A Little Yarn On The Side

OK, I admit it, the blouse is kicking my a**. It has 2 pages of instructions aside from being a silky-slidy material that I must have been out of my mind to select. Today it has driven me to the lowest depths...... I cleaned. Not just any cleaning even--bathroom cleaning. Now there are some bad projects, but when you would honestly prefer to scrub toilets than work on the project, that's a whole new level of "bad." Battered and beaten by a yard and a half of polyester, I needed stockinette stitch, so I dug out this which I'm not sure has even been granted photo space on the blog before. It's a chemo cap made from Elann Esprit, which I started at least two years ago. The yarn is elastic & stretchy and a nightmare to work with until I sort of got the hang of it. It's based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl, and I'm just a few rows short of the sides. When the stretchiness of the yarn got to me, I switched to Fleur, and have started sewing on...

I have still been on a sewing rampage--it's just taken me a little while to be able to talk about it. First, let it be known that I love microsuede. I love wearing it, touching it, buying it (unfortunately)--love, love, LOVE it. It is, however, the very devil to sew with. This is microsuede. The pattern calls for a zipper. People brighter than I would stop right there saying "No, that's a bad combination." I, of course, plunged right ahead. 2 hours later--most of it filled with the sort of foul language that even makes the movie industry raise their collective eyebrows--and the dress has a working zipper. The seams are by no means perfect, the material doesn't exactly cover the entire zipper, and it doesn't look great, but I do think the odds of the zipper spontaneously falling off the dress are pretty low, so it is now in the washing machine for the final run-through. Not having learned a darn thing, I decided that it would be a good idea to attempt so...

Inspired by either the thrill of getting to do new projects or the horrifying realization that I do not have enough storage room for the new fabric, I have been churning out the sewing projects like someone training for the Amish Olympics. First, I finished Andy's fleece jacket which he has been wearing almost nonstop since I finished it, then I finally broke down & put a zipper in a skirt I started a couple months ago-- which in true Toni fashion, has been finished one month after it might have been practical to wear. Then Theo and I went to work on the Soup Night napkins then distracting Theo with a little decoy fleece I was able to get a jumper cut out and sewn relatively fur-free. The seam going down the back is the basting where the zipper would be right now if I had one. I actually keep zippers on-hand, buying them with the fabric (sometimes) and stocking up when they're on sale and not a single one is even close to the right color. It wouldn't have even done ...

I made it 9 months and 20 days without buying ANY new fabric. Yesterday....... There was a sale at Joann Fabrics. I actually new I was going to buy fabric, because I needed a couple things for Christmas gifts. What I was not ready for was the great apparel fabric on CLEARANCE--some for $2 a yard. Then I ran into this: which I thought would make a lovely addition to Soup Night. Then when I got into the clearance area...... Leaping off the wagon would be more accurate.......

I have 17 unfinished WIPS on the needles. I have finished 10 WIPS in a row. If I can just do 4 more, I will have finished more than half before starting something new. Just 4 more..... I REALLY WANT TO CAST ON SOMETHING NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Surprisingly, I don't have an actual project in mind--just ANYTHING new. Finally last night I could stand it no longer, so I dragged out some fleece from the fabric stash, and finished this today: I'm thrilled because that makes 3 more yards of fabric used from the stash this year and frees up some space in the sewing room closet. Theo is also thrilled about the extra space in the closet. Calisto isn't too impressed either way. My need for a new project wasn't completely sated with the fleece jacket, so my trusty sewing sidekick and I started a fleece jacket for Andy. I guess that was finally a little too much estrogen for Theo, so he went out for some Testosterone Time while I worked on the sleeves for Ruched M...

So Theo and I have been working on the checkerboard baby blanket and using a joining foot and a zig zag, I sewed 6 strips of blocks together. As rectangular didn't require cutting more blocks and square did, we opted for the rectangular blanket. The problems started when I started trying to sew the strips together. If you haven't worked with fleece before, it doesn't stretch at all in one direction, and stretches like a maniac in the other. After several attempts using various setting on my sewing machine--not to mention lots of "quality time" with the seam ripper--I used my quilt basting spray to stick little bits of water soluble stabilizer to hold the blocks together, and zigzagged them together: It's still a bit puckered, but not nearly as bad as it was. The biggest problem is that there is no way to spray little strips of stabilizer with basting spray without getting basting spray all over one's hands. You can blame any typos on the fact that my ...

As the only thing more boring than sewing sweater seams is discussing sewing sweater seams, we'll be passing over Fleur for the evening. Progress is being made, and I get to work on the beaded edging as soon as I finish one more seam. I think it's best to admit the existence of one's inner child, and mine responds really well to bribery.... Last night Theo helped me wrap up a very belated birthday gift for shipping then we (meaning me, as I'm the one with the opposable thumbs) cut out fleece squares for a baby blanket. This shows it as just a little less than a yard on both sides, but I have enough blocks to do one more row on one side, which would make a rectangular blanket. Should baby blankets be square? I do have more fleece. When the size issue is resolved--so many jokes there, and I'm just going to pass right over them--I'm going to zigzag stitch the blocks together. I'm thinking a berry colored thread to match those dark pink moons--or maybe it ...