A Little Yarn On The Side

It's been sort of a wild few days around here.  Wednesday was a good friend's birthday, and she and her sister (whose birthday was last month) were going to be here on Thursday, and I was so pleased with the ukulele pillow AND both of them also play the ukulele, so I decided they each needed a pillow, and was working madly to get them done for Thursday.  My embroidery software gives me the option to import text files from my computer, but it doesn't guarantee that they will work well.  In fact,  while I was able to struggle through to get the text to come out on the first pillow, it ate a hole in the second one: I knew this text had been a HUGE pain on the very first pillow, but I liked how it looked well enough to try to baby it through two more designs.  I am SO sorry to see the end of this particular fabric.  I think it was something cheap I bought when I first started sewing, but it's been great to work with for bags and pillows, and was a perfe...

Yesterday I had a really bad cough and my lungs were so congested that they hurt, so I had a Knitting Day.  While I can't recommend the circumstances, I did get the chemo cap done.  I hate to admit how much of a boost the new yarn has given me because I'd still like to earn that 2-year badge, but having some quick projects has been nice.  In fact, I forgot to photograph this one.  It was kind of fun, and part of me kept thinking, wow, I could make great Christmas tree garlands out of this stuff, but I'm going to leave well enough alone.  The shelves make things easier to access but in some ways reduced the amount of space in the sewing room, so the big push is still to use up stuff, not add stuff.  I'm still thinking of getting back on the sheep on January 1 to try for the 2-year badge, but this time I'm really going to think it over between now and then, and add a bit of yarn for small projects.  I'll be climbing onto the fabric wagon as well, ...

I had an actual Finishing Friday this week!  I crafted almost all day and finished something!!!!!  They still need to be washed to get rid of the stabilizer, but the stockings are DONE!  Considering that the cuff is made of a stretchy velour I bought last year, I'm very proud that I was able to finish them in spite of the craziness of a stretchy, rolling plush fabric.  I am thinking about using the velour for the edging on the matching tree skirt as well, but I've set that aside for a bit to give myself a chance to recover from this part. That took most of the day, but I did get fabric prepped to start playing with this  The background fabric is deep stash and I think is from my old house, so 8 years.  I saw a ribbon table runner on Pinterest for Halloween, and that gave me the idea for a fall ribbon runner.  The original pinner didn't have batting or a backing and just stuck ribbon down with fusible webbing, but I've never had good luck wit...

Luckily it was while I was busy making lunch, otherwise I might have attacked our mailman.  You have no IDEA how exciting new yarn is after almost two years. The resupply for chemo caps: which it would be nice to not really need, but sadly, the only way to stop from having friends get cancer is to stop having friends.  Next best thing:  Be Prepared! And the "splurge" for me: a linen & cotton blend laceweight.  I was just thinking a white shawl would be very handy to have, so that's what this will be.  I would have cast on for the shawl as soon as the box arrived, but the current lace shawl just has 6 pattern repeats and 20 rows of garter for the border to go, so I am obsessed with it.  A finished knitting project--won't that just be a shock around here? It was a big day for me with the mail.  The next ornament kit arrived,  and these are thankfully a bit different than the bead & sequined ones of the last few shipments....

Yesterday I received an email from my favorite online yarn store saying they were changing their business model and would be selling through Amazon now, and that any outstanding credits not used by November would be lost.  I have had a $50 credit there that I've been watching carefully.  Had I known that I was going to try for 2 years without buying yarn, I would have used it before starting, but I wasn't sure I could make it even a YEAR of stone-cold sheeping.  In all fairness, I could have waited until November 1 and hoped that something I wanted was left, but I didn't want to be buying yarn just to buy yarn (when did THAT happen?), and they are my source for the yarn for chemo caps, and they've been changing their yarn lines and I'm not sure that one will make the cut.  So yesterday morning I used my credit to resupply for chemo caps, and ended my not-buying -yarn streak at: 1 year, 10 months, and 14 days Oddly, I'm not as upset at missing the 2-year...

Which explains why there is no crafting update..............

So the new allergy drugs make me sleepy.  I feel like Alice in Wonderland with the cake and mushrooms and whatever else she took to make her grow and shrink.  Mercifully, none of them have made me grow as I really don't need that.  But today I am trying the scary-hyper drugs during the day and the sleepy steroid nose spray at night.  It will reduce the effectiveness of the steroid, but it also took the steroid a while to make me sleepy, so I'm hoping to get a break from that as well. Crafting goes a bit slower when one is sleepy, but there are a couple new lace ornaments,  the kimono shawl is now more than half way done, YAY!  The icky yarn has been delivered to our local branch library, I have cut out fabric strips for new kimono ornaments, tried to do some laundry,   and decided to try out the fabric garland pattern.  I swear that the fact that it sounded like a quick project that would add 4 yards to my tally had nothing to do w...

(tonight, via text messaging) Andy:   Greg said Frank is in town, and will bring him along to your body party, if you would like. Toni:   I didn't know it was a body party.  Toning or burying? Andy:   Which goes best with pizza? Toni:  Probably burying, since I think pizza is Sicilian...............

Seriously, has anyone ever taken 12-hour Sudafed without knowing that it was a stimulant?  It's one of the drugs you have to buy from the pharmacist because people use it to make meth--which is surprising as the last thing I would have thought anyone would want to do was to INTENSIFY the feeling of just plain old Sudafed.  So, being a foolish person who tends to believe that over the counter drugs are relatively harmless, I took Sudafed for 48-hours before I finally went to the doctor for something less scary for allergies.  It's not quite as silly as it sounds--the first night I couldn't sleep, I assumed it was just because I had taken Nyquil for 3 nights in a row before that, and that usually would make it hard for me to sleep the next night.  But the following night when I was exhausted but ready to repaint the bedroom at 3:00 AM, I did figure things out, and have stashed away the rest of the scary Sudafed until maybe a future Christmas where I am stupid enough...