A Little Yarn On The Side

To reach the possibly crazy goal of 365 ornaments by the end of the year, averaging an ornament a day is obviously the goal (see how nicely that works?)  So, to be on track I need to have 59 ornaments by the end of February.  Right about now is when I start wishing I had purchased a bit more embroidery thread for those lace ornaments............. I have another completed ball ornament, which I'm not overly pleased with. This is the first one I've made with the two-colors on every row of the center, and the colors get muddled.  Oh well.  I have two trees to decorate, which means I also have two backs of trees to decorate.  Looks like we'll be keeping two categories of ornaments this year:  my favorites and the ugly ones.  THAT should make an interesting decor scheme...... Having a ball turn out badly--or perhaps having made so many already--I've grown a bit bored with the improvised balls, so it was time to look for a new ornament pattern id...

I'm recovering from the fall fast enough to know I didn't do anything serious, but it still hurts enough to have stopped any real sewing for a few days.  I felt pretty good Friday morning, so we made a quick dash to a library book sale then stopped for lunch, and that seems to have been the limit for my back for the day.  So, no sewing projects, but...... remember these?   Tada!!!  One is now empty!!!!!!!!!!!  The bigger pieces have been sorted out and added to the stash, and the smaller cotton ones, have been ironed and are now being cut into backs for the quilted ornaments AND 3-inch squares to attempt a patchwork quilt.   I've never done one before, but I keep hanging onto scrap fabric, and it's time to either use it or throw most of it out (one always needs scraps for serger testing and that sort of thing).  I think this will be a fun experiment, and I am hoping the results will be some colorful baby blankets.  I tend to fav...

It would be hard to say whether the hour in the pool turned out to be good or bad, because yesterday morning while doing leg squats propped against my exercise ball against the closed bathroom door, the door swung open on the 10th one and I fell.   Right on my ego.  Apparently even Theo can recognize a cry of surprise, because Andy only beat him to the hallway by a few seconds.  Tonight I'm feeling good enough to know that I didn't do any serious damage, but yesterday was really, REALLY painful, and I spent the day on full medications and the heating pad.  So, if I was at all sore from the pool, it was pretty much covered up from being sore from a losing battle with a door.  Thank heavens THAT didn't have to go on my medical record.  The turkey incident was bad enough........... There was some very simple knitting, starting with finishing the green ball, then stripes when the drugs were at their strongest,  then getting a bit trickier as they...

The original plan was to maybe finish up the shirt for Andy's Valentine's ensemble today.  However, I was feeling pretty good and excited about spring, so I went to the gym and walked in the pool for an hour!  Okay, it felt better mentally than it did physically, quite frankly, and it has meant spending the rest of the afternoon on the heating pad, but it's the first time I've been able to do it since November, so it's sort of worth it.  Spring is in the air, and this knitter's fancy is turning to thoughts of getting out of the house occasionally...............

I've had three really good "back days" in a row, so yesterday I felt good enough to kick off Finishing Friday with a blanket repair job that I've been meaning to get to: The original satin edging had ripped across the top and formed a very strange string, so I had ripped it out one day while doing back stretches, and raided my stash to find a new satin binding for it.  Ivory would have looked better, but I didn't have that, and it's for the guest bedroom, which I assume no one checks for exact color matches.   It's always sort of a risk to start my day with a repair that I haven't done before, because if the repair goes badly, nothing else happens, but I did it on the first try, and was still feeling good enough to lay out the rest of the fabric for Andy's ensemble on the floor and finish getting it all cut out.  My back didn't last long enough to finish anything, but one of my Ravelry groups is having a virtual "sew-in" toda...

I had a pretty good back day yesterday, so last night I felt like sewing.  At first I thought I'd whip up a few produce bags from this mesh fabric I bought a while ago, but I was using a white chocolate martini to get a break from the drugs (weird, but it works once in a while), and this fabric is NOT one to be tried when consuming anything stronger than water.  It's the sort of thing that DRIVES one to drink.  So, this will be a future project.  Like when I'm having a bad day and don't think it could possibly get any worse. Andy and I usually make each other Valentine's gifts, and ever since I made myself a set of summer clothes from this fabric:  Andy has wanted some as well, so I started cutting out these last night: His will be the shirt with the collar and short sleeves (why do men insist on that collar?), and the long pants.  Obviously, we'll never appear in public in this sort of dreadfully-cutesy matching attire, and mine are at least cr...