A Little Yarn On The Side

As many of you know, I've been working as a political consultant for the past month, but I have discovered that though my back has made huge amounts of progress, it is not yet ready for full-time work.  So I am taking this week completely off, then will have to cut back any working hours drastically in the future OR be heavily doped.....which is probably bad for the work environment.  (Or good, depending on how one looks at it.)  IN THE MEANTIME, however, I am having a crafting vacation!!!!! First, I finished up the new baby sweater, which may be a tiny bit smaller than the first one.  The first one took most of 2 balls of yarn and this one only took 1 and a half.  I don't think the difference could be completely caused by the difference in seams versus knit as one piece, but it works anyway.  It looks a bit wonky because it still needs to be blocked, but I'll get to that.  Probably before I find the darn buttons even. We have a girl baby coming...

So, I was hoping to have another finished project for April, but didn't get there.  I did end the month with: 29.33 balls for the year 6,522.2 yards of yarn for the year 8.125 yards of fabric for the year While the fabric progress is decidedly pathetic, if I keep up the pace on yarn, I could end the year with 19,566 yards of yarn and 88 balls all used up.  Considering I still have to get ALL the stash back INTO the sewing room, this is highly motivating. My yardage got a bit of a boost from this which is being sold to another knitter.  Generally, I don't sell my yarn, but this was a knitter who had run out of yarn for a project, and I have a special spot in my heart for a knitter in that place--especially considering the number of times I've been there myself.  So, an additional 258 yards out of the stash, and a happy knitter at the other end.  Win-win.  And, whew, what a difference it will make in my stash as I move it all back IN!  (I fi...

To get my new sewing desks back from campaign work, I am cleaning up the back bedroom to make is into my office.  I'd show you pictures, but it's even worse than the sewing room and I'm just not quite ready to share THAT in public.  We've been in the house almost 6 years now, and at first it was just the room with boxes that weren't unpacked, then when Andy put shelves in the sewing room closet, it was where we stored everything and almost everything made it back into the sewing room.......but maybe not all.  Then I've cured the garlic in there a few times, and there might be a few boxes from the wedding still..... Ahem.   So, we're slowly moving the wire shelving that was in the sewing room back into that room for temporary storage, and as I get things sorted--put away or given away--I'm hoping to free up enough space for Andy to build another temporary desk for my campaign consulting in there. I'll never really enjoy cleaning, but there is s...

Yesterday I was up bright and early to finish the dog blankets before Theo could get to them, and they are now with their new puppy owners. It's hard to get embroidery to work well on a busy print, but they're fun anyway.  Theo is simply appalled at my behavior, and is refusing to even look at me.  At least until treat time......... Not much knitting tonight, but I thought it was time for an update on the sewing room shelving.  These are not going to be just ANY shelves. They have this cool arch thing which will even have a light and these cool scroll work thingies in the center of each shelf: If the finished shelves don't finally shame me into keeping my sewing room tidy, I don't know what will.

Well, embroidering.   But for the last couple weeks, the sewing room has been overtaken by the political consulting work, so it feels good to have it back to being a craft room for the day.  I'm even feeling a great sense of accomplishment because I had to locate the hoop (hallway), stabilizer (guest room), embroidery unit and embroidery thread (master bedroom), so it's really like a crafting scavenger hunt.  A friend of mine just adopted two puppies, and we are having a puppy shower for her tomorrow, so I wanted to make something for the new arrivals.  Originally I thought about some sort of doggy Christmas stockings, but was running low on time, so I ran by Joanns yesterday to pick up some dog print fleece.  Theo was absolutely horrified by the idea at first but clean, fur-less fabric proved too much for him this morning. I've trimmed the edges with a scalloped blade on my rotary cutter, which I bought a while ago and hadn't used.  It mad...

Last night I finished the brioche scarf, which I didn't think I would get a chance to do, but Andy and I got sucked into a movie and ended up staying up MUCH later than we intended.  Having the television on helps me fall asleep because it interrupts my thought patterns and helps me disengage, which reading doesn't do--not even the most boring books.  Movies usually work (unless they involve screaming, explosions, or music, which are luckily never combined in a single movie), but I'd borrowed "The Reader" from the library, and for the first 30 minutes or so, I thought it was perfect as it seemed to be a retelling of Lolita which I wasn't finding riveting, but then we got sucked in, and I even had time to cast on a sleeve for the next baby sweater before the movie ended.  I decided to start with the sleeves so I could knit the body in one piece and join it all together for the yoke--and because I didn't think 11:00PM was a great time for me to be try...

......very, very simple knitting.  Something that requires no thought, no pattern, and can be picked up and put down in a flash.  So.... there is a new scarf on the needles.  It's a free pattern called Lacy Brioche , and it's just one row over and over again until you can't stand it.  Combined with a variegated yarn, it's like the knitting equivalent of a lava lamp--soothing, subtly changing, and very pretty.  It's working so well with the variegated lace weight that I see another one of these in my future as well...........there's a slipped stitch effect in the pattern that stops the obvious pooling that so often happens with variegated yarns.   Thank heavens--I had originally purchased 4 hanks of this yarn thinking I would make a shawl BEFORE realizing that I hate the way variegated yarns look in shawls, so it's nice to find patterns that work in this yarn.  In spite of the puddling problems, I do love the colors of this yarn and would never ...