Time Gets Away

The older I get the more I slow down, and the faster time passes. I feel like I'm chasing myself to catch up with all that needs doing. 

Perhaps "needs" is too-strong a term for how I've sensed what must be done, but there always is a to-do, an obligation, or a commitment to fulfill. Time gets away from me more frequently. And here I thought my senior years would be like a storybook... spent whiling away hours on a rocker, knitting or napping. Ha! 

This past week was spent almost-frantically trying to finish the quilt I made for our Central Florida MQG 2nd Chance Fabric Challenge. Our "reveal" was at Saturday's meeting. Sixteen of our 47 members participated in making a quilt. (When the blog post goes up, you can see pictures of all of them our on Central Florida MQG blog.)

Anyway, here are a few pictures of what I spent my week doing... walking foot quilting, big stitch hand quilting, and making a faced finish on my 2nd Chance quilt. (Did you know it's not "a faced binding"? A "facing" and a "binding" are two different methods of finishing a quilt edge.)

facing, from the back

facing, from the back

big stitch hand quilting after machine quilting

domestic machine quilting

I haven't lost my fondness for circles.

I'll share completely-finished quilt pictures when I complete big stitch quilting. I'm trying to use-up all of this ball of size 8 Wonderfil Spagetti perle cotton. 

Sewing-wise, I'm starting to think about Christmas gifts for friends and family, and have a couple projects in mind to make. Gifts will be a reason to do a little retail, brick-and-mortar shop fabric therapy when I'm on a bus trip this week to three quilt shops. "Restraint" will be my word-of-the-day when I go!

An order of hand-dyed yarn arrived a couple weeks ago, and I'm itching to begin knitting it. I treated myself, for the first time, to some quality yarn from Expression Fiber Arts in North Carolina.

This is two hanks of hand-dyed Sincere Sock yarn (75% Merino/25% polyamide) with which I will knit a Panopeia sleeveless top. The link is to the pattern on Ravelry. Yes, I'm on Ravelry now.

Isn't the color just yummy? I like the intensity of the blue with a bit of purple and flecks of green.

I took a little time out to use my yarn ball winder to turn hanks into cakes.

But I haven't allowed myself to start Panopeia until I finish my Easy Shawl - Strickmich! It's coming along nicely, I think. When I completed Part 1 - the halfway point - I began Part 2. I've been told that though this Zauerball yarn feels a bit scratchy now, when it's been wet-blocked it will be soft on my skin.

With permission, I have a couple pictures to share - one from a blog-reader in New Zealand, and another from a friend. 

Antoinette made this quilt using my free Selvedge Quilt pattern found here. It tickles me to no end when I get to see what someone has made using one of my blog tutorials. Thank you for sharing this, Antoinette! It's beautiful! 

Jody emailed me this picture of her granddaughter cuddling the round loom knitted hat I made her last year.

Living in Wisconsin, I'm pretty sure that hat will be on her head soon!

Not so here... today's high is 82F with 85% humidity. Bring on winter, please! Linda