A Little Yarn On The Side

I spent the weekend with my parents to see how they were coping after the hip replacement surgery.  My father is almost speedy, having given up the walker a few days ago and now, only 3 weeks after the surgery, walking better than he has in the last couple years.  However, it is still very much winter there, and being unable to get out and about for 3 weeks is getting to him.  I don't blame him--I'd be going stir crazy and I can knit when confined.  Speaking of, meet the weekend project: Yet another chemo cap.  My mother wanted one for a friend with cancer, so I started it on Saturday, finished it on Sunday, and I think it is on its way to its new owner today.  Personally, I prefer it when the caps sit around and are totally and completely useless, but at least MOST of them are still not needed.  The shawl also saw a little action and is now almost to the point where I will divide for the "v" of the sides.  I think that might make me close ...

This is my fourth year of Cold Sheeping (knitting only from stash and buying NO yarn at all, except to finish a project or on one of my year-end reward purchases when I allow them), and I have been making a lot of progress on The Stash, but there is still a crazy amount of yarn left.  So, it looks like I will be continuing to Cold Sheep for a few more years, but the idea of doing it indefinitely was getting to me, so I have decided that I will continue until my "All used up" tab in Ravelry shows 150 entries.  As it now has 33 entries, and most of my entries are not single skeins of yarn, this is going to be a long  endeavor.  Years.  The other thing I have decided, in order to keep my sanity during this stash marathon, is that I will get to spend $100 on yarn each year.  That way I won't feel too deprived, and I've set a high enough number so that if a few purchases are things like sock yarn that will take up lots of entries in my stash, I'll still end up ...

This week's Finishing Friday got off to a head start last night with a finished scarf and the crafting jacket finished today by noon. OK--yes, technically this was supposed to be finished in February, but I think even our mortgage company might give us 5 days for a "grace period," so I see no reason why the Project of the Month shouldn't get one as well. It still needs 2 large buttons--which I don't have--and will need to be washed, but I'm pleased overall.  It's rather bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm not sure if it's just supposed to be fairly big or if this is one of those "no-woman-wants-to-wear-a-large-so-we've-made-the-medium-humongous"  sort of things.  Still, I think it will be nice to have in the crafting room, and add 2.75 yards of fabric to the "all used up" category. Swearing that I would do better this month, I decided to cut out the March project of the month:  though my suspicions of anythin...

My February crafting totals stand thus:  (don't you just love it when you can use rather archaic words in a sentence?) Number of finished projects:  11  (exceeds goal) Yards of fabric used:  9.625  (exceeds goal, but still behind for the year) Balls of yarn used:  6.25   (no goal set) Yards of yarn used:  1037   (nowhere NEAR goal) Some people might find it somewhat (or totally) insane to have goals related to one's hobby, and they could certainly be right, but then they don't have a stash that is threatening to explode out of the sewing room either..........

Sometimes even the most crazed of us have to accept defeat.  Though, in my defense, I must say that had I not gotten sick on Monday, this might have truly been finished in February.  I did at least finish this just under the wire, so I do at least have something to show for myself this week.  (Besides lots of napping with Theo). Yesterday I did pick a new Project of the Month bag to find this: which involves some of the oldest fabric in my stash and fabric that I fear might not be of the best quality.  Just as most knitters I have known had to start with cheap yarn before they could appreciate why one would buy expensive yarn, I had to start with cheap fabric before getting this concept in sewing.  So, I am not sure how well this will turn out, but I am going to wash the mystery fabric today and if the dress falls apart after one wearing, we'll call it a "muslin" and celebrate the fact that I have used up 3 yards of old fabric stash.  And hopefully if...

It's 9:30 AM on the last day of the month and it's possible that the February Project of the Month could be finished tonight.  I woke up early today and got the yoke facing and one sleeve attached, and I hope to be able to get back to sewing fairly early tonight. There are cuff facings, but nothing too hideous and only two buttonholes to be made, so there's hope! Saturday I dropped Jeeves off at the repair shop, then yesterday I finished this: The fact that my "Mark-Be-Gone" marker hasn't "be gone" yet makes me a bit nervous as the other pen disappears in less than 24 hours, but maybe this one disappears with washing?  I made the embroidery stitch a bit heavier by using 3 embroidery threads.  I wanted it to look slightly cartoon-like.  Not in a silly sense, just in a light-hearted sense.  I'm actually rather proud of myself for doing this, as I'm not good at drawing, I haven't actually embroidered anything since I was a child and...

..and there are BAD Finishing Fridays.  Let's see if we can guess which one this one was. I jumped out of bed bright and early because I had an entire day of sewing ahead of me.  It turns out that one can actually jump into sewing just a bit too early on a Friday.  This is what can happen when one changes a needle before having coffee. Seriously--the needle (still threaded) just fell out.  Oops.  Today is February 25 and the February Project of the Month, had progressed no farther than washing of the material.  With 3 days to go, it was time to get cracking! At first I thought I might make the pants as well, but when laid out the material that had started out at 61 inches wide, according to the tag I had attached to it, had shrunk to 51 inches wide after washing.  Apparently when they say "line dry," "no heat fluff" in the dryer still doesn't cut it.  Or, I was having a seriously measurement-challenged day when I wrote up the tag. ...