A Little Yarn On The Side

I'm just working on the binding for the quilt--SO CLOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must keep sewing......!

Thursday I was home with stomach flu, so I dug this out to finish. Remember seeing it in the WIP inventory? Yup, forgot one. The knitting on this has been finished for over a year, but I really hate sewing seams, so..... The only problem is, for some unknown reason I had never counted this yarn in the stash inventory in the first place, so not only do I have nothing to officially "deduct," I added the 10 and a half leftover balls to the inventory, so I have managed to simultaneously finish a project AND increase the stash. Luckily, I adore this sweater, so that takes a bit of the sting away. Since the birthday party is next week, Theo and I started our quilt battle early this morning, and it wasn't until I convinced him that I REALLY wanted to get the bed made and would be very unhappy with a cat sleeping on the covers that I was able to get any work done. OK, it looks exactly the same as it did, but I can assure you that it is fully quilted & ready for the bindin...

Tonight I had the house all to myself, and faced with the prospect of two full hours of uninterrupted knitting, I caught myself actually checking the WIPs to see if any of them were attached to balls of yarn that could be used up in two hours, thereby allowing me to change the little tally on the side of the blog. Obviously, the part of my mind that is delusional enough to A) start sweaters two months before Christmas, B) stockpile insane amounts of laceweight because it's comparatively small and won't take up much room, C) hoard wool like it's possible that all the sheep in the world will instantaneously burst into baldness, and D) stash away Andy's Christmas pajama tops so thoroughly that we STILL haven't found them, can always find new forms of crafting insanity.

When I initially declared April to be the Work In Progress month, what I actually envisioned was FINISHING projects, thereby reducing the number of WIPs. I have indeed reduced my Works in Progress, but only one has been completed. 2 were unceremoniously thrown into the trash--being of cheap yarn and unworthy of continued closet space, and 4 have now been frogged. With only a few days left in the month, I fear for MS3's safety......

Suckers! Today has been a day of quilting, knitting, and swearing--not exactly in that order. Between actively battling Theo for control of the quilt (11 days and counting until B-day), struggling to machine quilt without sewing unintentional "pookies" (the technical term my family uses for unintentional pleats in sewing) onto the back of the quilt, ripping out the quilting seams that did involve "pookies," trying to figure out how my sewing machine's "walking foot" might actually work because Husqvarna does not believe in printed instructions, and trying to remember that this whole experience is to create something that one of my best friends will absolutely love, it's been a busy day. I found that it helped to bribe myself with some knitting: and The big draw for each being I can now say I have used 44 balls, 6085 yards, or almost 3.5 MILES of yarn so far in 2008 without buying so much as one scrap of yarn. After getting my "arse" ki...

Last weekend, I put the borders on the birthday quilt, and thanks to everyone's much appreciated input, I've decided to quilt it with a simple ("simple" being not elaborate, not "simple" as in "I can't mess this up," because I can and have repeatedly in the past. Incidentally, it only took me one really disastrous quilt to realize one should quilt from the inside out rather than vice versa--I consider that a triumph of personal growth over stubbornness) stitch-in-the-ditch pattern and to let the zig-zag of the music notes be the real focal point. So, this afternoon I laid out the backing, the batting, pinned the top on--smoothing everything repeatedly (OK, that one took me about 3 project disasters to learn--sometimes stubbornness wins), pinned militantly, turned around to set up the sewing machine, and I swear, they must have radar. To be fair, she does match the quilt rather nicely. This morning I realized--this is a gift for a birthday tha...

I've got this much yarn left on the alpaca cardigan before I get to say I've used another skein, but it's really REALLY close and in the interests of not having to wait until 9:00 for an update, I'm going to call it close enough . I am rarely a precise knitter, which explains a lot of Neandertholish sleeve problems.... 42 balls used for the year and ZERO purchased!!!!!! Excuse me while I do the Dance of Smugness.....