A Little Yarn On The Side

 For those of you who are curious about EZ's Epaulet Jacket shaping, you can see some of it here: I'm guessing the shoulder will be a bit boxy since it's based on a square, but I still want to see how it turns out. The TENTH cross stitch thread is in progress: though not quite finished.  Obviously, doing 12 threads on this thing is actually keeping me sort of interested in it.  If I were thinking about ALL the stitching left to be done, I'd be sobbing in the corner, but just having to do 12 threads on it is doable.  I think. The sewing room project has generated a few patterns and books to be donated: I wish it were overflowing, but getting myself to admit that there is ANYTHING in there I don't need or won't eventually make is rather a unique accomplishment, so it's a start. Speaking of starts,   The new "Baby Attitude" quilt is in process.  I was a bit disappointed to see the quotation marks turn out to be going the wrong direct...

Andy added this wonderful little shelf to my temporary sewing furniture to hold the long, thin things like my blocking wires, sleeve board, and longest rulers. And we're seeing it again TODAY so you can remind me of it the next time I'm about to spend 30 minutes rummaging around in the sewing room for that plastic ruler grid.

This is my EZ's Epaulet Sweater.  It would actually be farther along by now if I hadn't been dumb enough to treat this like any other sweater.  Most top-down sweaters will have increases on BOTH sides of the markers for the sleeves if they have markers for the sleeves.  This is called "raglan" and is a sweater style that those of us who weren't Elizabeth Zimmerman use to make sweaters.  But the reason I am making this particular sweater is to learn her shaping technique for this particular sweater.  It starts with a long skinny band of garter, then you knit a rectangle just on the center stitches, then you pick up stitches on one side of that rectangle and knit another rectangle, then repeat on the other side, and then shape that skinny band into the neck band.  (Thank heavens there is a chart in the book for this--otherwise I would be writing this from a corner in the back of my closet surrounded by frogged and tear-soaked purple yarn).  Now this ...

The sewing room is progressing!  It was really hard to start hanging things initially, but I finally found the motivation when I couldn't find the right pair of scissors for anything.  I still can't locate the extra bobbins for the Husqvarna machines, so I'm sticking to things made with colors of threads I already have bobbins assigned to, but at least this helps a bit.  Of course, the fact that we're having company in a few weeks is also a great motivator.  Amazingly, I didn't want to have to explain why they would both have to get in bed on the same side because the far side was completely blocked off by sewing things.  Perhaps this is a sign I need approval or have some sort of odd ego thing going on, but since it got me motivated to clean and reassemble the sewing room, I'm totally cool with whatever the problem is.  I'd make it even worse if I could--my closet needs some work as well.........

Finally!  First, a picture of the new socks: which I thought about keeping for myself, but if I put them in the gift bin I get to count them as one of my 12 gifts for the year.  Which works for me, as I really don't wear gray.  AND this used up the last of the 3 double-balls of this yarn, which I bought at least 6 or 7 years ago, which put me over 10,000 AND gives me number 65 in the "all used up tab."  I promised myself I could think about stopping Cold Sheeping when I get that tab to 150, and am really trying to be good and not just focus on the single-ball entries.  This one only showed 2 because one was knit up before Ravelry, but there were at least 3 origininally--if not 4.  I am thorough when I go on a yarn binge. I was so excited about hitting my target on time that I whipped out another Tribble: though it doesn't do anything for my yardage.  Because these take so little yarn and it's so hard to estimate, I've decided to just count th...

I just finished the socks, and have tied my best record for when I passed the 10,000 yard mark!!!!!!!!!  Can I meet or beat the 19,000 yards used in 2008???? I do realize that some knitters would be excited about the pair of socks that was just finished and a bit less obsessed about yardage, but they didn't just have to move their entire stash out of the sewing room, then back in again......

I'm trying to reach 10,000 by Thursday and what am I doing?  Working on socks with size ONE needles and fingering weight yarn, with a massive 460-yard ball of yarn.  Oh yeah--I see this going well.