There hasn't been much knitting this past week, but I finally finished the first sleeve of Alyson's apres surf hoodie.  The second sleeve seems to going faster and I'm determined to finish this project before I cast on anything new.  Sometimes the urge to start a new project is paralyzing.  There are so many things I want to knit! 

first sleeve

second sleeve

Yarn and Pedals

During Madelyn's swim practice at our local YMCA, I was having my own little workout on one of the many elliptical machines.  It's always very crowded the first few weeks of the new year.  I suppose it's because of all the new year resolutions that people make.  "I will exercise EVERYDAY!"  Now that it's February, the crowd has thinned out and we are left with the regulars.

I'm not a very intense exerciser.  I don't like doing it and I find all sorts of excuses not to do it.  In fact, I talked myself out of a morning workout today so I could work on some of my projects. So far, I've read and replied emails, trolled Ravelry, read some stupid articles on Yahoo and started this post.  My project, the double wedding ring quilt, which I will get to after I'm done here, is still waiting for me at my sewing machine.  Anyway, I was hopping along on the elliptical machine thinking about my knitting.  I wish I could knit during a workout.  I think I would enjoy it so much more.  Would it be really weird if I knit while pedaling one of those recumbent stationary bicycles?  Those seats are very cushy and my arms wouldn't be doing anything.  If I had my yarn in a little bag at my waist, it wouldn't have a chance at getting tangled in the pedals.  Just imagine the strange looks I'd get!

recumbent bike with cushy seat

Floating UFOs

Happy Groundhog's Day!  It's been such a warm winter, I don't think it matters what the groundhog sees today.

In an earlier post, I had resolved to finish a couple of old UFOs.  When I say, "old" I mean REALLY OLD.  In 1998, I started a double wedding ring quilt.  I remember the year because we were living in California at the time and getting ready to move to New York.  So, the top was started on the west coast and completed in the east.  During the few years we lived in NY, I basted the layers together and started hand-quilting the darn thing.  This uncompleted quilt has since lived with us through two more moves and is still a UFO.  As much as I enjoy hand-quilting, I never liked dragging the 78"x78" quilt out and laying it over my lap to quilt.  Too hot in the summer and too many other things to do in the winter.

I hand-quilted about 1/3 of the quilt

 Recently, I've started on the quilt again, though I've decided to finish it on the machine.  I'm going to try to work on it a little every week until it's done.

Getting ready to machine-quilt

Blue is my FAVORITE color

The other old UFO is also a quilt.  I've never completely followed someone else's quilt design before this one.  It's from a Little Quilts booklet that I bought on a trip to Atlanta ten years ago.  I even followed the color scheme of the pattern, which is unusual for me.

Only the border needs to be quilted

The only thing I didn't follow was the heart-in-hand applique in the left corner.  Instead of the pattern from the booklet, I traced Madelyn's little hand.  She was about two at the time.  It's probably been over two years since I last touched this project.  I really want to get it done but I have so many other things I also want to work on!