The commitment to completions this year has propelled me into action this week. I know, only the first week but change only happens if you start. I tell myself that continuously. Despite some strong challenges, DH ill and a water line rupture due to the polar vortex extreme weather, I have been successful at working toward completions this past week.

The first is our neighborhood group veteran’s quilt, I completed the border and made the backing using a leftover quilt block and backing fabric. Next to complete on this is the quilt sandwich. My task for the next week as I typically hand baste the sandwich together before quilting. I am pleased with this progress.

Veteran’s Quilt Back

Another project I worked on is an afghan I started when I was 17. Harriet, an older family friend reignited my interest in knitting by giving me her leftover yarn stash, needles and a sampler afghan pattern. Over the last forty years I have worked on it a little at a time and finished the last block in September. This project has given me confidence to try new things and the internet has only made this more of an actuality. After teaching myself how to crochet by taking a Craftsy course, http://www.craftsy.com, I completed all the crochet borders this week and worked on placing the squares into a pleasing order. I figured out today it is a queen size project and DH’s illness forced me to wait until today to do that portion. I use an I-pad, taking pictures and moving the squares around until I obtained a pleasing arrangement. Next up is putting all the blocks together, a challenge because the gauge was not consistent over the last forty years, (you think!) and finally sending it off to the recipient.

The other task I started this week is taking a Craftsy class (www.craftsy.com), I have numerous classes that I have enrolled in but have not completed. So this week I restarted the Brioche Knitting Class with Nancy Marchant (http://briochestitch.com/brioche/). I am currently stuck on the Italian cast on but know I will eventually figure it out. Here is my single color sample. I would like to complete one class a month. Knitting is portable and doesn’t require a lot of stuff so that is the reason I re-started this class.

Sewing, knitting , most needlework are my rewards; I enjoy the challenges presented in accomplishing these projects. They have a meditative quality that quiets my mind, soothes the anxieties of the day and satisfies the need to successfully control something, anything in a chaotic world.