A Little Yarn On The Side

Tracking one's yardage is more fun some months than others.  For May, I have a dismal: skeins of yarn:  3 yards of yarn:   767 yards of fabric:  3.875 (which at least beats the zeros for March and April) ornaments:  20 Today is the 151st day of the year and I've made 151 ornaments.  Someone had better get busy--canning season is coming!

Mostly of the really bad sort.  I did manage to get all the buttons sewn onto the new dress, which is when I discovered I put the buttonholes on the wrong side.  To be fair, I was partaking of a white chocolate martini while sewing the buttonholes, but I'd marked the silly things BEFORE the martini, so I have no excuse.  I really did look at the picture on the pattern and think I was putting it on correctly.  Oh well--it's certainly not the ONLY thing in my closet with buttons on the wrong side....... I am finally ready to show you Saturday's project.  For once, Husqvarna's website posted a free pattern that did not require buying a whole new machine or $500 accessory, so I decided to make their striped bag . I should have known better.  If Husqvarna can't get money from customers, they're not really interested in anything, so the pattern isn't great.  There's an 11 by 12 piece required, but they didn't mention which way the stripes were to g...

Google Reader is going away July 1 (I think).  The first reader I used to keep track of blogs I followed went the way of the dodo a couple years ago, and I had finally almost learned to like Google Reader--just in time for it to go away.  I have been trying to use Feedly, which I truly, truly, TRULY hate, and which is responsible for my falling way behind on my blog reading.  Annoying websites are bad enough, but I'm falling behind with my crafting friends!!!  There may be cool new projects that I haven't even seen, and I haven't had a vicarious yarn-shopping fix in a while.  So you can see why this is a major issue. How does everyone else keep track of blogs you follow?

In spite of help from Theo, the gardening dress is finished and got 4 out of 6 buttons while I was waiting for Blogger to upload pictures.  I will never stop having a button stash, partly because I like to buy buttons on sale when possible, and partly because the buttons I think will work when picking out a project aren't always the ones that I like when a project is finished, but it is rather exciting to be using up some of my stashes without adding to them right now.  I wasn't exactly bothered by the buttons, but since I'm using them, it's a "supply."  If I'm buying them and not using them, that's a "hoard."  This is not a definition I like to explore too closely when viewing the yarn hoard stash, but it works for the other stashes. I also dug out one of the in-progress blue mittens from the mitten garland, and put together a green felt mitten ornament for good measure.   Then, thinking I should explore some OTHER stashes-borde...

Well, it's almost been a week.  Where the heck have I been?  I think mostly gardening, followed by exercising, followed in the last couple days by being sick.  Part of me doesn't actually mind the occasional sick day--a guilt-free day of knitting and movies once in a while is a pretty nice break.  But yesterday I didn't even feel good enough to knit (gasp!), which obviously totally unnerved Andy.  I don't think he'd ever heard me say that before.  I still don't feel great, but I hope that scary non-knitting stuff is over.  I did finish the 4th ornament, and was so excited with it that I immediately cast on ornament number 5: which was GOING to be blue with a white snowman, standing on a snow-covered ground, only when I got to the chart with the snowman, I was so used to the "x" meaning color that I mucked it up and got a blue snowman instead.   He's cute, but he's not exactly what the pattern called for.  Oh well, he's finish...

I decided to give my back another day's rest and move my workout to Saturday, so I got up bright and early to get a jump on a full Finishing Friday.  Unfortunately, Theo got up early as well.  He hasn't been much interested in sewing for quite a while, but he MORE than made up for it today: I didn't get my dress back until after lunch, so while there has been progress , it isn't yet finished.  I did put the morning to good use, though.  6 new lace icicle ornaments, which I swear exist because I'm excited about a Victorian Christmas tree and NOT because I was falling behind on ornaments.   Speaking of being behind, I started my 4th colorwork ornament today,  which will only leave me 51 left to finish in the book by December 31.  Is it too early to panic?

I just gave my latest creation a face, so I have 136 ornaments for the year.  To be on track, I need 135, so while I've lost my lead, at least I'm not behind--yet. There hasn't been much crafting here lately.  The dress has made some progress: and there are a few more rows on the sweater front, but mostly I've been exercising, gardening, and resting FROM the exercising and gardening.  I'm finally back to where I can walk in the pool without doing any further mischief, and the only way I'll get all the ancillary injuries healed is to get my hip to stay in place so it doesn't aggravate anything else, so I'm building strength as fast as I can.  Last week I managed 2 hours in the pool.  This week I'm shooting for 3.  I just walk as swimming involves kicking which I don't think I'm ready for, but I looked pool walking up online, and depending on what one weighs, pool walking burns anywhere from 500 to 700 calories an hour, so I'm g...

Finishing Friday lost some time to physical therapy and pool walking, but I did manage to get this cut out. I'd gotten very lazy and have been cutting out patterns on the floor of our bedroom rather than clearing off the table in the sewing room, but there will be some SERIOUS time spent today clearing off the sewing table because it turns out that the last thing a tired and sore back appreciates is crawling around on the floor. Go figure. I made a bit of progress on the long-languishing jacket: which is ready for the top stitching to stitch down the facing: This is always the hardest part of this jacket pattern as no matter how carefully I pin, it puckers a bit.  Yesterday I pressed the facing, then applied steam to the shoulder areas and let it hang on a suit hanger to dry.  This is where a dressmaker's dummy would be REALLY nice to have, but I am considering holding off on that for another year until I've made a more visible dent in the sewing room.  If I do ...

Our house has these lovely hardwood floors, which I sort of have a love/hate relationship with.  They are beautiful, and I love how look.  I am sure they're technically cleaner than carpet, but with carpet one rarely sees tufts of cat-fur blowing through the room like tumbleweeds.  And this floor has even broken Pyrex, which I have dropped on linoleum without breaking, and my favorite Christmas ornament became festive smithereens our very first Christmas here, so the floor is just a tad bit unforgiving.  It also scratches like crazy.  When we first moved into the house, we were really good about being vigilant about people taking their shoes off, but between parties when people just walk in and guests who are carrying food in and can't take their shoes off while their hands are full (and the occasional person who doesn't really care anyway and are on their way to being dropped from invitations anyway), we've grown a bit lax and our floor has just taken a b...

As I've mentioned, every month Andy and I get a personal allowance which we can spend in any way we choose.  We started this about a year after we got married, and aside from the initial difficulties of finding a way for it to work (did you know you can't carry a positive balance on a credit card?), it's worked really well.  And it's this account which is on my spending ban--not our life in general.  It's just over 6 months now, and aside from haircuts, occasional lunches out, and the Great Decisions group, I haven't spent anything and have quite a tidy sum in my account.  Enough to sort of make me feel stupid that I must spend about this amount every year without really noticing.  I haven't knit all the yarn from my last purchase, read the books from my last purchase, or sewn up the fabric from my last purchase.  I just keep buying more.  No wonder my sewing room is so crowded.  It contains a small fortune............ Ahem...........I'm think...

 Finally!  Blogger is uploading pictures again!  So, this  is the first finished piece of the March Madness Sweater, and this is the progress on the front piece.  Isn't this just a marvelous sweater?  Love, love, love it--even if it is now May and the idea was to finish it in March.  Of course, if reality and I were well acquainted, I wouldn't have 64,000 yards of lace yarn....... We had a busy weekend with hosting a dinner party here on Friday and attending a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday, so I didn't have a Finishing Friday, but I have finished a new ornament today, which gives me 132 ornaments, and  I'm making some progress on the blue gift bags.  I would like to get a new summer dress cut out this week, but with all the socializing--and a whole lot of gardening--I'm a bit sore and am resting a fair bit today.  Maybe this Friday, though...............?

The desktop computer in the sewing room runs on Windows, but my laptop is a Unix machine, so usually if I have problems with something on one of them, the other can usually make it work.  But lately Blogger is not uploading pictures, and whatever the problem is, it crosses both machines.  So, what you are NOT seeing pictures of today: *  The March Madness sweater, which now has a completed back and maybe 2/3 of a front?  What would make the picture even MORE amazing is that I love this project so much that I'm being a monogamous knitter without forcing myself.  I know--this is such a rare occasion that it would be nice to have photographic proof.  But..... *  Some in-progress felt gift bags.  They're not very far along, but I'd gotten out the blue felt to make the "blue-work" ornaments last week, and realized I didn't have any gift bags made from the blue felt, so I cut out a few while I had it out. *  The lovely spring day, which is wh...

I made 71 ornaments in April!!!!!  To be fair, all but 24 were machine embroidered lace ornaments, but I was behind at the start of April and now I am slightly ahead of schedule!!! This is such a rare occurrence in my life that you'll have to excuse me while I savor this moment...............