A Little Yarn On The Side

One of my nieces has taken up knitting--mostly finger knitting as she's pretty young,  but she has a birthday coming up and we thought this: would be a good gift.  It's a cute little kit, but it only comes with 2 balls of yarn, which, for a relative of mine, will NEVER do.  I am sending all the remnants of novelty yarn I have, but decided to risk Joann Fabrics to get another ball of yarn for her, and s this is ALL the yarn I came home with!!!  I did buy some spring flowers to put in Andy's office, but that doesn't break my rules since that's household money rather than mine.  I even looked at fabric but didn't feel tempted!  Of course, that might have something to do with "looking at" meant "walking really quickly down the aisles and refusing to make eye contact with any fabric looking too tempting," but I judged the entire enterprise a HUGE success! I did have my one exception for the year: which sort of only vaguely counts anyway...

Last night I cut out the fabric for the summer dress AND a matching hat.  I haven't started sewing them yet, but as laying out the pattern and cutting it is my very least favorite part of sewing, I was rather amazed with myself.  I've already used up more fabric so far this year than I did during the entire year last year, and I think if I even sew a little bit most days, I really could use up a fair bit of fabric this year.  It might even be easy to move around in the sewing room by this time next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need to go lay down--I think the shock is too much for me right now...............

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...