A Little Yarn On The Side

As you know, I am trying to buy nothing from my personal account for one year (which, incidentally, will be up at 12:01 AM on November 1, just in case you were wondering).  Today I almost blew it. I've mentioned the Great Decisions group I'm in, and every-other week we meet in a library very close to a fabric store.  For the sake of my credit card, I've been trying to avoid even being NEAR anything too tempting..bookstores, fabric stores, anything even remotely resembling a yarn store.  Really, home and the gym are sort of my world right now.  But, today I was really close to a fabric store, had a little extra time, and was trying to rationalize buying more white machine embroidery thread.  And believe me, as someone who has been both a professional fund-raiser and spent a long time in sales, I can be very persuasive at times.  It was so close, but luckily I decided to get myself some coffee before the meeting, and apparently I've been getting out far les...

It's spring, and time for another basket-dash on Ravelry..or in the blog world.  Really, it's just a way to make spring cleaning about yarn, but isn't everything really about yarn anyway, or is that just me?  Anyway, Between March 16 and May 31, find the cheeriest bag or basket you own and fill it with: Azalea – finish 1 WIP Poinsettia – complete one holiday decoration or gift EARLY Carnation – make one gift Daffodil – finish a second WIP Tulip – start and finish 1 project Jasmine - make a project you’ve wanted to make for at least one year Columbine – donate one item (yarn or otherwise) to charity Aster – finish a third WIP Crocus – try a new technique Rose – write someone a real letter or notecard Lavender – do something nice for yourself that DOESN’T involve buying yarn Lilacs – take a 30 minute walk somewhere you can smell flowers Poppy – contact someone you haven’t seen or talked to in at least 6 months Daisy – finish or frog one item Hyacinth - try something...

In the past few years, I've made quite a few lace scarves.  I kept a few, gave a few as gifts, but had started wondering what on earth I'd done with them: Turns out, they've been long-time residents of the Bin of Needs-Blocking Knitting.  Yes, you do see 6 scarves, 2 baby sweaters, and part of a baby hat.  That was the first project this morning.  I'd like to say that the bin is now empty, but then again, I'd like to be taller and I'd like potato chips to be good for me.  Let's just say that the bin is slightly less full now. What prompted such responsible (and, frankly, uncharacteristic) behavior this morning?   "Flash Your Stash" is coming on Ravelry.  This is when you take ALL your yarn out of the bins, photograph it, then share the pictures on Ravelry.  Personally, I think it's the knitting equivalent of a horror marathon.  Technically, a less-full bin of finished projects really has no impact on the size of the stash, but it wil...

As most of the knitting world knows by now, if you have purchased anything from Knit Picks in the past few years, your credit card might have been swiped and been receiving fraudulent charges in the past couple months (this in spite of the fact that their web checkout SPECIFICALLY says they don't store your credit card information).  They weren't actually hacked--it sounds like the server was sort of unsecured.  Now, if you are aware of this, you didn't hear it from Knit Picks themselves.  Nope. You would have found out from someone else, most likely Ravelry.  That is because vigilant knitters finally found a security breach announcement on the California Attorney General's office, here:  https://www.privacyrights.org/node/55899 The California notice says that the breach was made public on February 11.  It was cross-posted to a group I'm in on Ravelry on February 15.  Knit Picks customers were notified by email or mail...........NEVER.  In spite...

How many times do you have to fail the "prove you're not a robot" test before you start to wonder?

Okay--as I'm knitting the mistake-ornament while having my morning coffee (having had to undo one row already because I did one too many increase rows), I was beginning to get a bit nervous about the 365 ornament plan, possibly because it seems that I will be knitting THIS particular ornament the rest of my natural life.  Between kicking myself for not getting a bit more white embroidery sewing thread and trying to think of other colors that could be used for the snowflake and icicle ornaments without it looking too stupid, it finally hit me: The spending ban will end November 1 - NOT December 31! I can BE a little behind, because I will have two whole months in which to make icicle ornaments with newly-purchased thread!  Whew--so if I'm still working on this stupid little stocking in JULY, I might still be able to catch up!   Whew!

I'll bet you thought there might be a picture of a newly-knitted ornament today, didn't you?  Nope!  It turns out it wasn't enough to do it wrong and have to start over again.  Nope!  I had to restart it a SECOND time, and frankly, we're not on speaking terms right now. Instead, I decided to "sew" for Finishing Friday, which is in quotation marks because MOST of the crafting time was spent laying out and cutting pattern pieces, which is always the most frustrating part of this jacket.  Or used to be. It's my own fault, really.  Having made this jacket from this same fabric before, I knew that the regular metal foot was very slippery on the fabric as it's usually treated with something.  Luckily, when I bought Emma on Ebay,  she came with a couple feet I didn't already have, including a Teflon foot: Under normal circumstances, this is supposed to BE more slippery on things like vinyl, but as anyone who has ever made a garment from home...