A Little Yarn On The Side

...but I'm not sure what.  I know I can chalk a big chunk of the day up to physical therapy.  I'm trying to do the exercises to strengthen my hip without irritating my back, and tried adding back in a couple exercises today.  Just in case, I rested on the heating pad between them, so I'm hoping I won't be paying for that tomorrow, though the thing most likely to make the current pain worse is for my hip to move and have to be moved back into place, so if the trade off is small pain versus large pain, it's a pretty easy choice.  There was a bit of knitting today, and the back for the "March Madness" sweater is almost done.  Apparently I didn't specify March of which year.  But I am loving this sweater. I had a new idea for ornaments today, which involves embroidering squares of felt, then sewing them onto larger squares of fabric as sort of a frame.  So I spent some time finding designs and loading them on the card, then doing a few squares, but...

My back is finally starting to feel better, so I was able to visit OTHER rooms in the house today, including the sewing room.  I can't sit for very long, but I did manage to make two more trees using darker green felt   After that, it was a bit too painful to sit, so I switched to projects that could be done while standing.  I tried a conical tree idea, and I'm pretty sure I made it in the most complicated way possible.  I got the bright idea to start at the bottom so I had the edges lined up exactly, which made it really hard to stitch as I made my way to the top.  Pinning the rickrack in place didn't help much, but I did finally manage to get it tacked down, then to top off the fun I added individual sequins using the glue gun.........then spent another 30 minutes cleaning the hot glue threads off of absolutely everything.  I usually have to bring the glue gun out once a year to remember why I never use it.  I'm generally pleased with the or...

Today I made: mostly due to needing to rest but being drugged.  Today was not a day for new patterns.  It's been sort of a long week.  Sunday I aggravated my muscles when I had to move my hip back into place, so Sunday and Monday were sore and drugged--which is how I got this done: Yesterday started out better, but either because of the extra exercises I did Monday when I started feeling better OR just because my back/hip is very perverse, it got aggravated again when I bent down to pet Calisto.  So yesterday was sore as well--which is how I got this: Today I feel better but thought I should rest and give the muscles one more day to get over their aggravation.  I found that works for the rest of me usually, so I guess I can understand when my back has "moods."   I will just be glad when my back's mood swings no longer involve drugs for the rest of me...........

Today is the 103rd day of 2013, and with a new family of terrorized gingerbread men, and 3 new plum pudding ornaments finished this morning (with some help from Calisto), , I now have 113 ornaments done for the year, which means I'm actually ahead of schedule right now.   Luckily, the shock has not done me in just yet.  Being caught up in April and being caught up in December are very different things.................

is what a bribe looks like.  I am doing our taxes this week, and when I finish them, I get to play with this.  It was a new lace scarf or chocolate, and at least the scarf will lead to a decrease in my stash, and is probably much healthier. I thought I wasn't going to need it, because I managed to get our federal taxes done with only lace icicles as a bribe, but Tuesday night I slept badly and my back ended up in enough pain that yesterday was mostly drugged, so my maturity level has had a corresponding set-back.  I keep telling myself that if I just get the taxes done then I have all weekend to play, and I think it will get me back to my desk, but a little alpaca lace yarn doesn't hurt anything.......................

Isn't he just the cutest thing ever?  The tan one worked out much better than the dark brown, though I think the dark slightly-burned look would be more accurate for my attempt to make cookies.  Aren't they just adorable?  And it's a free pattern --win, win! I love it when brilliant people share things. Not that I still don't love the icicles, but Jeeves can make these while I make adorably-frightened gingerbread men. Maybe this 365-ornament thing might really happen after all...................

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...