Figuring Things Out

 Hi all -

I've finished my second week of retirement and I'm still figuring things out. I'm going to try to post regularly, once a week, but I haven't figured out which day is the best day for posting so I might be a bit erratic until I figure that out. Before I get started on my projects, I have to say: Congratulations, Chiefs! What a great Super Bowl game!! Now I can concentrate on cheering on my Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. March Madness is getting closer and closer!!

I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped this week, but it was still a good week. I've been getting some discomfort in my right collar bone and elbow from helping Lance get around so I'm trying to be careful not to aggravate that. Helping Lance is my number 1 priority! And, in case you were worried about it, I did get my chest freezer defrosted and cleaned out. Great to get that done! ;)

I did a little sewing this week, but nothing worth taking a picture of. Lance wears a diaper every night so that I can sleep. Before I started putting a diaper on him, I would wake up any time I heard any movement downstairs in case he needed help getting outside so I wouldn't have a mess to clean up in the morning. The diapers work well, but the stitching was coming out so I reinforced the stitching on all of the diapers so they won't fall apart. Not an exciting project, but it was actually kind of fun to do.

I also continued to work on my After the Storm Cardigan designed by Kelly Fowler:

After the Storm Cardigan front

After the Storm Cardigan back

I've finished the main body and am about half way done with the ribbing. As before, the color is a darker brown that appears in the picture. My pictures of this sweater keep getting washed out.

In my normal "squirrel" fashion, I also started a couple of new projects. Some time ago (last year? the year before?), I purchased a couple of kits for the Simply Soft Hat designed by Amanda Kaffka. I purchased the "Sew Good" version of the hat. This is the version of the pattern with the embroidery. I finished one of the hats:

Simply Soft Hat - Sew Good version 1

I did the knitting for the other hat and still have to do the embroidery:

Simply Soft Hat - Sew Good version 2

The second hat came with black yarn for the embroidery. I'm trying to decide if I want to use the general embroidery design from the pattern for the second hat or if I want to try changing it up a bit. I'm also thinking about looking through my beads to see if I have some bigger beads that I might be able to use in place of the french knots. I think that would be kind of fun!

Finally, I wanted to share a piece of embroidery I've been working on. The design is Bountiful Bouquet designed by Alex Anderson:

Bountiful Bouquet

I've been plugging away at this since last fall, but didn't get a picture of it until now. I'm hoping to make faster progress on this now. I bought this as a kit from The Quilt Show. It came with the printed panel, a collection of embroidery floss, needles and thread conditioner. I've added in embroidery floss from my own collection. I like the colors of the embroidery floss that came with the kit -- the colors are rich and there are beautiful variations in the color along the length of the thread. But the thread is a bit weak and, while I don't have any problems with the thread breaking, pulling the thread through the fabric causes the thread to get a bit hairy so the lines created with this thread aren't as crisp as the lines that I get from my other threads. You can see this best in the little purple flowers. The darker flowers that are closer to the center are using the kit thread while the lighter purple flowers that are further away from the center are using some other threads. I think that the other threads look cleaner. But in the end, it'll all look good and you won't see those little nit-picky things!

That's everything for this week. We had a couple of very windy days which ended up taking out the power yesterday, but today is nice and calm. That wind was bringing in a storm that should get here tonight and bring us some good snow tomorrow. At least, I hope it brings some good snow! We can always use the moisture!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Nancy