Yes, Valentine’s Day and Thaddeus’ birthday fall on the same day. My Valentine lover is 52 today.

Birthday Plans
I woke up today to a perfectly beautiful card that could have been custom made for me and a box of peanut butter chocolates from the local chocolatier.

Thaddeus woke up to a perfectly beautiful card that I had to write a personal note in, because the sentiment wasn’t exactly what I would have wanted to say.

Have you ever tried buying a romantic card for a same-sex partner? It’s not always that easy.

He also got a nice field jacket that he wanted from L.L. Bean.

It’s not as warm as Cancun, but it will have to do.

Current Knitting
Work continues on the Accidental Shawl…but not enough to show in a picture.

Spinning Adventures
With vacation time being enjoyed, I’ve also had some time to work on the Blueface Leicester roving/spinning.

This may not look like much, but it’s TONS compared to what I would have to show if I hadn’t had some leisure time to work on this.

Quilting
It came to me in a dream last night, and then kept me awake for about an hour.

I need to undo all the quilting I’ve done so far.

Yes, I know it sounds drastic, but here is my rationale.

1. I’ve been doing a lot of quilting lately and I’m realizing that the batting is way too thick and is causing more and more problems as I proceed.

2. My initial machine stitching in the gutters is awful and has caused issues with the backing and it’s looking worse and worse.

3. My initial quilting wasn’t very good (this is a minor issue, as my initial attempts were in a place that made the pillow top look kind of folksy, which I like).

4. I think it was JoVE that mentioned that I should quilt from the center, and she is absolutely right. I’m running into more and more problems.

So all-in-all, the next entry will show all the work that I’ve done to undo the completed quilting.

Readers’ Comments/Questions
Regarding the Accidental Shawl, Jacquie asks, “When you chose the border, did you verify the number of rows versus number of stitches so it blocks flat?”

I did an approximation. I’ve always been in the school of thought that blocking is an art, not a science. We’ll see how good that school of thought is when I actually block it.