A Little Yarn On The Side

It's right here where I should be showing you a finished project.  And you'll notice there isn't one.  Last night I hosted knitting night at my house, and did spend a fair bit of time tidying downstairs, and since it's been extremely cold here and everyone is just recovering from the holidays, there was a lot more wine and general fun than actual knitting last night.  Killer night--but not much knitting. Yesterday I decided to kick off my sewing adventures with a scarf project I'd seen online somewhere, using some scrap yarn I have: but it looked a little too kid-craft for me.  So I ripped it out and will send the unknown yarn to my youngest niece, who has learned to finger-knit and who will probably find something to do with it.  Nice way to kill an hour of my time, but not what I had hoped for.  Oh well. I did manage to get some pajamas cut out in spite of my "help," Theo hasn't been terribly excited about the sewing room since the shelvi...

In the morning, I'll be running Andy to the airport for a work trip, and since we're having an abnormally cold snap (currently 8 degrees and sinking), nor am I to lift or do anything I would normally do, I am going to sew (if I can sit) and knit (if I can't) like a maniac while he's gone.  I'm not sure what the first project will be, but if this single-digit-temperature nonsense continues, I'm thinking something involving flannel, fleece, or wool............

Aside from buttons, there is a finished sewing project! And not just ANY sewing project:  This was my oldest sewing WIP. That's right--this dress has been AT LEAST 7 years in the making--potentially 8.  I had learned to sew in sewing 4-H as a kid and hated it, so I didn't do any sewing until I bought my first house.  Then there are all sorts of expensive-to-buy-but-easy-to-make things one needs, like curtains and that sort of thing.  I also ended a 5-year relationship, and decided I needed to do something new to take my mind off things, so I bought a cheap little sewing machine from Costco.  AND LOVED IT.  Of course, I'd forgotten almost everything I'd learned, so this dress was maybe the second or third dress I attempted, and it was just too hard for me at that time.  But it's made from a nice pin-wale corduroy (I think), and it has survived 2 moves, 2 shelving projects, and 7 years in a WIPs bin pretty nicely.  I think these are the butt...

For someone who is not a big fan of colorwork, 55 colorwork Christmas ornaments might seem like an insane challenge.  It took me three days to finish ornament number TWO:  and about an hour or two to finish one that I made up: I don't know if it's following charts or trying to manage the longer floats without having them show through the white that is so slow, but I'm hoping to get a bit better by ornament 5 or 6.  Otherwise it's going to be a long, LONG year. Thankfully, I do have lots of ornament options, and this morning I cut away the excess stabilizer from the lace ornaments, soaked them, and now they're drying on a cookie rack.  The stabilizer is made from cornstarch, so it's harmless, and I learned last year that wet ornaments are SUPER sticky so they can't be dried on a towel.  I still need to make one more piece for the light blue snowflake, and when they're dry we'll see how the 3-D ornaments work.  This is a new technique for...

.........I think maybe we can rule out "keep going until it hurts" as the fun part of the recovery process................

Boise's temperatures have been dropping down in the single-digits lately, which is a bit colder than we normally get.  Of course, this makes a great excuse for the abnormal amount of knitted goodies we own, but it turns out that it isn't a great thing for my back.  Or, I should say, for the second back injury that was caused by the new pt exercises.  I'm not sure if it was a strain, sprain, or just a pulled muscle, but the treatment is pretty much the same regardless:  R est, I ce, C ompression, E levation.  Okay, I have no idea exactly how to "elevate" my backside, and like all women everywhere, I've been trying to "compress" it for years.  It had been getting better quite steadily, but the cold snap has caused the muscles to tighten, causing them to hurt, causing me to clench my muscles even more, which hurts even more.........you get the idea.  Luckily, the Valium does help, but it still meant spending yesterday totally and completely flat in bed...

Since there will NEVER be a piece of fabric that big again that gets the thread/stippling treatment, yesterday I decided to make a project bag out of the big blue piece: It will be interesting to see how it holds up.  On the one hand, it could snag on just about anything, but on the other hand with all the extra stitching, it is the strongest cotton bag in existence.  It still needs handles, but I had an idea for attaching some silver ribbon in the center of cotton handles--which would be an even cooler idea if I actually HAD some silver ribbon and wasn't on a buying-ban until November.  Another idea is to add decorative stitching in silver to the handles.......but I've run out of silver thread.  I thought I had some silver embroidery thread, but so far I haven't run across it.  I haven't lost hope, as the sewing room still needs some unpacking and a LOT of organizing, but for now this is "The-bag-which-shall-remain-handle-less." I had sort of hoped it wo...