A Little Yarn On The Side

......and I'm not going to make it to 100.  There is a level of insanity which exceeds even MY limits.  I did finish one more table runner: and here's a little tip for you: stippling is really, really SLOW.  Even if you're not doing it very well.  The second one is pinned and ready for quilting as well, but even if I get a chance to start it today, that would only put me at slightly over 95 yards for the year, and I've got a lot of things I need to get done today.  What I am happy about is using up one of the fabrics that was my "last hurrah" purchases from December 201 5. Not most of them, but one more.  I wish I had realized the border would shift a bit when stitched together, and perhaps that one of the table runners would end up sporting an inordinate amount of mutilated Santa Clauses.  I think these won't be going to homes with really small children.  And, I'm back on the fabric wagon.  I waited two more days, made my planned ...

Thanks everyone!  I have to admit, I didn't think I'd make it a full year without buying fabric as my previous attempts have failed spectacularly.  I'm struggling to make it to 100 yards for the year, but today I'm at 92.76 yards used up so far, and with NOTHING coming in all year, that's a dent.  Maybe not a big dent, but a dent all the same.  In case you were wondering why I haven't made more progress this week, I have taken up a new hobby called "snow shoveling."  We have a corner lot and a 3-car garage, plus some older neighbors who can't shovel snow, so it's become a time-consuming hobby.  While I can do it without injuring my back/hip, it does wear it out pretty thoroughly, and Mother Nature being a bit of a jerk, we get the most snow when Andy isn't here, so it's often a solo hobby.  I think I'll be giving it up as soon as possible.  Boise gets snow, but it rarely sticks around this long, and until a heat-wave of 30 de...

I MADE IT!!!!!!! I haven't bought fabric in 366 days!!!  I finally did it! And I've been up for 2 hours already and haven't yet ordered any fabric-- which amazes even me. 

Happy Holidays from Château Sutton-Goar! 2016 marked our 10 th wedding anniversary, and we celebrated by buying new rings. While it was tempting to do the traditional tin/aluminum, we thought they might be more meaningful if they DIDN'T come out of a gumball machine (if they still have those). It also shamed me into sorting through more of the garage in case any of those remaining boxes were ALSO celebrating a 10 th anniversary, though I'm not sure what a box buys to celebrate. New packing tape? While “done” with physical therapy seems to be something I'm never going to really ever achieve, my hip/back does continue to improve, and we were able to go cross-country skiing this year, which was very exciting. Even bigger news—I was able to go back to work for most of the year. For about 7 months, I worked as the store manager at Dunkley Music's Nampa store, which was fun—except maybe for what is known as “rental season,” which is a three-wee...

Two days until Christmas and there are 14 emails from yarn or fabric merchants in my inbox. I think I'm a legend in my own lifetime........

Considering next week I'll probably convince myself that 2017 really WILL be the year I get that sewing room cleaned up and organized, a flying fat man in a sleigh isn't really that much of a stretch...........

Normal people do not care about such things, but I am now within 10.6 yards of hitting my goal with 10 days left in the year.  I could still make it! Of course, I could stop being such an idiot and say "close enough," possibly involving some sort of medication, but until I find it, the two black runners are done, and I think I'm going to try Anita's suggestion for doing the designs in green, then I was also thinking of using black fabric instead of white and trying gold.  I have 10 days, after all. The latest obsession really started because we couldn't find a gift bag that would fit for one of the gifts Andy made, and I have a BIG box of felt, so two problems solved.  Then for once I actually remembered that I had a bin of bags in progress, and found 5 in need of just finishing, (one not pictured), and as not being finished means the fabric has never been counted, BINGO!  Then since I was one such a roll I've been testing out some of the...

So I'm working on the third table runner, using black thread, and now I can't decide whether I should do the last one in red or black.  I'm kind of leaning toward black.  Then, on to anything else. I finally remembered to post pictures of the bowl that used up the VERY last of my green batik pack, and the tractor pillow that I'm only half-happy with: I didn't have all the exact colors, and the closest green I had is a bit too neon-lime, but it's December 15 and it's good enough.  This is what I keep telling myself and WILL keep telling myself until I get it packaged and out in the mail.    I also washed the stabilizer off the newest ornaments,  so I can get some of them wrapped up and put the rest on the tree before Christmas.  Being only 10 days away, I thought it time.......

....and I need to use up another 15.6 yards of fabric before the end of the year to reach my goal of 100 yards for the year.  The part of me that isn't stressing is trying to figure out really big projects. I've been down with a cold for the last week, so I haven't really done any sewing--or knitting--until yesterday, when I did manage to finish up two new table runners: and have two more like it in progress.  Not a lot of yardage, but I had a new embroidery design set to play with (another one).  One of them is being delivered tonight as a 45th wedding anniversary gift, which I hope they'll like.  I think I'll try black thread on one of the new ones to see how it looks--these don't stand out as much as I had hoped.  And when those are done, that will give me about another 1.2 yards--again, not much fabric, but something.  AND, I am twelve days away from not having bought fabric in a year.  These arrived yesterday, so I think Joanns is miss...

The good news is that we really only have one super-busy week this holiday season.  And since it's been more than a week, you might easily guess that it was THIS week.  My hip/back is still really sore from visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, but we've still managed to see the Carole King musical, Beautiful, with my mother on Wednesday, then "helped" some friends bottle their wine yesterday during the day, then went to a holiday house concert last night (I even performed), and then tonight we have a dinner to go to.  I'm pretty worn out, but it's all fun--and tomorrow I can rest.  There has been some crafting since my last update.  I did a new bowl,  and, what's really exciting, is that I sliced up ALL the remaining fabric from the Spicy Spiral runner    for Andy's parents' 60th wedding anniversary last year.  This is a big thing for me, because I really loved how it turned out and the fabric, and using up the last of it will tr...

So, that was a fast almost-2-weeks.  I did remember Me Made Mondays, though neither of them count for "new" items.  I need to pick up the pace on those a bit as it's almost December..  Speaking of timing issues, this arrived last week. I can only assume this has been bouncing around in the mail for 3 months or that "pre-order now" refers to Christmas 2017.  Okay, yes, every crafter I know DOES actually have insanely unrealistic expectations of how fast we can make Christmas gifts, but I think most of us at least expect stores to have more sense than we do.  That's what they're there for.  Last weekend Andy and I popped down to Twin Falls for the weekend to get Emma fixed, and Larry was able to replace the part while we were there, so I have two working Husqvarnas!  And, a new quilting foot to play with.  The one I have for the Bernina has a guide, and I really like it, but the feed dogs pull very hard and there's no changing foot ...

 It's a pretty tense time in America right now, in case anyone just woke up from a coma or something.  Yesterday I spent some time with a very old friend, which was wonderful, and last week I started doing some VERY part-time/temporary work with one of my oldest friends, which has been great.  There are people who bring pain to your life and people who bring joy.  I hope I am always the latter in the lives I touch, and I am really thankful I have so many of you in mine.  It was time for a little beauty today.  Jeeves is working beautifully, which is really fun.  With nothing positive happening on the job front, it's nice to not have to even think about replacing him just yet.  The other machine I took down--Emma--worked okay for a while, then flipped out again, but behaved beautifully today.  Larry, of course, warranties his work, so I've emailed him to let him know there's still a problem and he's already ordered the replacement pa...