A Little Yarn On The Side

A friend and I were joking around this week, and I mentioned that some of my yarn and I have been together almost 10 years now, as 2006-2007 are when my stash REALLY exploded.  She commented that I've been with my yarn longer than a lot of marriages last.....  THAT'S a sobering thought.... So, channeling my Finishitis, I dug out this: which I started back in 2010 with yarn I bought in 2007.  It got set aside for no real reason--I think I probably just drifted on to something else, but I've already completed 2 pattern repeats and am close to the decreases for the arms.  That makes me feel a bit better.  Having a lot of yarn is a bit less overwhelming when one still likes the oldest yarns and one uses them. When one has a stash this large, one can find LOTS of ways to try to feel better about it.................

I have finished Sitcom Chic!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the poor photo--I think it's the shock of having a finished sweater around here.  I haven't finished a sweater for me since July of 2013 .  Granted, that has a lot to do with the back issues and getting depressed because I couldn't wear normal clothes for several years (still can't),  a great deal to do with being on pain meds, and a general tendency to be a bit of a flake when it comes to the fussy bits of knitting.  I am so excited that I got very excited about finishing a second sweater, so I dug out which is probably where one sends Finishitis to die.  I have split for the arms and am one 32-row repeat left until the neck decreases, but it's STILL on size 2 needles.  It happened to be the easiest project to grab, but I think I'm going to dig out a different one.  I'd like to get at least one more sweater finished before the excitement fades, and this one still has at least a year to go....

Last night I made the first bowl, and in spite of the fact that I am actually revolted on my alma mater's SERIOUS over-emphasis on football, I love how the bowl turned out and it has not diminished my lust after additional fabric.  The saving grace is that I would never in a million years put this anywhere in my house, so I have promised myself to be cautious about which people I make this sort of gift for.  And I am saved from going on a wild bowl-making frenzy by not having very much of the stiff stabilizer in my stash, and knowing I can't be trusted anywhere NEAR a fabric store right now.  So, I am setting this aside and will find something ELSE to work on.  Hopefully something using a bit more yardage.

20 of my Me Made Mondays need to be new or unworn things.  I put it that way because there might be a bin in my sewing room with things waiting to be blocked.  Ahem......  So yesterday I washed and blocked these 8 finished projects.  Not all of them are for me, but the Begonia Swirl in the middle is, and at least one or two of the keyhole scarves.  Sadly, there are still more items in the bin, but that's okay!  I can get them washed and blocked as soon as these are done, and I'll have at least one more new item to wear.  Let's just say it's a fairly large bin, and move on...... Today my cold is a little better, so I'm going to go to the gym for a really light workout.  That makes Me Made Monday a bit more tricky, so  I'll wear this fleece jacket that I made in 2008 .   I actually like it very much, but it is too much of a jacket to just wear around the house, and as a jacket, it's pretty light-weight to wear very often, so it do...

With all the cleaning I've been doing--and feeling like maybe I should rest a bit if I'm ever going to get rid of this cold--I took a REAL Finishing Friday today.  Originally, I was moving things around to maybe start a new project, but since one of the items I was moving was a table runner all pinned and ready to be quilted, the tiny rational side of me thought, "Hey, maybe I should finish a project before starting a new one..."  After wondering where THAT little voice has been all my life, I picked out another variegated thread to play with, and can I just say that I'm not sure if the stronger draw is that I think it will look nice OR that I want to justify having bought several variegated threads and because I'd like to justify eventually buying more of them.  It has been 27 days since my last fabric purchase, and I have come so close to caving at least 3 times already that I am currently bribing myself with a Sulky Blendables Dream Assortment if I ...

It took a few hours to feel like doing anything yesterday, but once the Sudafed kicked in, I cleaned like a maniac. After four years of dealing with a bad back/hip, lots of things had been neglected, so the house needed it.  However, I had to be a bit more sparing in my Sudafed use today, because it's just a bit much for me.  I was finally calm enough to use my wooden knitting needles without starting a fire Boy-Scout-style, so the body of Sitcom Chic is done!  The sleeves were joined raglan-style, so the only seams are the underarms, which is nice.  Next will be to pick up the front edgings, so it's really close to being done.....and it's about where it would get set aside for a faster, easier project if I didn't need 20 finished items to wear this year.  If you can't overcome your weaknesses, at least find a way to work around them.  I was even calm enough to finish this: which was surprising.  I used a simple thin zig-zag and my walking foot...

So the cold is still hanging on, and Dayquil was doing so little for me yesterday that I switched to Andy's Sudafed--just the 4-hour ones.  We're never going down that 12-hour path again.  I have to say, I felt great.  Not only did it really clear up my stuffy head, the crazy-energy spike REALLY came in handy.  Not only did I get the Christmas decorations all finally put away and the winter ones out, the living room is spotless .  Of course, I couldn't sit still long enough to sew, but I did some tidying in the back room, sorted a few cookbooks out for donations, and continued my war on cold germs and dust on the baseboards, crown molding, and anything else I could reach without destroying my back.  Of course, I didn't sleep very well last night, but dang!  I did get a lot done. Today the cold doesn't seem to be much better, but I'm hoping to be a little less spastic today.  It's a good thing I never got into recreational drugs--I have the ...

The shock of walking out of Joanns for less than $6 must have been too much for my system, because I now have a cold !  Seriously, two months dragging around with bronchitis, and I get a cold.  AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH! I still did Me Made Monday yesterday while dragging myself to my annual "women's wellness" exam.  I thought about rescheduling, but why ruin a perfectly good day with THAT exam?  So, I wore one of my favorite sweaters--after I steamed the wrinkles out of it.  I made this in 2010 with an alpaca/tencel blend that I bought in BAGS from Elann.com, probably in 2006.  This is the third sweater I've made with this yarn, and I think I have enough still in my stash to make 5 more--luckily, not all in this color.  It is nice yarn, but WARM.  I made Andy a sweater from it, and he almost never wears it because it's so warm, so there are 5 more sweaters FOR ME with this yarn.  Ahem....... I came home and slept after my appointment, bu...

I managed to go to a fabric store for this: and didn't even look at the fabric!  I know!!!!!!  I did pick up a few Christmas closeout floral picks, but I still walked out of Joann Fabrics having spent less than $6!!!!  Originally, I had planned to buy NO crafting supplies at all this year, but thread to finish a project seems reasonable, and over the weekend we ran across these at a thrift store, for $3, so let's just say I'm not spending MUCH on crafting.  I can't say that I even know what to do with this one,  and there are 4 of these,  which I may never do anything with, but now that 1.) I've come to terms with the bifocals/reading glasses and can see well enough to paint details, and 2.) I'm not frantically trying to finish a huge bunch of gifts, I hope to break out the paints and tackle some ornaments soon.  I'm not good at it, but I enjoy it. Interestingly, even though I really only opted to wear handmade things on Mondays, the w...

  I haven't purchased yarn in 6 months!!!!!!!!!!!!  

So yesterday I woke up with serious chest congestion and a sore throat.  NO!!!!!!!!!! I didn't even want to contemplate another 2 months of bronchitis, so with the aid of Nyquil, I slept most of the day and am feeling much better today.  I almost used one of my pajama days, but I was cold so instead I opted for this fleece shirt and pant set I made a few years ago.  I have no idea what one would really call this--dressy sweats?--but they're really warm.  The pants have an inexplicable flair to the hem, so they're really as close to bell-bottom sweats as one can ever [hopefully] get, and I'm always just a tad self-conscious wearing them out in public, but they were great for napping.  I had some crafting time on Sunday, and there was a brief period when I actually thought the purple jacket might be finished for Monday, but if I had any true sense of how long things take, my sewing room would NOT look like a craft store threw up, so I didn't make it....

In order to get some bigger projects done this year, I'm aiming for 50 finished projects, rather than something truly crazy....like 116 or something, which even I am surprised I'm not attempting. So, finishing a second project for the year means I'm doing well so far.  It's not clothing, which was going to be my main focus this year, but I like it.  We've decided to cut back a bit on handmade gifts this year.  Even alternating years, it gets really stressful, and we do a lot of Christmas gifts for family members who don't even let us know they arrive--much less thank us for them.  So, we talked it over, and decided that not saying thank you--even by email or Facebook--can be freely interpreted as "I hate homemade gifts--please don't send me any more."  This is Andy's year for gifts, so that takes a lot of pressure off of him, and I've been happily sending table runners to friends, whom I know love them.  Win-win. I am enjoying playing...

Happy New Year from Château Sutton-Goar! Santa made a surprise appearance at the Château last year, bringing Andy an acoustic parlor (smaller body) guitar and  me a 12-string, so there has been a lot of music here this year—and more than a few discussions about how many guitars two people actually need, though these discussions are quickly scrapped when either the sewing room or the third bay of the garage known as the Wood Shop are mentioned.  No one, however, is allowed to take up the tuba. Andy has always been interested in photography, and this year purchased a better digital camera to play with.  On one of the first outings with a camera, while Andy tried to get just the right shot of a goose with her gosling, I fended off another goose, presumably her agent, who wanted to A) bite, and B) talk royalties.  A day on the motorcycle with the camera has become a favorite weekend activity for him, and over Thanksgiving he took some wonderful pictures of my aunt a...

So, the new fabric has arrived, all EIGHTEEN yards of it.  Granted, I've managed MUCH larger fabric purchases, but that's still about 25% of what I used up for all of 2015.  I think I need to sew faster..... They're all, of course. FOR something.  These are cottons in my college colors, and as many of my friends and family are RABID University of Idaho fans, between kimono ornaments and table runners, these will make extremely popular gifts.  Frankly, I didn't even know they existed until I ran across them on clearance on Hancock Fabric's website.  Three yards of each should allow for a couple baby or lap quilts as well.  Did I mention rabid fans here?  Then there's this, which will become Andy's birthday shirt this year.  Again a cotton, and he loves the color.  Another 3 yards. Two border print fabrics, which are great for fast projects, two clearance prints that coordinate with a set of fat quarters I already own, a wine ...

I AM BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took the last antibiotic yesterday, and until 2 days ago, I really thought I was going to have to go back to the doctor because the bronchitis was still hanging on, but I've had 3 good days in a row now and, while I'm weak, I am finally able to breathe normally.  To celebrate, we visited 2 different sets of friends yesterday--what a great way to spend a day!  One of our friends has been very ill and because of the bronchitis, I had to stay away from him, but this weekend I made a big batch of soup and Andy made bread and we got to spend a couple hours with one of our favorite couples.  Then we stopped by another house to deliver a late Christmas gift, deliver some of my old toys we'd brought back from the ranch, and get caught up with another favorite couple.  TODAY I am taking soup and a Christmas gift to a friend recovering from surgery.  I had a fairly lousy Christmas, but the new year is pretty lovely so far. And it's MONDAY!...