A Little Yarn On The Side

After much wrangling, trying every option I could think of, and ripping out more seams than an entire wardrobe would require, I finally finished the wrap skirt, and have officially used up another 5.875 yards of early fabric stash.  I was so mad at the skirt that I didn't think to get a picture of it (or the pants) before it went into the wash, but I did take a picture of the shirts, which, even after SAYING that the one with the collar would have short sleeves and the other would get the long sleeves, I managed to mix up.  Obviously, there might be a reason I usually knit at night instead of sew.  The mix up isn't tragic, so I decided to leave them.  As I really like the shirt pattern, there's a possibility I'll make more of them AND get them correct, so these are now known as "variations" rather than "stupid flippin' mistakes." Sometimes even hobbies need spin doctors. I still need to add the accent buttons to the collar (which ended up on...

A pox on all sewing pattern instruction writers!!!!!!!!!!!

 With the last two mitten ornaments: I've reached 35 ornaments for the year.  I really thought I would end up higher with the embroidered ornaments, but I have been sidetracked the last few days by 1. Real life, 2. problems with pain medication, and 3. other projects.  I rather wish this yarn didn't have random dots of color in it, but I still like the sock so far, and it's rather exciting to be making a 2013 Christmas gift early.  The second sock is well underway even, so I think I'll have a finished project here soon.  I have been working on the latest sewing project, and last night managed to attach facings and the collar to the two shirt options: The white stitching on the left is where I basted down the facing, and now I'm supposed to top stitch right beside it.  The problem, of course, is that this never really works for me. Everything is where it should be, but I always find this puckers a bit. Last time I made this pattern I cheated a b...

My name is Toni.  I'm a yarnaholic, and it's been 90 days since my last yarn purchase. Borrowing from Alcoholics Anonymous, the Cold Sheepers in the Ravelry Stashdown group have badges.  The one-year badge is gold , and I am just lusting after that baby.  Hey, if a woman can have 64,000 yards of lace yarn, she can lust after a virtual badge featuring a sheep.  It's probably not even close to the oddest thing I've done, when you think about it..............

How a cat can tell from inside the house that it is substantially warmer OUTSIDE the house is a bit of a mystery, but this morning was our warmest morning in weeks, and Theo returned to the habit of waking Andy up at 5:00 AM to be let outside and actually went out.  Even more surprising, he caught a mouse.  Thanks to two nights of freezing rain and freezing temperatures, our backyard is covered with some solidly crusted snow, so I have no idea how Theo found the mouse, but as miserable as the temperatures have been outside lately, I strongly suspect the mouse was suicidal and simply gave himself up. Andy and I spent a good hour or more breaking ice off our driveway and sidewalk yesterday, so I was pleasantly surprised to be able to move at all today.  I'm sore, but was able to spend all day in the sewing room!!!!  Which is good as it took me almost half the day to get more lace ornaments laid out on the computer and transferred to my embroidery card.  Th...

Well, I got my wish.  It is warmer this morning--21 degrees when I got up, in fact, which is I think the high temperature for 2013 so far.  In fact, it's so warm that we got freezing rain last night and everything is covered in ice.   It's supposed to get all the way up to 35 today so we can get some serious snow, but they've been saying that for a couple days.  So, my planned errands for today will have to wait--possibly for spring.  Andy arrived home safely on Tuesday, which we were both really thrilled about as being away for more than a week gets very, very long.  I didn't get as much done in my crafting vacation as I had hoped, but I did finish it off with 3 new lace icicle ornaments which I think look nice in light blue.  White would, of course, be the most logical color, but I still have lots of other ornaments to try and some of them will need to be in white, so I'm trying to not go crazy on the icicles--as tempting as they are. ...

Dear Mother Nature: Please let it warm up at least above freezing before I get any wild ideas about knitting alpaca underwear or something equally crazy.  PLEASE!