More Flowers!

Looky what we have here:

Yep, more flowers.

Even though this is supposed to be One-flower Wednesday...

...obviously I'm sort of an overachiever!

They're fun to make, but the best part is choosing the fabrics. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying that!

I had thought I would sew these using the paper-piecing method, where you cut hexagons out of paper, baste the fabric over them, and whip-stitch them together. I ran off a copy of the size hexagons I wanted (you can find an explanation of paper-piecing and a link to printable hexagons here) and started cutting. After about the fifth hexie, I thought, "Ya know, I could just sew them together," and that was the end of the paper-piecing plan. It's really not hard at all to just sew the pieces, even though there's a set-in corner. That's one of the reasons I love hand piecing--I would never try to sew these on the machine. I'd go bonkers and probably end up sewing through my finger or something. Blood stains on the fabric are just too, too tacky.

I would do the paper thing if I were making really small hexagons. (Mine are finishing to about 7/8" on each straight side.) In fact, I'm doing another quilt using paper-piecing because the pieces are so teensy-weensy. I'll save that for another day.

Last chance to comment for the giveaway! I'll draw a name Friday, and the lovely merino-silk lace yarn will be on its way to a new home!

My New Favorite Video

Ok, maybe I'm a little late with this. Maybe everyone in the whole world except my great-grandma has seen this. (Yeah, so my great-grandma has been gone for a looooong time, but work with me here. And I don't mean "gone" as in "to the grocery store." You get me?)

Anyway. I find this cute, funny, charming, and a whole bunch of other adjectives. It's a masterpiece. (No, it's not Picasso or Monet. I don't mean that kind of masterpiece. Why do you have to be so difficult?)

Even if you've seen it already, my guess is that you can't resist watching it again. And again.

I have to get a video of my dog singing along with the guitar. Maybe it could be the next video to go viral!

Don't forget! Comment. Giveaway. You know what to do. 

The First Few Hours

As of this moment, I've practiced 6.5 hours on the violin this week. An hour a day seems to be the most I've been able to manage, and I have to break it up. After half an hour, my brain feels like mush and I start playing worse and worse. So I put the violin down and go off to do some knitting or spinning. When I come back to it later, I can feel and hear that I'm much better. So apparently my brain can only  handle 30 minutes of new info at a time.

My lovely violin

And that's fine, because my body has to adapt as well. My muscles have to be toned and built up for playing violin just as they would have to be for any kind of sport. Well, maybe not quite as much as, say, a weightlifter or something, but still. And since I've had whiplash on the left side of my neck and I have muscle spasms in the whole "shoulder girdle" (the massage therapist's term for it), I have to proceed slowly. One of the things I really have to think about while I'm playing is keeping my neck and shoulders relaxed. As the pieces become more difficult, I start tensing up and before I know it the muscle just below my left shoulder is burning. So half an hour at a time is plenty for right now.

A Bach piece I'm working on

On the knitting/spinning front, I'm trying to decide which projects I'll work on for Tour de Fleece. I'm not sure how TdF started, but it's where you spin every day that the Tour de France race is going on. You can set goals for yourself--some people want to spin a mile of yarn (which is not as hard as it sounds) and some challenge themselves to use a new fiber or technique. I think I'll focus on getting all the spindle projects done. Last time I counted, I had nine spindles with fiber on them. I've joined a couple of "teams" on Ravelry, so I'll be posting my progress and seeing what everyone else is doing in each team's thread. It's good fun

A few of the prospective TdF spindles

Don't forget about the giveaway. Comments on this post count as a chance to win!

One-Flower Wednesday

So, that whole finishing projects thing. Not doing so well with that. I slipped and started another quilt made of hexagon flowers.

This quilt-along was started by Karen of "Journey of a Quilter". Each Wednesday she posts  pictures of her completed flower blocks. You might notice that she doesn't work only on hexagon flowers--she has a number of other projects going too. She's obviously my kind of gal!

 Here are the guidelines. Mainly, just use hexagons and put your name and blog link on the list at least once a month. I think I can handle that. 

 Although it's called "One-Flower Wednesday", you may have noticed something.

I couldn't stop making the little boogers. I have a couple more cut out and fabrics lined up on the cutting table, waiting their turn. It's a terrific way for me to dive into the stash and work with all of those nineteenth-century reproductions I've been hoarding. Jo Morton and Judie Rothermel are my heroines--I love their repro fabric designs. This kind of quilt gives me a chance to put lots of different fabrics in one quilt, and I can do it without totally destroying my sewing room. That's always a good thing!

I'm changing the rules for the giveaway just a little bit. It actually gives you more chances to win. Just comment on any post (or all of them!) until June 30. Every time you leave a comment, I'll put your name in the hat for a chance to win that beautiful laceweight yarn I showed earlier.

Next time: Some thoughts on the 10,000-Hour Challenge. See you!

Under Construction

I've spent the better part of last week setting up this blog, deciding on a name, and creating the format. I'm sure there will be more changes, but I'm ready to get underway!

My old blog, The Big Finish, was supposedly focused on...well...finishing projects. Specifically, the dozens of knitting, spinning, quilting, cross-stitch, and needlework projects. The plan was that posting to the blog would keep me on track with finishing things instead of starting them. I was also determined to Stop Buying Stuff. Do I even need to tell you how well that worked? Here's a hint--this was the first list of projects I swore I would finish. As you can see, some of those things still remain unfinished. Yeah. That's a little embarrassing.

But, hey!! Sometimes projects you once loved just don't do it for you anymore. You fall out of love with the yarn or fiber or pattern. Or maybe the baby outgrows the planned project because you're so busy working on other things that you totally forget that you have supplies for a hat, two dresses, and a skirt for her. I'm not saying that happened to me. Oh, what the heck. Yes, that's exactly what happened to me.

What's really funny ironic stupid about this is that I was bribing myself with some really gorgeous butter-yellow Panda Silk sock yarn. I thought that surely I'd be so anxious to knit with it that I would whip right through my list and happily cast on pretty yellow socks, free from the pressure and angst of all those unfinished things piled around my chair. But no. The yarn languishes in the sock yarn drawer, sadly untouched.*

Obviously, I can't even bribe myself to finish something once I'm no longer feeling the love. So while I still have a list of UnFinished Objects in the notebook beside my chair, which, by the way, is up to something like 72 items, I'm just not going to pressure myself to finish everything before I start something new. There's really no point, and it actually is counter-productive for me. I need to spin up a few ounces of silk or merino or BFL now and then. Or I need to whip out a pair of mitts to give away. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something and lets me go back to the acre of handquilting I've been plodding through with a new spring in my step. Or a new twinkle in my thimble. Or something like that.

Besides the spinning, knitting, needlework, etc. that I love, I'm also a writer and a wanna-be violinist. (I would call myself a just plain violinist, but somehow I can't square that with someone who's just starting Suzuki Book 4. Which is the book that you would be working on when you're about...oh...6 years old if you were a real violinist.) BUT--I am starting a 10,000 Hour Challenge, which gives me a pretty good goal to shoot for. A bit daunting, yes, but what do I have to lose?

To celebrate both the start of my new blog and my new goals, I'm doing a giveaway. Up for grabs is this gorgeous skein of 80/20 merino/silk laceweight yarn (1300 yards) in a soft denim blue from Fearless Fibers on Etsy.

You can enter by leaving a comment on this post by June 30, and on July 1 I'll do the drawing. Even if you're not into knitting lace, you can sell it or trade it or do whatever you want with it.

*Actually, I was going to make the yellow yarn the giveaway prize, until I discovered that I had sold it from my stash on Ravelry. I don't know what has more meaning--the fact that I sold it or the fact that I forgot I sold it.

New Blog

I've moved on from the original premise of this blog, so I'm in the process of building a new one. Not much content yet, but check back!

SpingirlSpins.com

Thanks!!