crossed off my list.

So, enter negative thinking, but, my word for the year is positive?

I also tried to practice patience for the month of January, but clearly have trouble extending that to myself, no? Maybe my list was overly ambitious to begin with?

So, I spent some time thinking about the positive things that happened in January. 

I made my first three pairs of mittens! You can see them here.

This top is ready for the quilter,

some significant progress on the beauty,

as well as this guy,

 8 pages completed for my Belize scrapbook,

technically not a January finish as I finished it last night, but SOO happy to have this done and ready to wrap around my neck tomorrow.

A close up of the braided twist of each section.

Also, my blog traffic tripled this month, thanks to lots of visitors from some great linkups!

I have decided that progress is good, so that is what I am focusing on for February, rather than finishes.

I have nothing on the needles right now, so this week I will stitch together row 1 of the hexie quilt

February will also be a face drawing a day, I am still trying to find my own style, so I will be trying lots of different ones. This one happens to be Manga inspired.

And I really want to make this up for our trip in March so there will be one new start!

Linking up today with Lily Quilts small blog meet

So, here's to progress and not being so hard on myself!