A Little Yarn On The Side

This weekend I wanted to ASTOUND you with 2 more finished projects.....which is why there were no blog entries.  I swear that the BSJ should be almost done.....but I've thought that for the last 2 days as well.  I do have one finished project to show you.  Remember this? Yah, I don't either, but I started it sometime this fall and I have been moving it around in the craft room ever since.  It is truly lucky to have survived this far, as I missed a step on the pattern and to fix it I had to rip out the zipper and do it over a second time!  It seems that my desire to finish 100 projects for the year has overridden my loathing of zippers and has saved this dress from the Bin Of Projects Which Shall Not Be Named.  Of course, I'm going to chalk it up to "personal growth" anyway.  Hey, my blog....my rules. Theo wanted nothing to do with the dress, but the next project, he is all over.  Literally.   When Theo is through with it, it will ...

There was sewing today!!!!!  Not that Theo cared--it was sunny today so he went out to find me a mouse--which was thankfully dead before I received it.  If I weren't a cat owner/staff member, dead animals in my house might freak me out.  As it is, it's more of a "Whoo hoo!  At least I don't have to catch it" sort of thing. Anyway, we can add 4 gift bags (which I'm counting as 2 projects because they don't feel like 4 projects and I'm not stupid enough to call them 1) to the "finished" tally: You've probably noticed there are only 3--the 4th had a tragic incident involving a cup of coffee, and has been rinsed and is hopefully drying safely in the bathroom (you never know with dry-clean-only fabrics).  I had intended to make lots more bags because I thought they would be really cute to put jars of jam in, but after wrestling with this very ravel-y fabric through 2 wine bags and 5 jam bags, I decided that making both the gift AND the gif...

So, remember that resolution of mine to NOT renew my knitting magazine subscriptions? I might have blown it.  Depending on technicalities. Today I subscribed to Piecework magazine, which technically I didn't "renew" because I've never subscribed to it before, though technically it is sort of a knitting magazine, so it depends which technicality we go with.  It feels like I've blown my resolution, so I think that's the one we're going with.  But maybe I can content myself with just this ONE magazine.  Sure, there's still the issue of finding a place to put the magazines, but there will only be 6, so maybe I can do it.  I have been interested in the history of knitting for a while, but the only book I found on it was boring & not actually much of what I was looking for.  This magazine hopefully is focused on the history and heritage of knitting, crochet, embroidery and other needlework crafts, which I thought sounds fascinating.  There do seem ...

It began with a sulk because I had errands to run instead of sewing then he decided to help me while I hung these which are wooden snowflakes that Andy made for me this year.  We have this huge, blank, curved wall just as you walk in the door, and now that the tree and the festive garlands are gone, it's big, white & boring, so I was looking for something to liven it up a bit.  Anyway, you know how when something is on a string and you push it away from you, it will come back?  So does Theo now, though he seems to think it was attacking him.  He ran down the stairs and took up refuge down next to the bottom of the stairs, but then when I lowered one of the snowflakes (which are suspended by fishing line), he seems to have thought the snowflake was attacking him, and spent the next hour hiding under the improvised "kitty tent" in our room. He was just getting over that, when I frightened him again by taking my blocking wires out of their tube--don't ask me ...

(You know at some point, that I won't be frightened by the "to-go" number.) The lace scarf is done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Okay, it still needs to be washed & blocked and all of that, but I now have TWO finished projects!  Whoo hoo! I thought I might finish yesterday--which explains the lack of a post.  I can see that this might lead to a little obsessive behavior this year--or more obsessive than normal, let's say.................... 

Well, the bronchitis is still with me, but the knock-out drugs are all gone, so I'm coughing but not sleeping all the time.  I don't know if it's an improvement or not, but I have to be getting close to the end of this.  According to the handout I got from the doctor's office, viral bronchitis generally lasts 10-14 days, and I'm probably at 12 right now.  (Not counting the weeks of a cold of course).  This is beginning to make surgery recovery look speedy! Since I can't really sew--or do much of anything else--I have been knitting.  The latest project is a faggoting sampler scarf which is just over half done now.  I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see it, but I started with a k2tog, double YO pattern (purling even rows): then after a stockinette break, moved on to a k2tog, YO pattern on every row: then to a K2tog, YO on right side rows and purling wrong side rows: then to my new favorite, [k2tog, Yo, K1] on every row I think it will be...

*  If there is a worsted-weight yarn, why isn't there a bested-weight? *  Is Fun Fur really fun? *  Did the first knitter actually know when he or she made mistakes, or was that privilege reserved for the second knitter? *  Would tea help my bronchitis more if I knit it a tea cozy? *  Why did Red Heart Yarn become so popular in the 1970s?  Were drugs really that widespread? *  How many cotton sweaters must I knit before I realize that I rarely wear them? *  Can I make it an entire year before losing my resolve and resubscribing to every knitting magazine I can find? *  Do people knit "willy warmers" just because it's fun to say, or do some people actually wear them? *  What does it say about me that I was able to teach myself to knit using just a cheap booklet, yet couldn't even begin to figure out tatting even though both grandmothers tried to show me? *  Will the third year of Cold Sheeping finally end with me ...