I was a Fotomate, back in the day.  Fun job!

c. 1975

Try as I might, there's not a whole lot of stitchin' goin' on.  Work has been sucking the life out of me for the past several weeks, which leaves me mentally and emotionally depleted.  My work BFF was "let go," supposedly for lack of funds, and four days later we got a bombshell dropped on us that a new layer of management had been added --  another whole layer of BS to each and every day.  More people will be leaving, I suspect, and even when you know you excel at your job, it's difficult not to worry.  And even though I know quiltmaking calms me and gives me that "Calgon, take me away!" feeling, sometimes it takes more energy than I have just to pick up where I left off.

I had a personal goal to have this baby finished-to-flimsy by April 16th, but that didn't happen.  Yesterday I was putting blocks on the wall to get a visual and realized something was wrong.  There should have been only two chains, but I was ending up with three?

These were the alternate blocks I sewed.

Sewed wrong, that is.  There was no place to put them in a 3-chain design.  Yes, there are some in the picture, but they don't go.

The seam should have been on the other side.

Although a quilt with three chains was also part of my EQ file, I'll have to make a decision tonight:  make three chains then one chain across; keep going with three chains and make more blocks to make it the size I wanted; or unpick 48 blocks.

The week in pictures

I don't have a lot of time to sew during the week, so staging the next step helps for whenever I get back to it.  

Baby Steps 101

1. Take on a challenge from Linda to get off my duff and piece the quilt shown.
2. Find the unused box of 4-inch squares from Y2K and start pairing them up.  See that Cup-a-Soup box?  Chock full of squares cut from every fabric the shop bought that year.

3. Unhook the laptop from the display and make room to sew.

4. Dig out the sewing machine and dust it off!

5. Find that DVD of Mad Men that needs watched and returned. 

6. Start sewing.  

7. Decide that you can't hear the storyline and switch to music instead.
8. Put the DVD back in while you square up.
9. Trim the squares because they really aren't all 4 inches after all. Or square for that matter.

 9.  Rinse and repeat.
10.  Delight in the small things.

This really should be a finished socks post

... but oh well.  The picture, taken this morning, shows what I accomplished through Sunday evening, and I'm very happy with that progress in three weeks.   I don't think I'll ever go back to one sock at a time.

The grey pair only needs cast off, but I need to unearth the book to see how to do that.  About 10 rounds plus the cuff is needed on the other pair.  I have something going on every night this week, so none of that will happen before the weekend.  Then I need to move on to some Christmas gifts so I won't feel so guilty about what I spent during a cyber-Monday sale.

Nothing but knittin' this week

I've managed to do quite a bit of knitting this week.  I'm past the heel and ready for the leg on the second dark sock, and I found two skeins of Regia Cotton in the nether regions of my stash to restart the two-at-once last Sunday.  Toe-up this time, just because it's what I'm used to.

I'm not entirely fond of this cotton yarn (very splitty!), but I'm loving the process.  I want to work on quilts tomorrow, so I'm hoping to make it through the heels on the grey tonight, leaving nothing but legs to work on during the coming week.

Must get a pedicure!

Progress

Last week felt frigid here for early November, and I managed to come down with a nasty upper respiratory and sinus infection that doesn't want to go away.  This week is better with temps in the high 60s, but it's been a rough week with the time change.

I've made a little progress on the one sock thanks to some mindless ribbing on the leg while watching TV.  A little bit to go on the cuff and I'm ready to start the next.  It cracks me up how distorted these can look when the ribbing isn't expanded.  Must ask Santa for some sock blockers.

The two-at-once didn't fare as well.  I love the process, but they were too tight when I tried one on Grant last week.  Hopefully this weekend I'll have a couple of hours to invest in starting again.  It's not nearly the mindless process (yet) as one at a time.

I also managed to make it to the post office with a couple of toddler quilts and an old round robin UFO that didn't move me anymore for Gloria.

Is anyone else shocked at how little fits in a Flat Rate Priority Mail box these days?