She's going the distance

Whenever I hear the phrase "going the distance," I think of the band Cake, which was a very divisive topic among my graduate school colleagues - one guy in particular LOVED them, and most others who had any opinion HATED them. I fell in the "HATED them" camp, but I've mellowed over time. :) And it seems an appropriate title for the second half of the full flower efforts!

It's been a month with no posts, and almost no sewing, sadly! 

Margie, congrats on all your projects, including the Spanish! I decided to take a break from my language learning in ~August 2023, and have yet to regain momentum. The stripey shawl is beautiful! The scarf is so fun! The socks are fabulous! I like your plants, too. Hope Ginny's allergies are under control. 

I do have some progress to report: The green (top left) bits are the one that was in progress a month ago (not much changed there), but I have had a few others join the party, including another discovery of a flower "core" (like in July). I actually discovered at the time that having the core was almost more annoying than not having it, since the way that the inner hexagons were joined together made it extra difficult to move from one seam to the next (which is not a problem with my updated joining-of-strips strategy). However, it's certainly not annoying enough to actually take the seams out!

I've promised myself that I'll refresh my knowledge of other ongoing projects today, and I've realized today that I am WAY BEHIND on my reading challenge for the year (which could work in favor of flowers, if I'm listening to audiobooks, or against, as I have many physical books I am excited to read), so who knows what the next few months will hold! If I did try to get through all of the flowers before the end of the year, I would need to complete 2.06/week from here on out. Hmm.

Full flowers: 32/64 (4 started)

- Catherine

Quilt like the wind!

 You are doing such a good job of quilting and posting!  Maybe I need to set a time on my calendar to post...

So I last posted in April.  

I finished Spanish 2 and have been using DuoLingo instead.  It has helped with my vocabulary, but I really need to be around people who speak it.  I might go back to class, but I really like having my free evenings.  Decisions, decisions...

I finished the stripey shawl, and I have knit, unknit, and knit more on Catherine's sweater.  There is a current delay while I need to do some math.

Ginny's issues seem to be environmental allergies.  We have spent many dollars to find this out.

I finished the knit along socks, and am making progress on Jeff's scarf.  I think I only have a quarter left to go.  Let me go find pictures!

The completed stripey shawl!

The violets! Still happy, although not much blooming this summer.

Sock 1

Sock 2

Catherine's sweater!

Birthday yarn from Germany (yes?) I am thinking I might be able to make several pairs of short socks out of the two balls I received.

Jeff's scarf.

So that's all for now.  I'm probably going to make some basic socks in a crazy yarn and work on the sweater (and some other things) for the next couple of months.  I don't think anyone needs Xmas knitting.  We'll see if anyone asks.

I'll post again soon with the details of the departure of Smallest to her new place and dance company!

Margie

Halfway there!

This post is coming a week late (the photo is from Aug 11), but there has been a lot of work stuff to do. Meaning! I almost met my goal of getting to halfway by Aug 9, and anyway am done and slightly past that now. See?

I am at a science thing now, and have brought my sewing in case there's a good opportunity to get in some hexagons. We shall see. :) I'll also have a fair amount of time on planes in September and October, so I may make some progress there. This is definitely a big project!! 

I did also pull out some of my other projects in progress, and will have to remind myself where they're at. More on that next time!

Full flowers: 32/64 (1 started)

- Catherine

August. Rude.

How is it August already???? I think it should be... maybe February.

Well, we are getting dangerously close to August 9, but I am pleased to report that two flowers are finished, and another two just have two seams to finish (one of which is partially done) before they're done as well! You can see them and my helpful kitty below.

Actually, the two mostly-finished flowers are so close to being finished that I won't take them on my trip at all - it would be silly to finish them quickly and then just carry them around for a week. But I will take the most unfinished flower and a whole bunch of not-yet-started flowers, and see how far I get. 

In unrelated good news, a nearly finished project that I inherited from Mom has found an interested taker! I hadn't finished it because I didn't know what I would do with it, so this will reenergize me. Stay tuned!

Full flowers: 29/64 (3 started)

- Catherine

Yay for Past Catherine

Well, it's been 8 days since my last post, in which I said that I needed to complete 1 flower each 6 days to stay on track. Unfortunately, I have not completed a single whole flower. However, I have started each of the 5 flowers I need to get me to halfway - see below (the 5th flower has less than a full seam done, but it's started!!). The top image was a fun surprise - apparently Past Catherine started working on this flower and then tucked it away again in the envelope, so when I pulled out what I was expecting to be single hexagons, the inner circle was already done! I can tell it must have been VERY EARLY in the process, because I stopped sewing them from the middle out like that after about the third flower...

In good and bad news, I don't have a lot of required sitting around to do between now and August 2, so I'll have to make my own opportunities to move things along. I am also starting to get REALLY BORED of hexagons. Maybe my incentive will be that I'll take a break at the halfway point and do something else crafty for a bit? Time will tell!

Full flowers: 27/64 (5 started)

- Catherine

Stay on target...

Thanks to planes, buses, porch chats, mom time, and catching up on work recordings in the last week, I am pleased to share my latest progress of *6* more completed flowers! See? [The red one is not a glitch in the matrix from last week's post - I have two redundant red flowers.]

This puts me only 5 flowers away from my goal of getting halfway done by August 9! As long as I can complete one every 6 days, I'll stay on track. In bad news (for the quilt, at least), I am done with flights until August, so I will have to be more proactive about carving out quilting time. In other bad news, I've completed all the partially-done flowers from previous posts - just 2.5 seams done on the newest flower (at the bottom of the photo) - so no easy wins in the near future.

It's tempting to start thinking about next steps - do I have all of the other fabric I need to complete the quilt? Do I start working on those hexagons and sewing them into small strips? Do I start imagining the overall flower layout? What will the actual quilting look like? But I will try to stay focused on just grinding out the flowers for now - still a long long way to go! 

Full flowers: 27/64 (1 started)

- Catherine

Un deux trois quilt

I made a concerted effort this last week to work on the partially-done quilt flowers whenever I could, with the result that I finished 5 more! The complete ones shown here were all the ones in the top photo from my last post, and the green strips occupied the rest of my time sewing with Mom yesterday (after finishing the yellow flower in the first ~30 minutes). With the greens and the five sets of strips from the lower photo in my last post, I'm poised to knock out a few more quickly. I also have yet more flights this coming week/weekend, and still more recordings to watch for work and some of our favorite sports on for the next month... hopefully lots of quilting!

In other motivational news, this batch of 5 puts me at ~1/3 done with all of the full flowers, an excellent step forward given that I was 1/4 done in just my last post. I will challenge myself to make it to halfway (32) by Aug 9. That might seem like a random choice but I will be flying home from an international destination that day; a good time to catch up if I'm behind. 

One additional reason I'm pleased I tried the "jump-starting" technique (see last post) which requires many needles is that it prompted me to find more needles; I found a packet of actual embroidery needles and WOW they are so much better to work with than the two I had been using, which makes the whole experience more enjoyable. I'm going to retire those original ones for other purposes.

Full flowers: 21/64 (6 started)

- Catherine