A Little Yarn On The Side

The fact that I could misplace my camera for several days can be explained by two words: canning season This is the time of a year when large boxes of tomatoes in the living room and canning jars in the entryway aren't even remarkable enough to be explained.  It's also the time of year when Finishing Friday gets usurped by 15 pints of salsa and 12 pints of crushed tomatoes.  But at least it's followed by a season of eating well , even if I am a little sick of tomatoes at that point. First, to prove that there were indeed two new mitten ornaments, and to remind myself that Bernat's red holiday yarn is a little too bright for my taste, though perhaps it will actually glow on the Christmas tree. I can now also show you my latest rope basket experiment,  which was much harder than I thought it would be.  I had a lot more trouble getting the oblong basket started than I expected, and ended up with a tiny gap in the bottom of the basket.  It was ...

......but to be fair, there's not much to photograph either.  I did make another mitten ornament yesterday, but it looks just like all the others anyway.  It gets me to 269 ornaments, which sounds like a crazy number until realizing I'm now 12 ornaments behind.  Eke! I could show you the 12 pints of olive and herb tomato sauce I canned yesterday, which might actually BE photo-worthy as the recipe said I would have about SIX pints and there might have been a bit of cursing going on, but I have been canning for too long now to have not been at least a little bit prepared for such a thing.  10 pounds of tomatoes going into 6 jars just seemed unlikely--at least in my world--so I did have extra jars cleaned and prepared.  It might have taken me a few years to learn that one, but I do eventually catch on to these things......... I do have a plan on the ornament front.  I still have one ornament design set that I haven't tried as I was a bit nervous about tr...

Finally, there was actually some crafting during my crafting "vacation."  Not a lot, but there are now three more ornaments, and if I could find my actual camera, you might be able to see my attempt at stippling on the felt heart.  I can't, and haven't yet figured out how to do much with the camera on my phone, so you'll have to take my word for it.  These still leave me quite a bit behind, but at least there are new ornaments. My big goal for this weekend was to get some LONG overdue birthday presents done.  I'm not as positive what Theo's goal was,  except to "help" by laying on everything in turns and shedding over everything.  It's a very important step in all my crafting projects.   With the house overflowing with fresh-picked produce, I spent the morning drying some sweet peppers and roasting, peeling, and freezing 3 dozen poblano peppers, but I still had time to finish these up this afternoon. Both birthdays were over the su...

An unexpected frost warning tonight combined with high winds meant the garden couldn't be covered, so after physical therapy, I harvested what was left.  Even after our friend picking on Tuesday and me picking yesterday, there were still an amazing number of ripe tomatoes, which are just sprawled all over the counters or in the freezer now.  I swear I am really, REALLY on vacation now.....................

Colorwork ornament number SEVEN is done: which leads me to think that the plan needs to be altered to "complete all 55 ornaments at some point in my lifetime."  I'm now aiming for 10 this year.  And this morning, I finally finished the blue bowl.  I canned a double-batch of carrot salsa AND a batch of chunky basil pasta sauce yesterday, so I am taking an extended weekend as a crafting vacation.  Ideally, I'll end up with either ornaments or finished WIPs (or both), but besides being fun, the bowl was on my sewing machine and the easiest way to get it OFF my sewing machine was to finish it.  It was supposed to be rather oval shaped, but it seems one must start with a more dramatic oblong than I did, because mine managed to flatten out into a "mostly round" shape.  This is why I'm learning with colored rope rather than covering plain rope with fabric--I can only manage one variable at a time.  Next up.................ornaments?

My buy-nothing challenge started November 1, so I am a month away from getting to buy things.   YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Not yarn, though.  In the Stashdown Cold Sheeping thread on Ravelry, one of our lovely members has created badges for each cold-sheeping milestone, now up to 1 year, 9 months.   The wonderful thing about these virtual badges is that I want those babies more than I want any yarn I have seen.  So, I won't be buying any yarn--probably best since I've knit so little of my stash up this year. I am, however, making a list.  I have been working on it all 11 months, really.  Little things I've noticed I didn't have--white baby rick rack, fusible webbing--things I have run out of--white machine embroidery thread--and things I'd like.  The last category gets a great deal of scrutiny, and many things have been moved off of the list because the original emotion is gone. Lots of things won't make the cut because they just aren't worth a one-year...

....but very little crafting going on here lately.  I did finally get a picture of the new ornaments,  but as there haven't been any more since then, I'm farther behind than I was.  Darn tomatoes. The last crafting time I had wasn't even spent on ornaments: I made a bowl from some of the rope Andy gave me for my birthday.  I love it, and since it was part of a gift, I'm keeping the bowl.  It's new purpose is to hold my embroidery threads that I'm actually using.  I don't think one can really keep thread organized while it's in use, but the baggies and bowl should help.  The free-standing lace ornaments have to have matching thread in the bobbin, but one would be very sorry to sew with such lightweight thread under any other circumstances, so the baggies keep spools and bobbins together.  It's not pretty, but it really helps.  I had a little spare time this morning, and went into the sewing room determined to try a new ornament, ...