A Little Yarn On The Side

Remember the redwork ornament idea I was toying with? It gets the award for Problem Ornament Thus Far.  The issue is to get everything stitched down without anything shifting or pulling.  In the above ornament, I tried pinning.  It's close, but it's a bit wonky. From a safe distance, Theo watched me make two more slightly wonky ornaments, and basically prove that my fabric glue stick didn't really work either.  Next up was a regular glue stick, then finally, being completely desperate, I broke out the hot glue gun.  Anyone who knows my track record with the hot glue gun will recognize this for the sign of desperation that it was.  Shockingly, that worked much better, but in trying a new approach for sewing the second piece of blue on for the backing on the ornament on the right, I made it exceptionally hard to cut out  (Note to self: remember the ribbon hanger might make it awfully hard to cut an ornament out after the fact).  So, o...

I'd like to be showing you a spotless, fully-organized sewing room right about now, but 1.  I've never actually seen one 2.  I certainly don't have one and 3.  I can't get Blogger to upload anything anyway The sewing room sort of looks like it did last time anyway.  Tuesday my back was finally feeling good enough to run a few errands, then I had an eye appointment.  It is proof of how much I hate eye appointments when I tell you that, while I am willing to see the dentist twice a year and even undergo the dratted female "wellness" exams yearly, it's been 5 years since I've been near the place.  I am very near-sighted, so since the age of 6 or 7, our annual school shopping trip involved FIRST a stop at the eye doctor, who for reasons best known to himself never had patients pick out frames prior to getting their eyes dilated, and instead waited until they couldn't see a darn thing, and I would get to spend the rest of the entire day wearing...

One of the flowers to earn in the spring flower dash is the Cosmo, which is earned by spending one hour cleaning or organizing one's stash.  (You might have guessed that I pick these things according to what I desperately need to do).  My back was feeling pretty good yesterday, so yesterday without getting too crazy and after notifying Andy to come find me if I didn't surface again by evening, I dived in: One of the things I've noticed while doing the 365 ornament challenge is that I have several boxes containing the same things.  I like these plastic boxes for specific projects--so the winter mitten ornament garland has a project box, as do some quilts or other projects until they're finished.  But there were several different containers containing Christmas ornament stuff, so after emptying a larger container that had been in our back room, I started combining.  In reality, much of what I am doing right now is specific only to this year, but that's okay....

...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.................