Norah, FO

This past weekend was far busier than I expected. Although I'd hoped to finish a hat, wind a warp, piece a quilt back and begin quilting said quilt. Instead, I:

1. Advanced from white to yellow belt and broke a board. I study at the Mid-Michigan Academy of Martial Arts, which is a mixed martial arts school. I love it. And for a beginner, I'm pretty decent.
2. Finished Norah!
   
   I cast-off Norah with angst. It looked too tall, the tick/lice patterning was bumply and it looked distinctly homemade. Indeed, the hat could stand to be about an inch shorter, but it fits and is warm (I wore it to work today). Blocking smoothed out a lot of the bumps and frumps. I like the hat. In time, it may just replace my beloved Kittiwake. Full details on Ravelry.
3. I did manage to piece the quilt back. Two cuts and one seam. Easy. A little more challenging with a toddler helping, but it got done. Said toddler also wanted to help with making the quilt sandwich, but since she couldn't help but walk all over the quilt, well, that was not about to happen.
4. No warping, but I did pull together the necessary materials, including the pattern and the yarn, both of which had been marinating in the stash for several years.

The other, other fiber craft

Sewing, that is. I don't sew nearly as often as I'd like, in part because my sewing room is also the kitchen.



This weekend, I managed to find a little inspiration. For two afternoons, I cleared the clutter from the table and got down to business. The first step was to remember where I was in this project. I had sewn strips together, but could not remember how I'd arranged these blocks of fabric. So I laid everything on the floor and flipped and positioned and flipped again until I found an arrangement that mostly, sort of worked. Then, I labeled it. Should have done that back in July when I started this quilt! Lesson learned.


And yes, it is critically important to color coordinate your socks with your quilting project.

From there, it was a lot of pinning and alignment and repinning and alignment.


And a bit of sewing until...

A complete quilt top - look Ma, it even has the borders! I hope to spend time this weekend reteaching myself how to piece together the back - then executing that maneuver. After that, it's off on an adventure of quilting on my own machine with a finishing maneuver of binding. Note to self: invest in an obscene number of safety pins, pronto.