Binding and Knitting

 I attended a Stitching Day on Saturday, organised by my quilt club.  It's a very casual affair, a small friendly group of us go along, coffee and tea provided, we take a packed lunch, and work on whatever project we wish.  I find it too difficult to unplug and transport my sewing machine anywhere these days, so take hand work with me.  And stitching a quilt binding down is perfect for me on these stitching days.  You may remember I am doing secret sewing with blue hearts and stars - these two quilts have now been commercially quilted, and I have stitched the bindings on.  So I took one of these to work on.  Not quite finished but I made a good start.  

I love my binding clips

It's always interesting seeing what the others are doing too.  Sewing machines were whirring away, and one member was sewing the binding down on a very special baby quilt.  She was waiting for the imminent arrival of her great grand baby!  And another had brought along a yet to be started project from years ago.  She had changed her mind about what she wanted to do, and spent the morning  trimming a big pile of 6in squares into hexagons.  That certainly took some patience.  

We had a visit from a good looking man in a uniform too.  He walked into our hall looking for his fellow Search and Rescue colleagues, who were having a meeting in the area somewhere.  No we certainly weren't SAR people, just looking at us he would be able to see that none of us were fit and agile enough to climb hills with a heavy back pack and rescue those in need!  We are quilters, we told him, so he went on his way to find his friends.

I've been knitting away as well, usually in the evenings when the TV is on.  A few rows here and there and it soon adds up.  My summer cotton top is slowly growing, I've finished the back and working on the front now.  I don't really like the feel of knitting with cotton, it certainly has a much different feel to wool.

I'm knitting this one for me

And I've also knitted some baby beanies, which will be donated.  I used three different patterns, to see which one I preferred.  I think I'd like to try a 2X2 rib pattern next with a folded  brim, I'm sure I will be able to find a free pattern on the internet.

Baby beanies

I met up with my daughter Nicky for lunch last Thursday and she was looking at my hands, and commented that my fingers were all nice and straight.  Nicky has several crooked fingers due to arthritis, sadly.  I feel she had a double whammy from both sides of the family, my mother had bad arthritis in her hands and elsewhere, and her father also suffers too.  My arthritis is in my back and neck, which does get sore as I'm getting older, but I'm so thankful that my hands are not affected.  We certainly need our hands and our eyes for our craft work, don't we.