A Little Yarn On The Side

So while I did manage to finally get a picture of the finished tunic, and discovered that the neck opening is slightly crooked, there are no other finished projects yet.  My hip was finally feeling really good yesterday, so I cleaned the laundry room and we ran some errands.  I also took some time to regain more of my sewing table: There's still a small pile of stuff to deal with at the very end, but I have a LOT more working room than I did, and tools are back where they belong.  Then, while it was cleaned off and kitty-free, I cut the fat quarters   into strips before I could change my mind and decide they weren't exactly what I wanted.  Do you ever do that?  I bought these for no purpose, I want to try bargello quilting, but I was in serious danger of putting them away and not using them because they might not be quite right.  I find myself doing that a lot.  The black and white dress I recently finished fell victim to that as well....

I have finished Andy's Valentine shirt before the end of February!  The might-be-lions buttons look nice, and it's washed and in Andy's closet!  I finished the tunic for me earlier in the afternoon, and seem to have forgotten a picture of it.  Oops.  But between them, another 3.625 yards are out of the stash! The fabric stiffener worked well and washed out perfectly, but it does seem to wear off with handling.  I managed to put a hole in the shirt with my point turner, and there's a part of the tunic where the fabric just separated when I was trying to smooth out a pucker in my serging.  This was pretty old fabric with no information in my notes, so I'm guessing it was pretty inexpensive and might be the fabric equivalent of Fun Fur.  I didn't put a pocket in Andy's shirt.  He does tend to use them, and the first time he put his phone in a pocket on this stuff would probably destroy the shirt.  But it's DONE, looks fun, and it was finish...

Yesterday was my 60th day without buying fabric, so I felt strong enough to stop by Hancock Fabric after my dentist appointment.  If you can believe it, I wanted some buttons. Since Andy's Valentine shirt has dragons on it, I wanted to see if I could find some unusual buttons for it--though ones that can be washed, because let's not be stupid.  I admire a lot of the hand-crafted buttons I find, but for clothing, they just aren't practical. I was a bit worried, and there was some really great gauze fabric for spring/summer that did catch my attention, but I still have at least THREE colors of gauze fabric in my stash from the last time that happened, and I still haven't quite worked out how to sew with gauze.  I've made 2 projects from it--one successful, one not--and no one I've talked to seems to have any idea how to handle the crinkled/wrinkly texture.  I always prewash fabric, but if one irons gauze, it stretches flat--which means you're cutting everyt...

With the finished table runner, I have now used up almost 25 yards of fabric from the stash so far this year.  Yay!  And, I have started Andy's Valentine shirt finally!   Actually, because the fabric turned out to be 60-inches wide rather than 45, I cut out a tunic for me as well and still have just over a yard left. I wish there were a Ravelry for sewing, but so far all the websites I've seen are clunky or not that great, so to try to control my fabric stash, I have a spreadsheet and have slowly been adding everything to index cards.  The cards are nice because I can pin them to the fabric (and glue a scrap of the fabric to the back), but the spreadsheet is much faster to search.  Since I started the spreadsheet before Ravelry, my early yarn stash is on there as well, and so it's not set up to get an accurate tally of how much fabric I have, but maybe that's just as well.  It might frighten me too much. However,  I think sorting through the...

Sometimes the most hateful projects to make turn out to be wonderful.  Today I wore the corduroy shirt, and I adore it.  I have not yet gotten over the emotional scarring enough to wish I had more corduroy in the stash, but I could actually have more of it the stash somewhere, and I don't know if I'm still smart enough to hope I don't..........................

I was having such fun there with a new finished project every day, and I did really make an effort yesterday, getting all the wedges cut and sewn together, but my hip was really bothering me by that point, so it didn't happen.  Maybe today, though. As INSANE as 200 yards a year sounds, even what I've done so far has made a big difference in my mental stash.  I think I've mentioned before that I started keeping a journal  with all the projects that I have the materials for, and without including most of my yarn and knitting queue, I've filled almost 21 pages since I started it.  Now the FUN part is that there is now at least one finished project on every page. Obviously, since I'm finding fabrics I don't even remember, it isn't a complete list by any stretch of the imagination, but I love seeing the progress.  I check off things as I finish them and add the date.  I'm thinking there will be an extra-large chocolate martini when the first ent...

That's a LOT of sewing.  I'm not sure I'll make it to 200 yards for the year, but it is REALLY nice to get some projects finally done. Last night I wanted to unwind with some simple knitting, and my current knitting projects are in trickier spots, so I dug out one of my "surprise" projects: In July of last year, before climbing back on the sheep, I ordered several yarns for projects, bagged them up with the details, and put them away as future "surprises" for myself when I was feeling the need for new yarns.  This is the first one, and sure enough, I had forgotten all about this yarn so it was a surprise.  Could we have guessed it would be lace yarn?  It's another Begonia Swirl shawl, and I have already cast on.  I love it already!

With the table runner done,  and a little time on our hands last night,  Calisto and I decided to cut out a quick summer dress with FOUR pattern pieces.  FOUR!!!!!!!  Did I mention the corduroy jacket had 25 ?  And with only 4 little pieces, I have another finished project today!  And another 3.375 yards of fabric is gone from the stash.  Not to be left out, Theo helped me stitch the strips together for the next table runner: though we both sort of lost interest after all the strata were ironed.  Instead, I ironed the fabric for the summer clothes for Andy's 2014 birthday.  If one is more than one year late, one can at least try to be less than TWO years late, right?  So, I'm at 22.4 yards of yarn so far this year.  At this rate, I am on track to use up about 135-150 yards for the year.  I need more yardage, and it felt so good to get Andy's shirt done, which has been on the to-do list for several year...