A Little Yarn On The Side

It turns out none of us really like Mondays around here, but at least it's a holiday week - and in my experience the week that almost all real work in America stops until January.  I don't think it's a coincidence that Cyber Monday--THE biggest online shopping day of the year--occurs on a work day.  Of course, when you're getting ready for the holidays, healing from a back injury, and not in possession of a "real" job, one day can be pretty much like all the others.  Of course, my back does a nice job of keeping things fresh and new.  I was a bit sore today, so there was extra knitting time, and NO ORNAMENTS.  Instead, I finished Andy's socks!!!!  That's WIP number 4!  Okay, that still leaves 18 knitting WIPs to go, but at least it's progress!

While I continue to make great strides with ornaments with 3 new mittens for the Holiday music dash,  and two new french horn ornaments, you might have noticed a spectacular lack of progress on my WIP-marathon.  I have actually been working on my WIPs, but most are still a very, very long way from completion.  I just turned the heel of Andy's second sock today, so I have high hopes for a finished WIP by the end of the month, but the project has reached a snag: Our oldest niece just got engaged, and I bought this yarn last year "just in case" I would have need to make an engagement shawl.  In general, I'm not a big fan in marriage under the age of 25-28, but they've been together for 3 years and were friends before that and everyone really likes her fiance, so it's a good snag. Andy will make wooden wine goblets for their actual wedding gift, but I thought a lace shawl would make a great shower gift and be something special.  And mercifully the pattern...

Originally, I had planned to can tomato salsa yesterday, but then I thought, "Hey, it's a HOLIDAY weekend.  This is not what normal people do with holidays."  So I'm doing it today instead--still a holiday, but a Monday, which sort of evens things out.  Besides, I think I sat too much yesterday.  And that would be because... I was on a crafting marathon yesterday!  First I stitched another bag, this one for a friend of ours who just purchased a new ukelele and has a birthday this week, then three more white lace ornaments.  Now that I only have 2 months left before I can buy more thread, I'm less concerned about running out of white thread and more concerned about having white lace icicle ornaments.  I just love these!  And 3 ornaments in one day during canning season isn't a bad thing--114 left to go!!! Then I did some stabilizing on the thread bowl by adding a grid: and while I've heard several theories as to why my machines hate Coat...

I would be showing you the new scarf with a little spot of steam blocking, except My little sidekick has commandeered (and furred) the ironing board.  I thought I might get it back earlier today, as he almost rolled off, but he caught himself in time.  He seems to be doing better with the stress issues, but falling off the ironing board probably wouldn't have helped.  So, it isn't blocked.  I almost tried for one final pattern repeat, but I'm glad I didn't.  There isn't enough yarn there for a whole pattern, which makes me rather pleased with my guessing. I am back to working on the sweater now, which will be the most time-intensive WIP I have, I think.  I thought if I finished THIS one first, everything else would be fast comparatively, but monogamous knitting has never been my strongest point.  Maybe if I get some progress done on this, I can swoop in and finish off something else when I get tired of this, and then when I come back to thi...

There is a finished Ostrich Plume Scarf with beads! I have now knit up more than 5000 yards of yarn from my stash! I have finished TWO whole WIPs and only have 13 more to go............ Dang, that started out better than it ended.................

Okay--I really, really, REALLY hoped I would be showing you finished WIP number two tonight, but I have reached the magic point in the beaded scarf:  no matter how much I knit, it doesn't get any longer or the skein get any smaller.  So, while I have achieved a rather interesting achievement in physics, I have nothing to show you................. Do you think one can win a Nobel Prize in yarn????????????

While I have taken time to make a few ornaments to keep on track, but have remained quite dedicated to the Alice Starmore sweater: It might have made more sense to start with a faster WIP, but this is a fun pattern, and it's interesting.  I now have 3 and a half pattern repeats done, and at 4 and a half the next step happens, so even though it will take a while, I think it will stay interesting.  Speaking of taking a while, it seams that the stress of Andy's absence brought on a relapse for my sidekick, so Theo and I made a quick trip to the vet yesterday for another pain shot.  He's sleepy, but isn't hurting and is able to urinate in small amounts, so we're making progress again.   They think he's just more susceptible to stress because it's still so soon after the extreme stress of boarding, but I had no idea how stressed this little guy's life actually is.  Honestly, I was surprised that creatures that sleep 18 out of every 24 hours actua...

Okay--I was looking through my knitting pile, and have decided I'm really going to do this.  With only 21 WIPs now, it isn't the worst I've ever been, but there is some really good stuff in that pile, and unlike previous times, most of them are not there because of any problems,  The oldest is one is in there because since we moved into this house, I've never been able to locate the extra yarn and the sweater at the same time.  It's a quite adorable toddler sweater, and the yarn is lovely to work with, and I think this time I have it narrowed down where it all got to and--even better--think I can locate it. Two more: are actually the backs to the exact same toddler sweater, but in different sizes.  I think I still have the rest of the yarn for the cream one, but the green one is doubtful.  It's Lion Brand Wool-Ease, which is usually not too bad for dye lot issues for their major colors like these, but that still means the green one doesn't have muc...