A Little Yarn On The Side

Aha!!! The part for the washer has arrived (just under the wire for the 90-day purchase ban), and will be installed tomorrow. BUT, if one checks regularly and moves the dial through the cycles manually, it is possible to wash clothes at Chateau Sutton-Goar. So: complete with buttons AND the stabilizer removed. A close-up of the pocket detail: I'm really pleased with how it turned out--especially since I didn't have to cut out a 3rd pocket because my attempts at embroidery botched one of the original ones. This is great progress for me--and a first. My "fling" is progressing: It's S. Charles's Galaxy, and it has little gold metallic threads woven into the "yarn" (as it's really more fabric than yarn, I'm not positive what to call it), and the only size 9 needles I could locate are metal, and the combination results in a scarf that is sliding around so much it practically leaps off the needles if you look at it crosswise. And mayb...

Mature & lasting relationships are truly wonderful, but sometimes you just need fast & easy.

Andy is out with the boys, so I have an evening to myself. I'll be picking out an old movie and working on this, which is the alpaca cardigan if you can't see it through Theo, who would not stay off of it long enough for me to get a clear picture. The ham. And there is a new hat.... made with a Bernat acrylic that I am almost embarrassed to admit I am completely besotted by. I love these colors! I don't know exactly why I only bought two skeins--showing so little restraint at all other times--but this might be one of those things added to the "when I can buy again" list. I generally avoid acrylics, but I think I could make an exception for this yarn. I haven't quite determined the pattern yet--ribbed cuff, followed by maybe some off-white snowflake color work? Or maybe an all-over duplicate stitch "flecked" pattern? Or maybe a tapering pattern of some sort? Or maybe colorwork in black? We'll see what it looks like when I get there. For n...

Spring is in the air, and a reasonably-young woman's thoughts turn lightly to..... NEW KNITTING PROJECTS!!!! For the first three months of The Year of the Stash, I made a new project every month--FINISHED and all--which is very good for the knitting psyche. April was the WIP month, in which I didn't start anything new, finished 2 WIPs, and frogged 5--definitely NOT good for the knitting psyche. Today Dana blogged about some great hats she had made & mentioned what great portable projects they are..... But I have SO many projects on the needles.....this one needs sleeves: That would be portable...I can just think of it as a really ugly hat (like I haven't made plenty of THOSE before), and the yarn comes in these puffy 120-yard balls that knit up pretty quickly and I can add them to the Yarn Used tally.... Reasoning which did at least get me this far. But it's black. Black isn't spring. Spring is...... Hm......................... ................................

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.....