A Little Yarn On The Side

With the amount of seams I've done on this, I think I could have had an entire wardrobe.  Instead, I have: a bag.  It's a nice bag, but it is definitely going to be an only child.  I love the way the stripes are played with: but with a band and bow only on one side, the bag sags a bit on one side.  I think the bow may sag a bit over time as well, so I'll probably need to stitch it into place.  I do like the new edge-stitching method, which works really well if one is stitching fabric of uneven height.  That was good.  The pattern, however, isn't.  I'm not sure if you can see this,  but right after having you fold the bag in half and sew the edges, it tells you to line up the bottom seam and side seam to make the bottom pleat.  Which, of course, is a really stupid instruction in a bag that you have just created by FOLDING fabric. Not to be outdone by a bad pattern, today I made every mistake I could think of.  Fir...

Tracking one's yardage is more fun some months than others.  For May, I have a dismal: skeins of yarn:  3 yards of yarn:   767 yards of fabric:  3.875 (which at least beats the zeros for March and April) ornaments:  20 Today is the 151st day of the year and I've made 151 ornaments.  Someone had better get busy--canning season is coming!

Mostly of the really bad sort.  I did manage to get all the buttons sewn onto the new dress, which is when I discovered I put the buttonholes on the wrong side.  To be fair, I was partaking of a white chocolate martini while sewing the buttonholes, but I'd marked the silly things BEFORE the martini, so I have no excuse.  I really did look at the picture on the pattern and think I was putting it on correctly.  Oh well--it's certainly not the ONLY thing in my closet with buttons on the wrong side....... I am finally ready to show you Saturday's project.  For once, Husqvarna's website posted a free pattern that did not require buying a whole new machine or $500 accessory, so I decided to make their striped bag . I should have known better.  If Husqvarna can't get money from customers, they're not really interested in anything, so the pattern isn't great.  There's an 11 by 12 piece required, but they didn't mention which way the stripes were to g...

Google Reader is going away July 1 (I think).  The first reader I used to keep track of blogs I followed went the way of the dodo a couple years ago, and I had finally almost learned to like Google Reader--just in time for it to go away.  I have been trying to use Feedly, which I truly, truly, TRULY hate, and which is responsible for my falling way behind on my blog reading.  Annoying websites are bad enough, but I'm falling behind with my crafting friends!!!  There may be cool new projects that I haven't even seen, and I haven't had a vicarious yarn-shopping fix in a while.  So you can see why this is a major issue. How does everyone else keep track of blogs you follow?

In spite of help from Theo, the gardening dress is finished and got 4 out of 6 buttons while I was waiting for Blogger to upload pictures.  I will never stop having a button stash, partly because I like to buy buttons on sale when possible, and partly because the buttons I think will work when picking out a project aren't always the ones that I like when a project is finished, but it is rather exciting to be using up some of my stashes without adding to them right now.  I wasn't exactly bothered by the buttons, but since I'm using them, it's a "supply."  If I'm buying them and not using them, that's a "hoard."  This is not a definition I like to explore too closely when viewing the yarn hoard stash, but it works for the other stashes. I also dug out one of the in-progress blue mittens from the mitten garland, and put together a green felt mitten ornament for good measure.   Then, thinking I should explore some OTHER stashes-borde...

Well, it's almost been a week.  Where the heck have I been?  I think mostly gardening, followed by exercising, followed in the last couple days by being sick.  Part of me doesn't actually mind the occasional sick day--a guilt-free day of knitting and movies once in a while is a pretty nice break.  But yesterday I didn't even feel good enough to knit (gasp!), which obviously totally unnerved Andy.  I don't think he'd ever heard me say that before.  I still don't feel great, but I hope that scary non-knitting stuff is over.  I did finish the 4th ornament, and was so excited with it that I immediately cast on ornament number 5: which was GOING to be blue with a white snowman, standing on a snow-covered ground, only when I got to the chart with the snowman, I was so used to the "x" meaning color that I mucked it up and got a blue snowman instead.   He's cute, but he's not exactly what the pattern called for.  Oh well, he's finish...

I decided to give my back another day's rest and move my workout to Saturday, so I got up bright and early to get a jump on a full Finishing Friday.  Unfortunately, Theo got up early as well.  He hasn't been much interested in sewing for quite a while, but he MORE than made up for it today: I didn't get my dress back until after lunch, so while there has been progress , it isn't yet finished.  I did put the morning to good use, though.  6 new lace icicle ornaments, which I swear exist because I'm excited about a Victorian Christmas tree and NOT because I was falling behind on ornaments.   Speaking of being behind, I started my 4th colorwork ornament today,  which will only leave me 51 left to finish in the book by December 31.  Is it too early to panic?