A Little Yarn On The Side

As it turns out, actually crafting  on Finishing Friday makes a BIG difference on stash progress.  I finished the grey socks last night (picture to come), which used up a 460-yard ball of yarn and pushed my total-yarn-used for the year tally over 10,000.  The first year of the yarn tally I crossed that mark in July, but since then it has been late August or September, so I'm having a decent knitting year I suppose.  It does create a problem with that 25,000 yard goal however.  Not that I'm ready to concede yet--I prefer to ignore reality until at least  November.  Besides, I still have tonight free.............

Down to the second sock, almost to the heel, and...............   not one, but TWO new projects.  Restraint?  What? The first is a scarf I'm calling Rosemary and Thyme.  I'm hoping it will be easier to see in future pictures, but there's sort of a leaf and spiky-thing motif going on......and we've been listening to lots of folk music recently.  As there was a white chocolate martini involved, I'm just happy that we weren't listening to anything stranger, as I don't want to have to continually explain why I'm knitting a scarf called "Puff the Magic Dragon" or "Bamboo Stick."  The second one is another slip-a-color hat, which is my current favorite hat pattern.  Both of these involve bigger needles than the socks or Foreign Correspondent scarf, so I'm hoping to get both of them done fairly quickly.  But then again, I think I said that about Andy's birthday sweater as well, and that took 11 months......................

......I made a lot more progress on the grey sock without Calisto's help, so I'm pretty sure I'll get them done for the "dead heat" stashdash.  Unless, of course, I am lured away by this: which is also in my "dead heat" basket and could either become a hat or mittens or both.  Part of me wants to try EZ's mitered mittens again since I have not successfully made a mitten and this time I know that I need to go DOWN a needle size to get gauge, not up.  BUT part of me is thinking that I might prefer to do a hat as a hat is a finished project after one thing is done, not two.  The responsible part of me--which isn't a very big part, unfortunately--is trying to keep myself focused on the socks or the blue scarf, but I'm not sure it's a battle that part is going to win.  Would I have over 50,000 yards of lace yarn if I were a responsible person??????

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...