A little of this, a little of that

My knitting basket is starting to gather a slight layer of dust, and after finishing up my in-process sewing projects I haven't felt the urge to cut or sew. I haven't really felt the pull to do any sort of crafting lately.

The knitting is coming along nicely, I am just feeling a little...how shall we say...bored?...with it. I need to put my nose to the grindstone and finish the two projects I have on my needles so that I can move onto to something fun and new. I realize that I tend to thrive on challenges. I love the learning that comes along with trying something new; and the way that something new fully captures my attention.

My attention is slowly being pulled towards our yard - and the garden that I should start putting in this weekend. There's broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and pea seedlings to get in the ground. The flowers and tomatoes are coming up nicely, but it will be a few more weeks before they are planted outside.

On a really happy note I successfully defended my dissertation proposal and am now officially a dissertator. I am still finishing off my last class, which will come to an end in early May. I will now spend the next 12-18 months gathering my data, analyzing it and writing up my results.

This past week was also full of new summer recipes. I'd never made fresh tabbouleh before - but believe me, this will be a summer staple around here. I tweaked the recipe to double the feta, and added more salt, pepper and lemon juice. My other recent favorite finds are courtesy of Trader Joe's: truffle brownies (from a box) and lemon curd.

So...no big projects on the horizon at the moment. I'm just waiting in the calm moments for inspiration to strike again. Some friends were singing the praises of freezer paper earlier this week, maybe I'll look in to that.

In the meantime I'll enjoy the days that are getting longer and warmer - and the fact that we are eating dinner in the backyard again!

Bad Sewing Machine

After completing my spring wall hanging I was totally excited to do more sewing. One of my goals for this spring/summer was to try out making some clothing for the girls. I've never sewn a garment that was meant to be worn for real, (I've done Halloween outfits) and I thought this year I would give it a go. So I started with the Oliver + S lazy days skirt. Another goal is to finally figure out how to sew in a zipper. Sadly, I won't be accomplishing either of these things in the near future.

About half way through the first skirt my machine stopped working. The thread was breaking before making even one stitch. It did this over, and over, and over again. Likely a problem with the tension disk, but after taking the machine apart I wasn't able to see anything to fix. So I packed it up and put it away.

My husband surprised me with this machine as a gift about 2 years ago. A very generous a and kind gift to be sure. But, him getting me a sewing machine is sort of like me purchasing him a table saw. Neither of us know enough about each others craft to really make an informed purchase.

Aside from it not being the machine I would picked out for myself, I've always had trouble with it. The tension/stitching never worked properly and has given me constant headaches.
After a call to the two local machine repair shops, it seems the cost of maintenance or repair to this one would be at least half the original purchase price - so I'd rather put my money towards a new machine. About a year ago we started a small savings fund to get a new machine, born from the proceeds of my husband selling an underused drill press. The other thing I don't like about this machine is the amount of plastic on it. It just doesn't feel like a sturdy, durable machine.

For now I can borrow my mom's machine to get me through the skirts and another dress I have planned. There is a lot of web research to sort through before I decide on a new machine. There are also a lot of blog posts that discuss this very journey. [If you have a story to share, please let me know and leave a comment - I would love to hear about your experiences and why you use the machine you do!]

So it will probably be awhile until I am up and running again with the sewing. Oh well, there's no better excuse to keep knitting or explore some fun hand sewing.

Spring sewing

With spring finally around the corner I found myself back in the sewing room gazing upon my fabrics. I have been watching this amazing quilt tutorial and so wish I had the time to jump in on it. Regardless, I really wanted to get my machine going again. I settled on a small wall hanging to go at the top of the stairs - a stacked coin quilt with vintage fabrics.

I participated in a vintage fabric swap last summer and have been using bits and pieces for various projects. In the fall I got a little ambitious and planned out a quilt project that would really show off the fabrics. Denyse Schmidt has an amazing pattern for flying geese and I was hooked. Unfortunately, my execution was awful. I spent time cutting what felt like a zillion triangles, laying them out in just the right order, and then sewing them up. The rows turned out terribly - really crooked and I never managed to get the points of the triangles to match up. (Does anyone else have this problem?) So the cut fabrics sat in a corner. Until a new idea hit me: a stacked coins quilt, inspiration here and here. I cut down the remaining triangles and re-purposed them.

Here it is, hanging at the top of the stairs. It is a tri-color front with vintage floral prints and the back is made from another vintage fabric, with a bold blue stripe down the middle. I think it measures about 22 x 24 inches. The sashing is a white Kona cotton solid - what a dream that fabric is to work with!

This piece just screams spring to me. Now...where's the spring weather?

Take my mind off my dissertation

Things have been busy here with writing, and preparations for my dissertation proposal defense. It has been scheduled for next Tuesday, April 7th and my committee members are now in possession of my manuscript. The only thing left to do before my defense is prepare the .ppt and practice it. In the last month I've also finished up a book that I am writing with my advisor on administrative diversity and we submitted another manuscript for review to a journal. Yes, I've been very, very busy. Sadly, that means less time knitting - but I certainly have been dreaming up new projects. See here and here.

I have been exhausted at the end of each day so I needed some mindless knitting that would take my mind off the keyboard and re-center me on the important things like spending time with my husband and enjoying my kids while they play. I settled on a pink sock series - for kids (thank you Ann Budd). I've finished up one full pair, and am about 75% done with the second pair. I had fully intended to make a third pair for my youngest, but with spring/summer coming I think that I might hold off for a bit. They would make for a quick summer project anyway.

Before the writing began I was also able to complete one of the no-purl monkey socks and have just cast-on for the second. There's no rush to get these done and I'm enjoying the slow pace of these projects. I don't usually like to have lots of projects on my needles at the same time, but having lots of socks, at various stages of completion, gives me the option to pick up a project at lots of different points. If I feel the need to finish something, I can pick-up the kids sock. If I just want to sit and knit, I can cast-on the other monkey sock and get going.