As I’ve been languishing in a state of eunie since “First Winter” arrived with its gloomy grey skies, I made finishing a project one of my goals for March.

(Judging by the state of our car, we are somewhere between Mud Season and Actual Spring, but I don’t recall passing through Fools Spring or Spring of Deception yet. Those must have occurred sometime during the night when I wasn’t awake to enjoy them. My sister-in-law believes we are on Sixth Winter, but as that isn’t listed on the generally accurate “11 Seasons of Michigan” list, I assume she has counted incorrectly. Or else I’m in denial. That’s probably it. I’m just thankful that the sun is shining even though there’s more snow predicted for the weekend and the road in front of our house is muddier than…I don’t know what.)

(And, by the way, don’t search for “Muddy Things” online when you’re looking for something innocent to compare a Michigan seasonal road in spring to. The top few results were totally innocent, then WHOAH! Not at all what I was looking for. And now you’re probably curious.)

(Also, if you don’t know what a seasonal road is, it’s a road that the county refuses to take care of even though the people who live on that road pay more than their fair share of taxes. What that means is that we, the residents of our neighborhood, are totally responsible for road maintenance and snow removal.)

Anyway…back to my March goals.

I listed two unfished objects as possibilities, and finally settled on completing a pair of socks as I knew finishing a quilt was probably not going to happen.

I’m actually pretty impressed. After making note after note to myself in the margins of my sock pattern, I, for the first time ever, got through the entire pattern without any major problems, creative cursing, or much stitch-picking-out. (On the second sock in the pair. The first one still gave me some troubles.) I think writing “Don’t be an idiot” in a few places on the pattern made a difference.

This is my third pair of knitted socks. As it generally takes me quite some time to finish a pair, I have an aversion to actually wearing any that I’ve made! I’m vowing right now that I’m going to rectify that situation when Spring officially arrives (weatherwise, not date-on-the-calendar wise) and I can put away all my wooly socks.

Project note: I made these with Premier Serenity Sock yarn that I purchase on clearance at Joann Fabrics for $2.97 a skein. I bought two skeins and have enough left that I could maybe eek out a second pair of socks. This yarn worked up just as well as the vastly more expensive sock yarn I previously used. It will be interesting to see how both types wear.

This past month, I also made a teeny tiny little dent in my scrap pile by sewing up a lot of scrappy triangles. I am still many triangles away from having enough for a quilt. It’s fun to watch these scrap projects come together, though I am more than ready to move on to some different fabrics! I feel like I’ve been staring at the same patterns for decades.

Which I have, as my scrap collection spans 25 years of quilting.

(Do you see that dark blue fabric on the right side forming the point of the triangle? That was one of the first fabrics I bought after I purchased my sewing machine. It was used in a bed quilt that took me 19 years to finish. In case you’re curious, that wasn’t 19 continuous years of sewing. It probably would have only taken 6 months if I hadn’t kept getting distracted by other projects. One of the pinks was used in the first project I ever finished: a baby quilt for our first daughter.)

Now, ask me about my progress on the rest of my March goals.

Or, better yet, don’t. It’s embarrassing.