A Little Yarn On The Side

You know, aside from failing to make even the smallest dent in either the fabric or yarn stash, the Great Ornament Experiment is truly the most fun challenge I've set for myself.  I wouldn't want to do it two years in a row, but it's certainly fun for this year.  Yesterday was unbearably hot, so aside from treating ourselves to lunch out and watching all the illegal fireworks from our bedroom window, we pretty much skipped 4th of July festivities.  It's certainly my least-favorite holiday--possibly because now it involves wretched neighbors who shoot off fireworks every night for at least a week leading up to it AND a week or more afterwards--or because the blistering heat of July is usually joined on July 5 by smoke because setting off fireworks in a desert state works out just about how one would expect.  Boise alone had 12 fires last night.  So, after an hour of early morning gardening, I spent most of the day sewing on beads.  Robin had suggested ...

Well, mostly. I've never done applique with the embroidery machine (actually, I've only done one applique in my life), and while I love the cleverness of the designs in the set Andy gave me for Christmas, the instructions do presume a level of basic knowledge which I don't have.  I was hoping for some suggestions on what type of material to use, as a few minutes with Google only turned up a suggestion not to use fabric that is "too" prone to ravel.  Satin is prone to raveling, but I wasn't sure if it ravels "too" much or just enough, but as I couldn't think of anything else to use--nor find anything sort of shiny that ravels less.  In the example, they did color changes with the thread AND used two colors of fabric.  I decided to stick with just one for now, as the design wasn't too specific about how it was going to work.  I pulled the design up with my embroidery software and walked through the design, so I knew that it used thread c...

 In spite of the fact that I have fallen drastically behind in my ornament-making plans, for the record, these weren't just an attempt to make fast, quick ornaments in a desperate push to catch up.  Or at least, not entirely.  These exist because of this: Sulky embroidery spools like this hold 850 yards of thread.  Which is fine, except that every thread manufacturer uses a different type of spool.  I don't know if this one has a thick or thin center, so while I'm pretty sure there isn't enough thread left on the spool to make a snowflake, I don't actually know how much IS left.  Lace ornaments like this have to have matching thread in the bobbin as well, so I'm making the small ornaments with this so I can use it up without running out of thread in the middle of anything.  I do love the embroidered lace ornaments, but they are thread pigs.  So, there is a point to this BESIDES desperation.  I got the red ornaments blocked, and since ...

How a cat can tell from inside the house that it is substantially warmer OUTSIDE the house is a bit of a mystery, but this morning was our warmest morning in weeks, and Theo returned to the habit of waking Andy up at 5:00 AM to be let outside and actually went out.  Even more surprising, he caught a mouse.  Thanks to two nights of freezing rain and freezing temperatures, our backyard is covered with some solidly crusted snow, so I have no idea how Theo found the mouse, but as miserable as the temperatures have been outside lately, I strongly suspect the mouse was suicidal and simply gave himself up. Andy and I spent a good hour or more breaking ice off our driveway and sidewalk yesterday, so I was pleasantly surprised to be able to move at all today.  I'm sore, but was able to spend all day in the sewing room!!!!  Which is good as it took me almost half the day to get more lace ornaments laid out on the computer and transferred to my embroidery card.  Th...

For someone who is not a big fan of colorwork, 55 colorwork Christmas ornaments might seem like an insane challenge.  It took me three days to finish ornament number TWO:  and about an hour or two to finish one that I made up: I don't know if it's following charts or trying to manage the longer floats without having them show through the white that is so slow, but I'm hoping to get a bit better by ornament 5 or 6.  Otherwise it's going to be a long, LONG year. Thankfully, I do have lots of ornament options, and this morning I cut away the excess stabilizer from the lace ornaments, soaked them, and now they're drying on a cookie rack.  The stabilizer is made from cornstarch, so it's harmless, and I learned last year that wet ornaments are SUPER sticky so they can't be dried on a towel.  I still need to make one more piece for the light blue snowflake, and when they're dry we'll see how the 3-D ornaments work.  This is a new technique for...

Since there will NEVER be a piece of fabric that big again that gets the thread/stippling treatment, yesterday I decided to make a project bag out of the big blue piece: It will be interesting to see how it holds up.  On the one hand, it could snag on just about anything, but on the other hand with all the extra stitching, it is the strongest cotton bag in existence.  It still needs handles, but I had an idea for attaching some silver ribbon in the center of cotton handles--which would be an even cooler idea if I actually HAD some silver ribbon and wasn't on a buying-ban until November.  Another idea is to add decorative stitching in silver to the handles.......but I've run out of silver thread.  I thought I had some silver embroidery thread, but so far I haven't run across it.  I haven't lost hope, as the sewing room still needs some unpacking and a LOT of organizing, but for now this is "The-bag-which-shall-remain-handle-less." I had sort of hoped it wo...

Yesterday I finished another mitten ornament, and the first of the 55 ball ornaments: I still need to sew up the bottom, but I wanted to make sure I had enough, but not too much, stuffing in it first.  I'm really pleased with it--though I'm not sure colorwork will ever be my favorite sort of knitting.  Still, I love the ornament. And speaking of ornaments I love, I finally got pictures of the three finished lace icicles, and I adore them.  The design pack came with 6 different designs, and they're all just wonderful.  They're thread-hogs, but they're wonderful.  I would be spending every day making more, except that I'm trying really hard to buy nothing craft-wise, and didn't want to run out of white embroidery thread just yet, because: Next on the list was the three-dimensional lace snowman, and I really can't picture a better color for a snowman than white.  I've finished all three pieces, but they aren't ready to be soaked yet a...