A Little Yarn On The Side

The new bag has received kitty approval, and I'm actually possibly considering making another one--though with some edits.  The bag sags toward the bow way too much, and at least needs the striped band on the other side as well, if not a second bow.  I'm not saying I'm quite this crazy yet, but if I get there, should I stick with the white lining (which could use a pocket), or should I branch out and match the pinstripe with red: I'll admit, I'm not usually very daring with color, but I think I could make a second bag (without as many errors, even) for a Christmas gift.  What do you think? I have been just a bit under the weather again, so there has been mostly knitting today.  There's a new ornament,  bringing me to 142, and progress has been made on the new sock, which will be either a birthday or Christmas gift for Andy (as he already knows about them, I don't have to be sneaky).  The pattern is hard to see, but it's a nice, stretchy...

It's now been 7 months and one day since I bought any yarn, fabric, thread, or other craft supplies.  I'm sort of proud of myself--which I can't say very often when discussing the purchasing of yarn or fabric.  I have made two overall spending exceptions this year.  The first was the book for the Great Discussions group--technically the $20 covered the book and the dvd for the group, so I still view it more as a fee for the class than anything else.  The second exception is a new pair of sunglasses.  Mine broke about 5 years ago, which was bad enough, but now that I have new contacts and am wearing them more often (like, as I'm actually supposed to), and contacts tend to make eyes a bit more sensitive to light.  I did think about it for about a week, but I decided eye damage in pursuit of a spending ban was taking it a bit far even for me. And why I can't do moderation in any form:  as soon as I made one exception, I immediately wanted to go on a ...

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...