A Little Yarn On The Side

....fast.  And over.  Hiking, a Fat Tuesday blues concert, a discussion group--it was busy.  There was also a lot of walking, but not a lot of crafting as I am still very fond of sleep. I thought I'd get some done over the weekend, but we were out most of both days and I was worn out by evening and I get into enough trouble in the sewing room when I'm well-rested.  So yesterday I managed to spend a little time in the sewing room.  The green jacket is progressing, there was some work on the red and white table runners, and my careful plan to make sure I created an even distribution of blocks failed badly, so with the last three squares, I just put them together and we'll see which blocks they create.  I think what I might end up doing with these blocks will be laying out the table runners all at once to see how many I have blocks for, which blocks I need, and going from there.  I have a feeling there will be one runner with a very scrappy look....

No crafting of my own today, but we did spend the day admiring the wonderful artistry of others: http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/marleenk1/library/2015%20Idaho%20Artistry%20in%20Wood%20Show?sort=2&page=16

After spending so much of the last 4 years in bed in pain, I am still amazed by how much stuff one can do in a pain-free day.  And by pain-free days in general.  With my Mad dash yarn all ready and waiting for Sunday's knitting kickoff, I decided to get in a project I've been wanting to try--a white rope bowl with variegated thread: I used Sulky 30 wt. blend-able cotton thread, and found that it used almost the entire 500 yards AND created THE must fuzz I have ever seen.  Sulky is a great thread company, so it isn't a fault of the thread, but the sheer volume of thread used and using cotton instead of my usual polyester meant my next project was cleaning the machine thoroughly.  I'm pleased with the bowl, though having to change the bobbin frequently left some noticeable spots on the bowl, so I am going to add a button to cover up the biggest one.  Still, I had bought the thread specifically for this purpose and now I've done it.  YAY! And my machin...

Thanks everyone!  If you didn't notice, I am more than a little thrilled with the first table-runner top.  I was questioning my fabric choices all through the sewing of the 96 strips, and it's a relief to see how well they work.   Now I need to mark the edges for trimming and then move on to backing and batting, but so far I've been tidying and vacuuming most of the morning.  Let's pretend like you can notice a difference: So far I haven't found any fabric that I didn't know I had, but some of it isn't in my project book, so I've been adding as I go.  Boy, do I have a lot of projects ahead of me!  Maybe I should just lock myself in the sewing room for a month and see how I do.... I have the first blocks cut out of the red and white projects, and have been playing with layouts: It seems I could have controlled the orientation of the blocks, because I have 2 sets of 4 and 2 sets of 6, but now that I have a mix of both, I'm going to continue...

In spite of it still being February, we're having 60-degree weather this week and last (which will probably destroy most of Idaho's fruit crops among other things), and while it's completely crazy and unseasonal, it's hard not to enjoy the early spring. Why is it that spring brings on the desire to clean?  Believe me, this is not a normal desire for me.  I know there are people who LOVE to organize because my sister is one of them and when we had to clean the garage as kids, she could extend it into an all-day ordeal and completely nasty to me when I stopped after doing what we had been asked to do instead of helping her organize.  (We're not close)  However, after tidying my clothes closet, I thought it time to tackle the sewing room--at least in small doses.  Unlike a lot of people with huge stashes, I rarely buy things without a project in mind.  I just think of projects MUCH faster than I make them.  Much, MUCH faster.  So, besides dustin...

Yes, there has been work on the eternal table runners, but no, it doesn't look like it.  Did I say knitting was slow? Yesterday I signed up for one of the teams for Mad Dash 2015 in the Stashdown Group on Ravelry .  I believe this started with some wildly ambitious knitters who set out to knit 12,000 yards in 6 weeks (February 15-March 31).  As I have had YEARS when I haven't knit that much, I've never been remotely tempted to join in, but it's always fun to cheer for knitters crazier than I am.  However, now there are TEAMS, so I have committed to 3,000 yards in 6 weeks--probably more than I've ever done in 6 weeks, but not totally crazy--though, perhaps, mildly.  So this morning, while Theo kept an eye on the neighborhood, I sorted through a bin of worsted- and aran-weight yarn that might have moved just outside the sewing room door without ever moving back in....( Ahem.......) This is actually yarn that mostly wasn't on my Ravelry stash page unt...

......and it looks a lot like a table runner. I'll just let you know if there's anything remotely resembling progress, shall I? In the meantime, I have finished Andy's Valentine shirt--and it was a week early!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Almost makes up for a quilt that is now 8 years late, right?)  I even had some cool buttons in the stash that work with the general motif, and it's been washed and is now waiting for nice weather.  Aren't we all? While continually sewing strips together for the table runners, I had sewn pieces together for 12 new kimono ornaments, and have 6 new ornaments to keep, and 6 for the gift bin.  The six we're keeping are all new color schemes using fabrics I dug out for the spicy-spiral table runners, and the red fabric is now out of the stash.  It was probably only a yard to begin with and one yard doesn't make the slightest dent in the fabric stash, but it's exciting all the same.  I sometimes hesitate to use some...

And it's been 30 days back on the sheep.  I know I've told people this many times, but the first months really are the hardest...............

Holy cow--er, sheep--it's been a week since my last post.  What happened? Obviously, January ended, and were I making any attempt to use up 100 yards of fabric for the year, I'd be a bit behind already.  Andy's shirt is progressing, and is now at the hem, which will leave just the buttonholes and buttons, so I'm hoping to finish it up this week.  The smart thing to do would be to move on to another clothing project immediately, so of course what I am doing is the spicy spiral table runner.  I would have said it took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to pick out the fabrics, but then I entered the strip-cutting phase and learned what forever REALLY feels like.   It would have been faster had I correctly measured, of course, but really--how likely was THAT? Of course, it did take a little longer on purpose as well.  While cutting, I cut a few strips from each fabric for my do-it-yourself-jellyroll bin, as well as: my kimono ornament bin, which is getting a b...