A Little Yarn On The Side

So 2 weeks ago I got a message from an old boss that there were a couple openings with her group in Oregon that she wanted to talk to me about and would follow up on the following Monday.  Granted, we'd already decided that I'd start looking for a job in Oregon, but that kicked us into high gear because of the possible short time frame--hence all the frantic cleaning/sorting.  And then I never heard back from her.  It's kind of weird and disappointing, but I'm more worried that she'll feel bad and potentially draw back as a friend, because she's far more important to me as a person than any job is.  And it DID get some tidying of the sewing room accomplished, so I'm kind of grateful for that with or without a job. I am still pursuing jobs outside of Idaho, and with that in mind, I decided to cancel my Vogue Knitting subscription.  I had canceled all knitting magazine subscriptions several years ago, but there was recently a pretty tempting offer for t...

My back is still sore enough that I have both ventured to take one of the anti-inflammatory/pain pills that caused the ulcer AND I missed my pool walking this morning.  As I am the youngest one there by about 20 years, I am in for some serious ribbing on Monday.  I had even reached a new milestone: I wore out my water shoes and had to make another personal-spending exception for new ones.  The floor of the pool I go to is rough enough to strip the hide right off one's feet, so shoes are a must, and this time I decided to try water shoes with a bit of support.  The sales lady at the local swim and run shop said they would fall apart in 6 months, but she says that about everything.  She said the ones exactly like I had would last less than 3 months, and they've certainly lasted for more than a year.  The weird thing is, she didn't have a more expensive model she was trying to sell me--she seems to be just a pessimist.  I think the swimming suits I bou...

It's Finishing Friday, and aside from a trip to the gym for an hour of pool walking, I am crafting!  It's supposed to hit 100 degrees here today (THEN work its way up to 105 by Wednesday before this insanity is over), so I can guarantee that I won't be gardening.  Wednesday night I thought I would get a head-start on today, so I loaded up my embroidery card for some new ornaments: (well, the lace snowflakes aren't exactly "new," but at least I haven't done them in a while).  What I really wanted to try--and what I haven't yet found the courage for--is this: It's one of the designs Andy gave me for Christmas.  It's a flat free-standing lace ornament, but those big open spaces are for appliqué, which I have never done.  The picture shows the lace in white with red fabric for the top and green for the bottom, which looked very cool.  The problem is, the directions assume one isn't a complete novice and doesn't mention what fabric ...

Thursday night I had some spare time, so I thought I'd get a head start on Finishing Friday with three new icicles,   and three new patchwork ornaments, trying some new methods of tracing the pattern onto the felt, none of which worked any better, and I seem to have not photographed the third one.  Oh well,  it's a heart--pretty much like the last one.  I think we can now say that THREE strips of fabric was maybe an over-estimation of how long my interest in these would last.  They are a great way to catch up on my ornament tally, and I do like them, but I am now counting the days until I can buy fusible webbing and new marking pens. I like the hand-stitched look on ornaments, so both to solve the tracing problem AND try a new look, I made a stocking which I could cut out first, THEN stitch.  It worked reasonably well, though I need to practice a bit to get my stitching a bit more even, and it's hard to see in spots, but I thought it turne...

It's this hot today, and after three whole days completely off pain pills, I had a rather bad night and ended up back on full meds for the rest of the night.  That's always a bit hard to take, but on such a hot day it just sucks the life out of me.  And Theo.  Last night I did get the remaining two sets of strips sewn together, with a new color order on the smaller one,  and the original order on the set made with 2-inch strips.  I'm really rather proud of myself for moving on to the next sets.  The way I usually do things is to finish the first set, set the second set aside "meaning to get around to it," and then spend the next year and a half moving it around rather than finishing it.  Of course, these still have to make it all the way to Ornament Stage, but I think them even making it to Long Uneven Strip Stage might be some serious personal growth on my part.  Or, as close as I ever get.  In the meantime, I am keeping myse...

In spite of help from Theo, the gardening dress is finished and got 4 out of 6 buttons while I was waiting for Blogger to upload pictures.  I will never stop having a button stash, partly because I like to buy buttons on sale when possible, and partly because the buttons I think will work when picking out a project aren't always the ones that I like when a project is finished, but it is rather exciting to be using up some of my stashes without adding to them right now.  I wasn't exactly bothered by the buttons, but since I'm using them, it's a "supply."  If I'm buying them and not using them, that's a "hoard."  This is not a definition I like to explore too closely when viewing the yarn hoard stash, but it works for the other stashes. I also dug out one of the in-progress blue mittens from the mitten garland, and put together a green felt mitten ornament for good measure.   Then, thinking I should explore some OTHER stashes-borde...

I decided to give my back another day's rest and move my workout to Saturday, so I got up bright and early to get a jump on a full Finishing Friday.  Unfortunately, Theo got up early as well.  He hasn't been much interested in sewing for quite a while, but he MORE than made up for it today: I didn't get my dress back until after lunch, so while there has been progress , it isn't yet finished.  I did put the morning to good use, though.  6 new lace icicle ornaments, which I swear exist because I'm excited about a Victorian Christmas tree and NOT because I was falling behind on ornaments.   Speaking of being behind, I started my 4th colorwork ornament today,  which will only leave me 51 left to finish in the book by December 31.  Is it too early to panic?

I have decided to do a musical theme for Christmas this year, and thought new stockings would be one of the best ways to pick up the theme, so I'm going to use this fabric which would be tricky enough with the lines just as it is, but when you add this it might be really difficult.  I'm not sure how easy it is to see, but these are pictures of both selvedge edges.  The first has the staff lines pretty much perpendicular.   The second one shows them being quite far from it.  So, I decided to lay the fabric out as a single fold and just cut out the pieces I needed where the print and the fabric worked together.  I was cutting along on the first piece, turned around to change scissors, and When I tried to move around him a bit, when I gave up and decided to cut out some little stocking ornaments to make, so while the dog did NOT eat my homework, the cat DID take my sewing.  I think that's a fair excuse........

Today is a significant day.  Want to know why? 1.  It is the start of the mid-point of the year, which shows us that I am behind  on my 111 projects goal, and probably impossibly behind on my 25,000 yards of yarn goal.  I might  have to start considering being--and I shudder to say this--"realistic." 2.  It starts the "Dead Heat" stashdash on Ravelry, which will run until August 31, and I have compiled an impressively crazy  optimistic basket of yarn to knit up in two months. 3.  In the crafting world, it is time to get serious  about Christmas crafting, which in my world usually means that it's time to decide I should make 5 quilts and 3 sweaters between now and Christmas.  Stand by for insanity updates. 4.  It is Finishing Friday, so I am crafting to my little heart's content.  Which is knitting today, because it's easier to knit outside than it is to sew.  It's only 83 today, so I am enjoying nice weather while I c...

This week's Finishing Friday got off to a head start last night with a finished scarf and the crafting jacket finished today by noon. OK--yes, technically this was supposed to be finished in February, but I think even our mortgage company might give us 5 days for a "grace period," so I see no reason why the Project of the Month shouldn't get one as well. It still needs 2 large buttons--which I don't have--and will need to be washed, but I'm pleased overall.  It's rather bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm not sure if it's just supposed to be fairly big or if this is one of those "no-woman-wants-to-wear-a-large-so-we've-made-the-medium-humongous"  sort of things.  Still, I think it will be nice to have in the crafting room, and add 2.75 yards of fabric to the "all used up" category. Swearing that I would do better this month, I decided to cut out the March project of the month:  though my suspicions of anythin...

..and there are BAD Finishing Fridays.  Let's see if we can guess which one this one was. I jumped out of bed bright and early because I had an entire day of sewing ahead of me.  It turns out that one can actually jump into sewing just a bit too early on a Friday.  This is what can happen when one changes a needle before having coffee. Seriously--the needle (still threaded) just fell out.  Oops.  Today is February 25 and the February Project of the Month, had progressed no farther than washing of the material.  With 3 days to go, it was time to get cracking! At first I thought I might make the pants as well, but when laid out the material that had started out at 61 inches wide, according to the tag I had attached to it, had shrunk to 51 inches wide after washing.  Apparently when they say "line dry," "no heat fluff" in the dryer still doesn't cut it.  Or, I was having a seriously measurement-challenged day when I wrote up the tag. ...