A Little Yarn On The Side

One CAN take knitting camping, but neither you nor your knitting are likely to come home very clean.......................

Okay--perhaps not, but it sounded better than "I've been so busy that I haven't been near the blog in almost a week."  There has, at least, been some crafting, though not always by me.... I wouldn't mind so much, but her gauge is all over the place.  I did manage to wrest the knitting away from Calisto long enough to finish the first sock, and get the second one cast on.  Theo is a different story, but Calisto can always be bribed with gardening or "kitty salon."  This little girl is a fiend for brushing.  The table runner has been finished, washed, pressed, and delivered to the recipients, who were thrilled.  I ended up drawing some simple shapes and just satin-stitching them in red and yellow.    Believe me, it was faster than embroidering them as I actually have no idea how to create simple shapes on the software.  It has been so long since Jeeves worked that I'm having to relearn just the basics all over again--much less things ...

I love all the suggestions of embroidered shapes on the table runner instead of buttons--I think that will work much better.  I've been working on the reverse side, which I had originally planned to appliqué as well, but I started messing around with stitch options, found one I liked, then found a second one I liked, and I think they make a nice contrast to each other.   I think Theo likes it as well... It's interesting to stick only with primary colors as I've never really done it, but it definitely feels very cheerful and vibrant.  Now to pry the cat off of it and get it sewn together!

So, guess who I got an email from this week?  The new Husqvarna dealer (Twin Falls Sewing Center in case anyone needs a great dealer).  They were just checking to make sure everything was working as it should. Okay--I think I have just the slightest  case of hero-worship now...

I thought it only appropriate to start Craft Weekend with some embroidery and I think Theo is thrilled. I can't blame him--I'm pretty thrilled to have Jeeves working again, but so far, laying on kitchen towels doesn't have the same effect on me.  Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Next up, I started working on a table runner for my friends for whom I recently made the primary color placemats.  I haven't done much with applique, but I like how it looks with the decorative stitching instead of satin stitching around the edges.  Now I'm stuck, though.  I can't decide if I should add buttons or just leave it with the main shapes.  I'm going to make this reversible, so adding buttons to one side might not be a great idea for the opposite side, but I don't know how flat it really needs to be.  So, what do we think--buttons or no?

Whoo hoo!  After a marathon canning day on Thursday, I did absolutely nothing yesterday except craft.  Okay, and a little laundry.  I decided I needed a quick project after all the non-crafting activity of the last 2 weeks, so I dug some of the novelty yarn out of my stashdash basket and: we have a "feather" boa for the costume basket!  I am a big fan of costumes and Halloween and murder mystery costume parties, so new costume ideas are always welcome.  Now I just need the dress to go with the boa or the courage to wear a boa in public.  I also finished yet another scarf: which doesn't look like much right now because it hasn't been blocked and this one will need some SEVERE blocking to look good, but I think it will be nice. That's 4 projects finished from the "dead heat" basket, and I still have the whole weekend before me........ 

Elann.com has new sock yarn.  In case you haven't noticed my mentioning them over and over and over, I am a bit of an Elann groupie.  I've never bought a yarn from them I didn't like, and that says a lot as it's online and I have had troubles with Knitpicks with hating a few of their yarns and colors always being WAY off from their website pictures.  But Elann?  Never.  It doesn't help my case that they are such wonderful folks that when I discovered on lace skien had multiple breaks over a year after I bought it, they gave me credit for it.  They didn't have to--I knew the rules, and it was such an unusual occurrence for them that I sent it back so they could maybe find the problem in their supply chain.  Customer service above and beyond expectations ALWAYS makes me a loyal customer, so I'm even more susceptible to them.  So when I saw that they brought back the Sock It To Me sock yarn, I was almost lost.  I teetered.  I pl...