Friday Night Sew-In Results

Last night was the last Friday Night Sew-In of 2011. I spent about 4 hours at the sewing machine working on projects that aren't for Christmas. It felt great.

I knitted the day away trying to finish this shawl for my daughter's piano teacher. She had her last lesson of the year at 5:15pm. I knitted until 4:30, did the 6 rows of garter for the border, weaved in the ends, put it in a gift bag and then we were off to the lesson. It ended up being about 41 inches long - meaning I knit 18 inches yesterday. So glad it's done and she really liked it.

Close up of lace pattern. 

Had my daughter take this quick picture of me wearing it just before we went out the door. I think she even had her coat on.

Once we got home from piano lessons and had some supper, I headed to my sewing machine - glad to be away from knitting needles. I was able to trim and piece 24 of the hst's I made last FNSI for the first 2 rows of the baby quilt. This is for a coworker of my husband's that is expecting a baby boy during the holidays. I really wanted to work on this but I wasn't in the mood for trimming so I switched to a different project.

This is my December UFO. It is a string quilt I started in 2009. I have 5 rows done with 7 blocks in each row. I wanted to add 5 more rows. Earlier this year I was really nice to myself and cut the remaining foundation squares and made sure I had enough centre strips. 

Last night I made the 35 remaining blocks! I am totally stunned. I really had to push myself to get the last  few done but I am so happy that I did. They need to be ironed, then trimmed, but then I can finish piecing the front. As I was working on it last night I decided that I am going to donate the quilt when it is finished. It should end up being twin size.

Now I have to find room in my scrap bins for the remaining strips (I have several small bins and scraps are organized by colour). The box looks huge in the picture but this is just a shoe box and not even half full. I even tossed some pieces that were small (less than an inch wide and some other small pieces) - it felt great to admit that I was never going to use them. 

Go to Heidi's blog to see what everyone else did last night. Thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for hosting FNSI and keeping so many of us motivated. 

Now I have to get back to the Christmas knitting.