groovin

Despite what the frequency of posts may indicate, February and March were not months without crafting. On the contrary, I just was not inspired to write because I didn't think I was doing much. Now that it's April and I've had a short bout of Spring cleaning, I have a few of these projects gathered together and I realized that I have been creating, just in a slow and steady way rather than my past flurries of making. I'm still getting back into my groove, I suppose. I got out of the habit of sewing while I was working in Sacramento and it's taking some time to shift back from the long bouts of knitting despite the fact that I want to play with fabric. Isn't that odd? Since we redid the office, I have to find a new way of navigating my fabric play time. I can't have my card table and sewing machine out in the middle of the room anymore because this is actually a place where Dave needs to come and accomplish things.

So in the spirit of transitions, I have a couple of knitting projects and a small foray back into sewing to share. This first project I started shortly after Valentine's Day because I'd been craving a maroon *something* to wear around my neck. I hope I'll still be craving maroon next winter because it is now well into Spring.  

It will be a triangle-shaped shawl that I'm sure will look great wrapped as a scarf. The pattern is meant to look like repeated hearts, which I'm sure will take shape when the lace is all blocked out. It's fun to work on, though hard to talk to others when doing so. I made a lot of progress during downtime at a work retreat last week when I could sit quietly on my balcony to recharge my social batteries during longer breaks. Quite a ways to go though!

This next piece is exciting … it's the back to my Aidez sweater that I've been working on for a long time. I'm a little bit afraid it will be too long (my gauge must have increased since I swatched) but I'm going to power through and see how it turns out. Even if it doesn't fit quite how I imagined, I'm sure it will still be a cozy sweater and I will learn a lot from finishing all of the pieces and assembling them. If it turns out it's way too big for me, I'll be happy to donate it because it's going to be epic and awesome and someone should get to enjoy it. Just look at all those cables.

These little lovelies are for my niece's quilt. I ambitiously decided to make an EPP quilt and enlisted the help of an online quilting bee last January. I've lost track of one of the blocks, which annoyed me enough that I haven't wanted to work on this for quite some time. I've decided I'm over it (sort of) and am going to get on with my quilt-y life so I can finish both this and my Lonestar Hexagon quilt for Christmas presents this year. There I said it. This year! It's going to happen. At any rate, I found my hand stitching kit and put it next to a particularly comfy chair, which has motivated me to baste a few hexagons here and there. 

There are, as always, a few more things in the works but these are the latest things I've had my hands on. It's good to take stock every so often, and I'm glad I remembered WIP Wednesdays exist so I could link up and share!