WIP Wednesday and Yarn-Along

It's kind of been an exhausting, discouraging week.  Lots of grading, headaches, kids with drama, sore back, upset stomachs, broken stuff, insomnia, etc.  But I have managed a little bit of knitting and sewing.

The second interminable argyle sock has been advanced by almost 2/3 of a diamond.  I am resolutely not yet thinking about how I'm going to handle it if I run out of the blue.  I'm reading some oldie-but-goodie books.  Don't Panic... Dinner's in the Freezer is responsible for the beef stroganoff brewing in the crockpot as I type.  These ladies came to speak at my MOPS group in the mid-90's in Denver, when Daniel and Secundus were little.  If you like to have meals frozen and ready to go for your family, this book and its sequel are very nice.  And I recently read Emily Goes to Exeter and am working on its sequel, Belinda Goes to Bath, by M.C. Beaton - or as she was known at the time of their original publication, Marion Chesney.  These are fun, frivolous Regency romances with witty and enjoyable characters (she went on to write the Hamish MacBeth and Agatha Raisin mystery series).  This is the "Travelling Matchmaker" series about a housekeeper who has received a small income that allows her to seek adventure on the stagecoaches of the day.  Hannah Pym will be a recurring character in each of the six books; the people she interacts with change with each book, and there is always a somewhat humorous happy ending.  I used to check these books out of the library around the same time as I was schlepping little kids to MOPS.  I seems like a long time ago now.  I borrowed these through the Amazon Prime lending library.  I've been browsing free books and I'm also reading A Charming Crime by Tonya Kappes, which has fun elements but certainly doesn't rise to the quality of writing in the Beaton books.  Check out what others are knitting and reading at the yarn-along over at Ginny's blog.

And in the quilting world, Celtic Solstice is maybe halfway seamed together, and draped along the Megaquilter table where I'm lazily working on the Farmer's Wife.  You can see the stack of blocks from the APQ quiltalong peeking out on the left.  So, as January winds down, I'm not really finished with any of my goals for the month, but making small progress on them at least.  Check out what other quilters are doing over at Freshly Pieced.

Randomday with Angry birds

Halfway through the school year, and my ability to grade another page is absolutely shot.  No, seriously.  14 4-page finals in 6th grade, 18 5-pagers in 7th grade, 16 5-pagers in 8th grade.  I started getting bleary-eyed after the 7th grade, but I was able to hand them back Friday, the day after they were taken for the first two batches.  8th grade always has to wait.  What kills me is the full page of sentence translations.  All of Gaul is divided into three parts, of which the Belgians inhabit one, the Aquitanians inhabit the second, the Gauls inhabit the third.  NOT "is inhabited by the Belgians."  Active voice.  It's hard to be nice to anyone during finals and grading week.  Today was spent almost entirely grading the 16 -- no, 15, one girl was sick -- 6-page copies of the Isaiah 40 Vulgate worksheet.  My mental state could be best described as somewhere between "melted down" and "dead." Physical state is pretty much what it usually is after a grading marathon... headache, blurry vision, a column of fire from the base of my skull down to about mid-back, and really sore shoulders.  I have "Panis Angelicus (18 copies of 3 pages) to grade for 7th grade still, but it will be next week before that's done.

After supper Steve took us out to Cold Stone and I had the "Falling in Chocolate" with their new truffle flavor ice cream.  I am somewhat restored.  Steve and the girls are going to watch the Pandorica episodes of Dr. Who.  I'm probably going to skip out and have a hot bath and go to bed early.  Or not.

I downloaded the Angry Birds Rio app for my Kindle this morning and have been playing it somewhat obsessively since on my grading breaks.  It's either that or try to conquer the world in Civ 4, and my attention span is not that great.

Speaking of my Kindle, I am enjoying it a lot.  Besides Angry Birds (which I had always secretly wanted to play but wasn't willing to get a smart phone for), here are some of my favorite apps:

Olive Tree Bible software - you can download several different versions of the Bible (I have a Latin Vulgate and a Greek New Testament as well as KJV and ESV) and you can do a split screen in 2 different languages or versions to compare.  You can also load a chronological or other reading plan and check each day's assignment off when complete.

Duolingo - This is a free app for language learning, using similar methodology as the expensive Rosetta Stone.  I have been (obsessively) learning Italian this way, although knowing Latin is definitely a big boost.  It's addictive because it turns language lessons into a game -- you don't want to lose all your hearts! If you are so inclined you can link up to Facebook or other social sites and challenge your friends.   You can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or German so far.  And for free.  Occasionally there is an unreasonable expectation for knowing a word or usage that hasn't been introduced yet.  And as a devoted grammatical language teacher, I get frustrated sometimes that they don't just give you the rule so you can supply it.  But it's a pretty cool app nonetheless.

Cogs is a fun game that was one of the free apps of the day after Christmas.  You have to arrange gears and steam pipes to make little machines go.  It's simple enough for kids to want to play but complicated enough to keep adults engaged through a series of puzzles.

Eufloria is hard to explain.  You are supposed to plant trees on asteroids, harvest seedlings from them, and then use them to fight other seedlings from other asteroids.  But it's fun and addictive in a hypnotic, zen kind of way.

I check every day for what the free app of the day is and usually I don't like it enough to download it.  One of these days I'll do a bunch of mini book reviews from my Kindle reading.  But that's all for now.  I'm for a hot bath, a glass of wine, and an early bedtime.

Works in Progress - Farmer's Wife Quilting

Well, I finally got back to the quilting machine and did a row of sashing and blocks on the Farmer's Wife Quilt.  It really didn't take too long.  Now I have 30-something Latin final exams to grade so I shouldn't take too long blogging about it!

 Block #93, "Swallow." I outlined the yellow pieces and made a feathered whirligig on the center large square.

 Block #20 - Churn Dash.  Basic outline quilting.

 Block #29 - Economy.  I did another of those feathered whirligigs in the central square and some scallopy things in each corner.

Block #88, Star of Hope.  I outlined the peach triangles and made another feathered whirligig on the big square, but you can't see it very well.

 Block #65, Peaceful hours.  Outlined the yellow and the center octagon.

 Block #43, Garden Path.  I outlined the lighter striped path and the center green four-patch.

Block #104 "Wild Geese" - I outlined the geese as they form arrows pointing into the center.

I've started seaming the Celtic Solstice blocks together too, but no picture there. And... that's it for now!  Someone rescure me if I'm still grading in 5 hours.

Disability, Medical Ethics, and Embracing it All

Today I'm posting, in part, in the T-21 blog hop to raise awareness about Down syndrome.  Related to that, I've been thinking a lot lately about - how to phrase it - the lack of equity in the medical treatment of people with disabilities.  Check yesterday's post for my musings on it.  It's not just medical treatment I'm thinking about - the Ethan Saylor case is an example of a crying need for better training for law enforcement workers.  But as long as the disabled, particularly those with mental disabilities, are ever-so-subtly denied the same treatment as the rest of us, there is a need for more vocal advocacy.  I'm not really an activist, but the thought of how vulnerable my own child could be in so many situations is sobering.

The central issue for me: do doctors give the same quality of care to a person with a perceived mental handicap as they give to a person with "normal" brain function?

Embracing Quincy, Our Journey Together was the first book I read on my new Amazon Kindle. It was free for a few days after Christmas when I was poking around, and it immediately resonated as something I would want to read, even though I knew it would be a heart-wrenching book.  It's the story of a family whose unborn daughter is diagnosed with one of the most frightening of genetic disorders - Trisomy 18.  As the author states, medical treatment for Trisomy 18 is currently where Down syndrome was in the 1950's.  Children born with the condition rarely survive for long, and when they do, it's because of the passionate advocacy and tireless devotion of their parents.  As the parent of a child with Down syndrome, I feel like my life is one of ease and luxury by comparison, and my daughter's condition is a walk in the park.  But for anyone who cares for a disabled person, and especially for neonatologists and doctors who deal with high-risk pregnancies, I'd recommend this book as a snapshot of how one family perceived the medical establishment and its treatment of their child.

It's a disjointed read, with a lot of flashbacks and more or less unrelated stories, but it is sweetly written for all that.  The author is what I would describe as a New Agey flake -- she tries to visualize her unborn child to better health, she practices meditation and has psychic readings, she muses about her own personal history and how it fits into the cosmos.  Having had one abortion, she turns down the doctors when they urge termination in this case.  She seems to put equal faith in the name-it-and-claim-it theology of some charismatic Christians and the occult philosophy of the "law of attraction."  As head-shaking and bizarre as I personally found some parts of this memoir, none of that should matter.  The medical community failed her and her daughter at a point when they were most vulnerable, and there was a decided lack of basic human compassion in their treatment of her.  This shouldn't happen.  Period.  No matter what you think of the religious beliefs or lifestyle of the parents.  And compassion, given regardless of diagnosis, would be the best place to start in every case, I think.

Design Wall Monday

Linking up to Design Wall Monday today with a shot of what was on the floor... Celtic Solstice blocks laid out.  They are now stacked and pinned and ready to sew into rows.  This is my third of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts -- you can still download the clues from her site for a few more months, I think -- and her designs emphasize the scrappy so much that the layout itself is not a big deal.  There is really a little of everything within each color family in this quilt.  Looking forward to seaming it all together soon.

Once again I have no finished projects, so no excuse to make my first stash report of the year.   If I finish this top, then I can count some fabric used, that's my rule for myself.

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(The line of asterisks is my primitive way of telling you I'm changing the subject. Most of my followers are here for the quilts, but I can't really stick to one thing at a time, as they've probably figured out by now.)

Daniel is having his first day of classes back at college.  We had school today, although Tertia and the public schools were off.

In honor of Martin Luther King and the quest for civil rights and the right to self-determination, I'm also posting about this case -- have you heard about it? Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old African-American girl declared "brain-dead" by the same hospital that botched her tonsillectomy.  It's very worrisome to me, as the parent of a child with a disability, that the family's wishes should have been so  badly ignored in this case.  Another Down syndrome parent and blogger is well worth reading on this, at Kimchi Latkes.  She has some excellent links here and here exploring the ethics of this case as well, including some about how those in the African-American community feel about medical ethics after their history of exploitation and abuse.  It makes me wonder if we really should be so self-congratulatory on overcoming racism and discrimination.  I have a friend with a mentally disabled daughter who became medically dependent after a stroke while in the hospital... she reports a widespread bigotry on the part of medical specialists, especially neurologists, against those who have mental disabilities.

Understand, it's not that the ethics in these hard cases are unclear and there is no consensus -- that may or may not be the case, if you have a "quality of life" that meets the expectations of the ethical decision-makers.  What concerns me is that the consensus appears to be different for different patients, based upon the prejudices of the people who make up the hospital boards.  And especially troubling is the lack of regard for the wishes of the families.  So this is to get you thinking about the subject of the civil and human rights of the disabled.  I'll be posting more in the next days and weeks, because it's a subject that just keeps coming up in my everyday life and reading.

Randomday - the Missing Candle

I found the missing candle.  Back in November, for Steve's (x)th birthday, I bought this along with one other digit.  Then when it came time to put the candles on the cake, though, I couldn't find the brand new candle I KNEW I had bought.  I had to rummage in the drawer and find a yellow zero that had already been used at least once.  Well, this week as I was unpacking the reusable grocery bags, I felt an extra little lump down underneath the bottom lining of one, and there it was.  But it was broken, as you can see.  I put the top half inside another almost used up candle and burned it, but discovered they only make the wicks go down about half an inch on these birthday candles.  Today I've been observing Steve being a bit of a "pyro" and playing with bits of old candles and matches and trying to get them to burn just a little bit longer.  I had never seen this side of him before.  Secundus plays with matches all the time, but never Steve.  Maybe it's some kind of metaphor when you play with broken birthday candles.

Daniel has to leave very early tomorrow to go back to college.  Last night he helped me set up an Amazon affiliate widget thingy on my computer and link it to my blog.  Theoretically, if you want to buy something on Amazon and have a portion of the total go to support Carpe Lanam in some way, I think you can do it by accessing Amazon.com through the search bar on the right.  I am not totally sure I have it set up right, but I think I do.  I promise that I will not waste any hypothetical money that comes in as a result of this attempt at monetization.  My curiosity will be to see if it's enough to buy a pack of gum, or a skein of sock yarn.  If it's any more than that, I will definitely use it for college and other family expenses.

I'm enjoying the new Kindle a lot.  I can set it up on my sewing spot and watch Netflix or listen to Pandora while sewing, so much more convenient than the laptop.  Today I think I figured out how to borrow books from the library on it.  The first one?  Let's see if I can do this link thingy:

Okay, well apparently I cannot.  But it's William Shakespeare's Star Wars, (doing it more or less the old-fashioned way) which is something I wish I had thought of first, because I would have loved to have written it, complete with R2D2 beeping in iambic pentameter and the soliloquys.  Even R2D2 has a soliloquy in which he explains how he is forced to speak only in beeps and squeaks when in company, and though he is but a simple droid he knows he will play a key part in saving the galaxy.

Yesterday was the day to give the pretests for the 2nd quarter final exam.  The next 2 weeks are going to be full of hard work and intensive grading.  I will be ready for a soliloquy on the plight of the humble and neglected Latin teacher by the end of them.  But more on this anon.  Sleep must first knit up the ravel'd sleeve of care.

Davy's Delight

Davy's Delight - my Grandma Bogue's recipe.  One of her quintessential, Midwest, good-stuff-in-the-icebox recipes.  I had a request for it and thought I'd post it on the blog rather than just email it.  That way, the world can have it.  It's very similar to other versions floating around under different names, and I haven't made it recently so I don't have a picture.  It's still really, really good.

Davy's Delight

1 C flour

1 stick margarine or butter

1/2 C chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

2 T sugar

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 C powdered sugar

1 C Cool Whip, plus additional for topping.

2 small or 1 large pkg. of instant chocolate pudding mix (it is possible to vary the recipe using other flavors)

3 C milk

Melt butter or margarine and mix with flour, nuts and 2 T sugar.  Press into bottom of 9x13" pan and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar, Cool Whip in mixer for second layer and spread over cooled first layer.

Mix pudding and milk for 3rd layer and spread over second layer.

Cover with more Cool Whip (whatever's left in the tub) and refrigerate for a few hours until serving.  May top with more chopped nuts.

WIP Wednesday and Yarn-along

Time again for Wednedsay updates on quilting Works in Progress and the knitting yarn-along.  It keeps sneaking up on me without my making much progress.  Not sure what to blame - busy teaching schedule, post-holiday exhaustion and lingering colds, family needs.  Probably all three.  And there's the fact that I like to multitask and think/blog about other things besides crafts.  I have a disability advocacy post and a big book review post and at least two or three heavy philosophical posts planned, but haven't been getting around to writing them.  Just in case you're a new follower and not used to the fact that I can't stay on one topic, this is a heads-up that I'm going to be woolgathering at some point in the near future (officially and publicly - I'm woolgathering all the time).  Anyway, here's where things stand:

Celtic Solstice has been making very slow progress.  I think I only have about 8 more blocks to assemble though, before I can start seaming them together in rows.  See my last post for how it looks on the design wall, and for the latest block in the APQquiltalong.  

I finally got back to knitting the second argyle sock, and it's progressing slowly.  I'm mildly worried about running out of the blue yarn.  I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas!  I've been enjoying playing with it, loading it up with some free books and apps.  (Coolest app so far -- I am intermediate in Italian now thanks to DuoLingo).  (Okay, maybe the fact that I teach Latin and have an obsessive personality also helps).  I want to take it to the library and figure out how to borrow e-books that way.  Anyway, I'm currently reading Huckleberry Finn.  For the first time.  I can't believe it, but it has long been the biggest gap in my English major education.  By the way, it is completely false that I always win when I play Balderdash.  I always have a fun time, but I haven't been winning when I've played it lately.

Design Wall Monday

So here's what my design wall looks like at the moment:

It's mostly Celtic Solstice.  I have more than 80% of the blocks pieced and will maybe get started assembling the rows later on this week.

And I have another block to show in the APQ low-volume quiltalong.  I think this is #5.  Not a lot of sewing went on over the last week, but enough to claim a bit of progress.  However, no finished projects of any kind since the beginning of January, so I still have nothing to make up a stash report about.  It will come, I hope!

Randomday - in Praise of Sloppy Joes

Yesterday evening was the Last Noel.  Questions about the Last Noel?  See here.  I don't know how many people we had, because I was too tired to keep count, but it was wall-to-wall teenagers in the dining room, living room, and family room. They were playing chess, poker, the piano, and singing harmonies to Christmas carols. Secundus fell out of an upstairs window with apparently no ill effect.  For the first time ever, there was an "after party" with some of Secundus' friends having a "bro party" tacked on to the Last Noel.  They helped remove the Christmas tree and restored the living room furniture to its normal positions, then watched the Shawshank Redemption and went on a 3-mile hike along the railroad traps after midnight in a windstorm.  I'm very glad I was asleep by that time.

Julie M. showed up with an interesting hostess gift: a 15 volume set of the collected writings of Washington Irving.  Daniel, who just wrote a paper on him for American Lit, was very interested.  Tertia was overjoyed that her dance teacher showed up - otherwise it was almost entirely a group of Cedar Tree and 1st OPC.

You should never underestimate the community-building power of the humble Sloppy Joe sandwich.  I spend a lot more time baking cookies and making the pasta salad, but I'm serious.  People get nostalgic about Sloppy Joes.  They are effusive in their praise.  And all I did was brown a boatload of ground beef and onions and then heat it up with celery, ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, pepper, brown sugar, vinegar, and maybe a little barbecue if the mood strikes.  There is no recipe, just general guidelines.  I guess some people use a mix to make Sloppy Joes, but I have no idea why.  There were a couple of teenage boys who came early, hung out for a bit, ran to go participate in strenuous athletic competitions, and then returned for three more sandwiches.  I had bought a selection of buns, including the new pretzel slider buns, which were very popular.  I had gluten-free crackers for the gluten-free folks, who are trending these days.  I contemplated making potato salad instead of pasta salad, but no, I'm stubbornly pro-gluten.  And a quick poll of my pasta-loving family came out in favor of the pasta salad too.  But I did consciously leave out the MSG in my dip recipe this year.

I have a guaranteed day after the Last Noel to recover.  Nothing much is expected of me.  The family and any remaining guests eat leftovers and I ignore my Latin grading and normal Randomday chores.  And by the power invested in me as hostess of the Last Noel, I declare the Christmas season officially over.

Celtic Solstice on the Design Wall

Enough to see the lovely patterns formed by the 2 different blocks, this is Celtic Solstice.  I have all the 54-40 or Fight blocks pieced and am not quite halfway finished piecing the second blocks.  Then of course I will need to sew them all together and add borders to make it finish at 75" square.  It's a good design; I like it a lot.  There are several overachievers linking up at Bonnie Hunter's site who have already finished the top, I bet.  I will be content if I can finish the top before her final link-up.

My quilt is inspired a bit more by my Scottish heritage than the Irish, so I chose darker greens and plenty of plaids. But if you look at my ancestors it doesn't take too many generations for the Scots and the Irish to intermingle a bit.  And they all ended up being Americans together.  I thought of the colors of the Irish flag and the colors of the Scottish flag mixing in this quilt, (and orange for the Dutch too!) with the sun sparkling on the water, and I thought of this song by Battlefield Band, which seems appropriate:



Many thanks to Bonnie for another beautiful mystery quilt and a fun way to spend Christmas break! I'm also linking up to Judy L.'s Design Wall Monday, but not to the stash reports yet because I have no completed projects for the year.  Yet.

Randomday

Here's today's randomness:

Some sewing... I am through with the 54-40 or Fight blocks of Celtic Solstice and have 6 of the 25 Birthday blocks done.

Grocery shopping - I drafted Secundus to come help me and loaded the carts with the makings of punch and hot cider for the Last Noel... because we're doing it again this year.  We have to, the kids have already invited all their friends.  After the grocery store I took Secundus to buy jeans and a bowtie at Ross.  He wanted suspenders too but didn't find them there... he hit me up for a $20 bill to go on his own to Kohls to buy them for himself.  He's such a clothes horse!

I have been enjoying my new Kindle Fire.  I am working on the DuoLingo app to learn Italian... so far I'm somewhere between advanced beginner and intermediate.  I know how to say useful things now, like "Il mio gatto non e vegetariano."  But the microphone doesn't always like my accent.

Steve and I took the girls to see The Hobbit 2 this afternoon.  The previews were too scary for Tertia, but she was fine with the more cartoonish violence in the movie itself, for the most part.  She did take her blanket with her so she could hide her face in some of the scary parts.  I liked the movie; although Tolkien purists will not.  It's typical Peter Jackson - go big or go home.  With lots of battles and monsters.

I made ham pasta for dinner because it's quick and used up the last of the Christmas ham.  Then I made a big pot of minestrone to help use up the New Year's turkey, which we'll take to fellowship tomorrow.  Then I mixed up a plum cake which is baking now.  And now I should sign off because the boys are having me watch Inception with them and it is not making a lot of sense to me.  Is it a sign of motherhood-induced brain damage that I prefer a straightforward monster movie to this kind of ... what? Psychological fantasy?  Or maybe I shouldn't see more than one movie per day.

New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year!  May 2014 be happy and productive for each of you who brighten my days by stopping by my little corner of the internet!

Bonnie Hunter gave us Celtic Solstice mystery sewers a gift on New Year's Day - early release of the final layout clue!  It's going to be gorgeous, but I have been slower than some and only have about 30% of the blocks assembled so far.  Can you believe there are quilters out there who already have a finished top?

The beginning of the year is a good time to set goals for the year.  Since this blog is primarily about sewing and knitting, that's what I list.  (Other goals, personal goals or reading goals for example, I may share as they come up but that's a bit more than I want to keep track of publicly!)  I enjoy having a master list of goals for the year and selecting a few each month to focus on.  I rarely meet all those goals each month, but one of the fun things about blogging is talking about the ups and downs of my favorite hobbies.  It surprises people I know in real life when I tell them that there are actually people on the internet who are interested in reading about other peoples' quilting and knitting projects.  Sometimes it surprises me too!

I participated in Judy L's UFO challenge for the last two years, but I don't think she's running it the same way this year.  I liked the way it existed last year and the things I was able to get accomplished, so what I'm going to do is compile a list of all my known sewing projects as of now.  I will categorize them by WIP's - things I'm actively working on as of the last few weeks/months; UFO's - projects started but in a state of long-term neglect; and USO's - Un-Started Objects, projects I want to start but haven't yet.  Today's post will list all of these in one long list, and then each month I will pick 4 projects I want to tick off the list for that month.  Ideally it will be one UFO, one current WIP, another project in any of the three categories of my choice, and a knitting project of my choice.  To make things interesting, I'll select the UFO project randomly.  I'm going to leave the knitting category undefined because I like to follow my whimsy there, and my whimsy changes.  I may or may not find a place to link up my progress on a regular basis, but that's not as important to me.  To give myself an incentive... maybe if I finish all 4 monthly goals, I will allow myself a trip to a yarn or fabric store or online shop.  Otherwise I will be crafting from stash exclusively except for necessary batting and thread.  I will be tracking my stash usage of both yarn and yardage, but that will be on a different schedule.  Last year I allowed bonus points for projects above and beyond the stated goals.  Bonus points mean absolutely nothing, but for a slightly obsessive personality like mine, they are also part of the fun.  And I can use them to "atone" for a monthly goal that I didn't meet, so it builds in some flexibility.

UFO's

1. 1996 Piecemaker's Calendar Quilt: finish hand applique and embellishments
2. " " (enough to make 2 months' worth of work)
3. 1996 Piecemaker's Calendar Quilt: complete top.
4. Scrappy Trip Around the World
5. Classical themed tote bag
6. Felted wool blanket(s)
7. wool hooked rug in Mariner's Compass design
8. knitting: On your Toes gray sweater
9. knitting: Carnaby Street skirt
10. knitting: Rosalind sweater

WIP's

1. Farmer's Wife Quilt - machine quilting and binding 
2. Celtic Solstice mystery quilt top
3. Thoroughly clean and organize sewing area (I need to do this at least 3 times a year!)
4. Conversion to Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User system is still ongoing.
5. String Star
6. Not All Who Wander are Lost quilt - a good month's progress would be 6 small blocks
7. APQ low-volume quiltalong

USO's

1. Bowling-style knitting bag (I can't believe I haven't started this YET!)
2. three-quarters bag kit from Connecting Threads
3. heirloom linen blouse
4. wool stuffed toy cat
5. Frugal Patch quilt top
6. Celtic Solstice quilting and binding
7. Country Stars quilting and binding
8. Clean out the flannels - make 3 or 4 baby quilt tops
9. knitting: design stranded colorwork forest sweater
10. knitting: socks for Daniel
11. knitting: socks for Steve
12. knitting: socks for me
13. unravelling thrift store sweaters
14. New York Beauty quilt top
15. a quilt with 1930's fabrics
16. maybe another Double Wedding Ring quilt
17. Of course I reserve the right to start a new project at any time of the year
18. I owe my mother-in-law the machine quilting on at least one quilt... soon!

Whew!  Well, it's not really too bad.  I have fewer UFO's than in previous years, and my stash is better organized.  Here are two of Grandma's quilts that I pinned for her, just to break up the length of this post:

 Elephants and Donkeys.

And a patriotic lap quilt from a free pattern she got.

Now, on to January's goals:

1. UFO: #8 came up, knitting the On Your Toes gray sweater.  I will at least dig it out of the pile and evaluate.  It has been hibernating a long time.  

2. WIP: Celtic Solstice mystery quilt top.  That could actually happen.

3. another WIP: Farmer's Wife quilting... binding can wait, but it would be great to free up the machine.

4. Knitting: finish the argyle socks for Secundus.

If making decent progress on UFO#8 is impractical, I will substitute one of the other knitting projects.  Bonus points for finishing a thorough tidy-up of the sewing area, making a bag, or any of the other projects really.  See how easy I'm making this for myself?  A monthly, modest shopping excursion is a good prize to work towards.  If I finish all the UFO's and WIP's listed here, I think I should get a new sewing machine next year.  (Just kidding, Steve... I know it may have to wait until after Secundus is through college).