A Little Yarn On The Side

In the garage, I have a big Rubbermade tub where I stockpile knitted baby gifts. I used to try to go baby by baby, but then a few of my friends had TWINS, and that just destroyed that theory and put me behind for about 2 years. So, I started making them ahead of time--generally going with 2-year-old sweaters as it's too hard to figure out what size & at what time of year to intercept a baby. Sure the 3-month or 6-month sweaters are cute, but what if it's a big baby and instead of being the right size in the fall, that puts it into the right size smack in July? Occasionally I still do 12 month & 18 month sweaters, but rarely anything younger. My Grandmother called me to see if I had a sweater for an upcoming baby boy. She has been a crafter all her life, but now her eyesight has almost gone, so now she only quilts, but she loves homemade things and gifts, so for the price of the yarn, I can provide her with baby sweaters. Works great on both ends, and it's a rat...

So, I've been enjoying my new reputation as the Queen of Productivity , but thought it only fair to admit the truth: The embroidery machine can work all by itself. I program the machine, hoop the towel, thread the machine, press start AND I CAN WALK AWAY. When it wants a new thread color, it stops and waits for me. So....while the machine was merrily spitting out towels, I was doing other things. So....not quite as impressive, but at least I didn't get part of the towel accidentally folded underneath the hoop and embroider a towel sleeve around the hoop that would have to be cut away in order to get it off the hoop--an achievement I mercifully did BEFORE starting this blog. There are always reasons to be thankful for being slow on the technology front.

Somehow I miscounted (which could explain some gauge issues), and I actually have 9 embroidered towels--not ten. Oh well. I have plenty more blank towels and nine is still a respectable amount. After washing out the stabilizer: There are some duplicates, so I didn't photograph all 9, but I'm generally pleased with the results. In the future I think I'd center better so the words aren't on the color stripes, and I'd do a different color thread on the green towel, but I'm learning. I've had my sewing/embroidery machine for 3 years now, and am just starting to get comfortable with the embroidery part. The instruction book made it QUITE complicated, and to be honest I've eliminated a few steps because they made it so difficult I would never had embroidered anything if I followed their advice. Now, if I ever endeavor to do embroidered buttonholes on anything, I will dig out their fussy instructions and follow them to the letter, but as I have only recen...

And almost a finished scarf. To what do I owe this abnormal display of crafting dedication? * A tragically delayed tomato crop that has yet to cooperate with my visions of a weekend of salsa canning. * The true "stocking up" of towels to embroider on, without any idea at all where to store them until needed, and the final admission that there is more room in the "gift bin" than in the entire sewing room--a truly sad state of affairs... * An audio book causing me so much stress that it was either finish the darn thing this weekend or start taking sleeping pills at night. * Being perhaps caught up with cucumber harvest enough to delay the next batch of pickles until perhaps Tuesday. * Deciding that taking a weekend break from any elaborate cooking would be a really good idea...unless we wanted a week of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches next week. * After the socializing & entertaining marathon of last month, being burned out enough to schedule NO part...

I had decided early in the week to make today a crafting day--meaning no gardening or cleaning or anything that "had" to be done--and had a long list, starting with embroidering some towels. About a week ago I found kitchen towel packs on sale at Shopko (and tablecloths on clearance for $2.99 each, which has nothing at all to do with this story but SCORE!!!!) and they were ones I could embroider on, so I stocked up. As you may have guessed, we're pretty social people and always need hostess gifts or prizes of some sort, so I set up my sewing machine to embroider, thinking I would knit while the machine worked.... ....and promptly scalded my right hand while making lunch. Nothing serious--not even enough to cause blistering, but enough to render me with only a left hand for the day. (The soup, by the way, turned out quite well, but I still wouldn't say that it was worth it.) So, no knitting, but and one more in the machine as I write. The white stuff is a water-s...

To be honest, I'm so proud that I remembered this. I get distracted so easily by things that "need" to be done and I get going on other projects and forget about my resolution to take some time for hobbies. But I am proud to announce that I DID NOT CAN ANYTHING TODAY!!! Shocking, I know. So, I spent most of the day in the sewing room. First the August scarf got a few rows: but I thought it had a pretty good chance of some knitting tonight before bed, so I moved on to..... The Christmas quilt top I started back in January ! (And if you're wondering how long it took for there to be a cat on it, 23 seconds tops.) This took as much time as it took me to walk downstairs for more coffee, locate a new bottle of distilled water for the iron, fill the iron, and get back to the sewing room. Makes you wonder what the state of affairs might have been had I decided to throw in a load of laundry as well, doesn't it? I knew I wanted to do a one-inch sash followed by a wid...

OK, I had my to-do list all lined up for the day......and most of it didn't happen. Want to know what did happen? KNITTING! That's right--I actually sat down with sticks and strings and added some length to the August scarf while TOTALLY IGNORING my list. Which is all my book club's fault. I have been a member of a book club for around 10 years. At first we were quite diligent & even did some research on the books or came to meetings with printed discussion questions. Then as we grew closer & started experiencing more life events together, the book discussions grew shorter, the meetings moved to evenings in order to accommodate wine, and personal life discussions took center stage. Then for several years we became "The Group Formerly Known As Book Club," which was perhaps more appropriately named but less diligent about getting together. I think it struck us as odd to have regular bi-monthly meetings to NOT discuss books. This summer, however, we h...