A Little Yarn On The Side

Today I finished this: A fleece jacket, started sometime last year. Whew! Good thing it's done as it reached a nippy 75 degrees today. My timing is obviously not that great, but sometimes a FINISHED PROJECT is more important than a useful object.... OK. Some of you have noticed the stabilizer still in place and the lack of buttons, but I would have already washed it had the washing machine not started holding laundry hostage yesterday. (Those front-loaders are devious, let me tell you.) The lack of buttons is because of the washing machine issue. When the stabilizer is washed away, it may become obvious that white buttons are the only way to go, or it might be that a subtle wooden button would look best. No way of knowing really until I can wash it, and the repair man can't be here until Tuesday. I realize that this really shouldn't count as a "finished object" just yet, but while I am used to getting my "arse" kicked regularly by the sewing mac...

The good news : I just finished the third ball of yarn on the Lady's Circular Cape, which brings me to 6,432 yards of yarn, or just over 3 and a half miles of yarn used so far this year. YAY! The bad news : I'm not quite to the edging, and it seems that a lot of knitters are running out of yarn on this project--even ones who made it farther than I did with that third ball of yarn. The ones who had purchased clearance or discontinued yarns for this project have resulted to weeping, bartering, and knitting voodoo dolls of the designer, which they pierce repeatedly with size one knitting needles. I don't think my yarn is out of stock, but buying more yarn would be breaking the rules of The Year of the Stash, and having made it 4 months already..... I don't know for certain that I will run out of yarn, but if I do, it will result in putting this away until 2009, which would be really, REALLY irritating as I am totally enamored of this project. It's soft, it's g...

After some extensive digging, this was located in my nightstand shelf, and the French Poodle received some attention tonight. Now I would be ready to cast on for the sleeve if I could just locate those size 8 DPNs.....

April was not a very good month for The Year of the Stash. The WIP Mountain remains, though arguably smaller...sort of. Two WIPs were finished: Five WIPs were frogged, the Baby Surprise Sweater getting the ax today for having an error that was too much work to fix. Two WIPs were thrown away, (we'll skip the pictures--they were ugly projects that I no longer want to admit to) One sewing project was finished, which I am counting as a net stash depletion of just over 2 yards--quilts being very difficult to measure, 7 skeins and 1024 yards of yarn were used up, and no fabric nor yarn purchased. Four months--that is certainly a record for me. (To be fair--any actual stash decrease is a record for me) Theo is in mourning for the loss of the quilt, which is wrapped & ready to go to its recipient this weekend. I'd like to say that the two washings and a vacuuming removed every trace of cat hair from it, but I'm trying to keep this blog a work of non fiction.

To celebrate finishing the quilt AHEAD of schedule (continuing to milk that--thank you), I wanted to spend the evening with mohair, and while the Lady's Circular Cape has become my favorite project, this is on big needles , and with big needles, I could use up this much yarn and be able to say that I had used up 45 balls of yarn by the end of April (a rather slow month for projects overall), but after 30 minutes of searching, I could not locate the pattern book. Apparently the sewing room has gotten so out of control that it is taking prisoners. This weekend will involve a GREAT deal of cleaning, though I might tie one of those hiking ropes around my waist first--just in case.....

The quilt is done & in the washing machine now. And 5 whole days before the birthday!!! I will have no idea what to do with myself when I'm not scrambling to finish the gift minutes before leaving for the party. Could this be personal growth at long last????? Is that laughter I hear?

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