A Little Yarn On The Side

Mother Nature was a week off, because we got our usual Easter weather (cold, rain, wind) yesterday.  While Theo chose to spend the day snoozing in a pillow fort, I spent most of the day in the sewing room.  I was inspired by the idea of a Victorian Christmas, so more pink ornaments!  And even more: As you can see, there was a problem with one of the icicles.  Some of you might recognize this as the sort of thing that lead to the long battle with the jerks at Holland's Sew Shoppe.  To anyone who ISN'T a complete jackass of a repair guy who blames everything on user error, this was a mid-design jump, which means the embroidery card is going bad.  I think my machine is one of the last to use these: which is how I transfer designs from the computer to the machine.  So far, it's just one design, so it might mean there's a defect where it wrote this design--in this case, number 11.  So I can still use it, but just won't embroider anything...

 In spite of the fact that I have fallen drastically behind in my ornament-making plans, for the record, these weren't just an attempt to make fast, quick ornaments in a desperate push to catch up.  Or at least, not entirely.  These exist because of this: Sulky embroidery spools like this hold 850 yards of thread.  Which is fine, except that every thread manufacturer uses a different type of spool.  I don't know if this one has a thick or thin center, so while I'm pretty sure there isn't enough thread left on the spool to make a snowflake, I don't actually know how much IS left.  Lace ornaments like this have to have matching thread in the bobbin as well, so I'm making the small ornaments with this so I can use it up without running out of thread in the middle of anything.  I do love the embroidered lace ornaments, but they are thread pigs.  So, there is a point to this BESIDES desperation.  I got the red ornaments blocked, and since ...

Meet finished WIP number 3! I'd like to say that this encouraged me to try to top my own personal record of 14 WIPs in a row (finished, not abandoned--that record is probably much more frightening), but in order to convince myself to get this thing finished, I promised myself this: which uses some FABULOUS cashmere/merino/silk yarn that a friend gave me, and is now finished, and severely in need of blocking.  It's a quite adorable pattern, which is available for free here .  Right now mine currently looks like some ramen noodles had an accident with Pepto Bismal, but if you click on the link, you'll understand why this worked so well as a bribe.  In fact, it worked so well that I'm working on another WIP!  Being my entry for the March Sweater Madness, it's a fairly recent WIP, but I finally got some issues with the pattern figured out, and the sweater is now zipping along again.  With bigger WIPS like this, I've promised myself a quick little rewa...

The last few Finishing Fridays have been a bit short-changed due to other things happening, so yesterday I spent most of the day in the sewing room as a bonus day. YAY! I am not too proud to admit that I may not get caught up without Jeeves's help, so I loaded up my embroidery card with several designs I've done before, as well as four of the more-complicated designs from the package Andy had given me for Christmas.  This  is the first piece of the first design.  The idea seems to be that it is assembled using these dots, the dots go through the corresponding holes and it's all assembled.  Sounds great to me!  I was NOT looking forward to figuring out how to sew them together. I've found it saves on stabilizer to do a very large piece (doubled as these are very thread heavy) and then the hooping can overlap a bit and get ornaments closer together  so I haven't actually tried assembling the new ornament yet, so there's only one.  I want ...

Okay, so in March I failed dismally on my March Sweater Madness, keeping up with the ornaments, the sewing streak, and just pretty much anything crafting related.  But I swear to do better this month.  Ahem... There was a last-minute ornament catch-up frenzy, which still didn't get me to 90, but I did reach 70 so ended less than a month behind.  There was a second tree ornament: which would look better with a flat star button, but as usual, I don't have any of those.  There were also 6 new treble clef lace ornament, which I hope will STOP smelling like desperation once the stabilizer is soaked away.  Today I decided to try some of the new ornaments Andy gave me for Christmas, so while I write, Jeeves is merrily working away, on what will hopefully look like this: Okay, I don't actually know what eggs have to do with Christmas, but it was the only pattern that didn't require applique, and I wanted to figure out one step at a time.  Somehow o...

This arrived in the mail yesterday: This is the second catalog I've received from Knit Picks since their security breach was made public (and when I say that, I of course mean when KNITTERS made it public because Knit Picks didn't until AFTER the knitters found out).  More than 6 weeks later and WELL outside the legal limits now, NO ONE has reported receiving the letter Knit Picks said they sent.  NO ONE.   So, they lied.   One of the knitters I know through Ravelry who had her info swiped in the Knit Picks fiasco who contacted the Attorney General's office of her state.  By that state's laws, Knit Picks was required to have contacted by mail everyone who had done business with them in the year prior.  The Attorney General's office sent Knit Picks a letter which Knit Picks had 10 days to respond to, and Knit Picks couldn't be bothered to respond to the Attorney General's office either.   Okay, I could understand them being jerks who di...

*  File a police report saying someone has stolen your knitting mojo. *  Start an online petition to make Continental the only acceptable form of knitting *  Send a letter to the editor denouncing the Cold Sheeping movement as an anti-ovine conspiracy theory *  Knit with wooden needles in public, and when anyone comments on your knitting, reply that it's great fun, but you have to be careful not to knit too fast or your needles will ignite *  Email every designer who has shared a free pattern on Ravelry and demand to know why the pattern doesn't include charts for every tiny bit of the pattern, translations into 47 languages, free coffee, and front row tickets to the next Jimmy Buffett concert *  Expose the financial details of thousands and thousands of knitters to credit card fraud without telling them, then deny responsibility.  Oh, wait............that's already been done.........................