Perfection is measured in millimeters

It can be difficult to maintain a knitting blog when one hasn’t been doing much knitting!  I’ve had a problem with my right shoulder/arm/wrist the last 5 weeks that I’ve been trying to rest, as least somewhat.  Some of you may remember I had surgery on my LEFT shoulder a few years ago so having any kind of ongoing pain is worrisome.  I haven’t been to the doctor yet since I am going to a yoga teacher training intensive on the 5th for a week (and I’ve been out of town so much I didn’t have time).  No matter what is wrong with my arm, I know the initial course of action will be rest and rehab…neither of which I can afford to do at the moment!  I can’t very well show up at a teacher training bootcamp with half the strength it has taken me months to build.  On the other hand, I won’t get much out of it either if I can’t do anything because I’ve injured myself further.  I’ve laid of the knitting which seems to aggravate the wrist and I’ve only been doing my asana practice every other day or every two days for the last two weeks.  I wouldn’t be a very good yogi if I didn’t practice ahimsa (non-violence) towards myself…pushing too much through pain definitely comes under that category.  Being me, it’s difficult to back off when I need to and find balance since I tend to be kind of a “type A” personality.  That’s why it’s called a practice!  I’m just going to do the best I can with all of it given what I’m experiencing right now and I’m fine with that.

I have been gone quite a bit this spring so I haven’t gotten nearly as much done as I’d like, in multiple aspects of my life!  Since knitting has been bothersome, I got my craft on with some sewing instead.  I decided to make a table runner for my mother in law for mother’s day.  I chose this cute pattern several weeks prior but only got down to business three days before mother’s day which had me finishing it right down to the wire.  I began with the applique squares.  I’m not even sure if there is a correct method to applique, but what I did was use the same spray adhesive I use for embroidery to hold the pieces in place then used multiple colors of coordinating thread and a small zigzag stitch around the edges.  I was pretty pleased with myself at this point since the flowers were so stinkin’ cute.

Since I was in such a rush, I completely dismissed the issues I had with the last quilting project.  I meant to check the quarter inch foot to make sure it was actually a quarter inch using the tip I got from Mehitabel after posting about my first quilt; ”A good thing to remember is that your 1/4″ foot is only a guide: cut yourself a strip of fabric 1.5″ wide, cut it into three pieces, and then sew them together. Measure the middle piece and it should come out exactly 1″–if it doesn’t then you need to adjust the position of your fabric under the foot to make it come out right!”  But I didn’t.  In fact, it wasn’t until I had the middle square pieced it came out to 10″ instead of 10.5″ that I realized I had made the mistake yet again.  Since I didn’t really have time at this point to start over (and the applique was done with no room to reduce them to 10″), I used the great “fudge” method I learned last time which is to fiddle with the seams enough to sort of make it come out and then square the whole thing up again at the end.

Once I finished, I cut two 1.75″ strips and seamed them together with my quarter inch foot.  It should have measured 3 inches across but was only 2.5!  No wonder I have been so off on the pieced squares.  Right then, I noticed something.  I mean, really…how could I have been so dumb?!?  If you look closely at the foot you’ll notice there is a handy, dandy, BOLD, RED, center line where the needle should line up.  Yep.  Look at how off it is!  Fortuantely, my machine allows side to side adjustment of the needle so you can bet my next quilting project will not have these problems.  If only I had noticed this sooner, heavy sigh.  Hopefully next time my biggest challenge will be improving the binding.

Mothers being mothers, Jane of course loved it and swore that it looked perfect despite my insistence that she see how much I messed it up.  Plus, it really went well with her casual dining area which is just what I hoped.  Isn’t always such FUN learning new crafting lessons?