A Little Yarn On The Side

.....and don't think the thought of staying up until midnight hasn't crossed my mind.  But it's been a bad back week, and where willpower gives up, Valium takes over......... I'm not sure exactly what I did, but the therapist thought that after the last couple weeks plus the don't-sit-like-this episode on Saturday, I might just need to let things calm down a bit.  We had a busy weekend, then Monday I literally spent all day canning 18 pints of tomato soup.  After a late dinner party on Sunday involving a little too much sitting, this was probably a factor.  However, I felt pretty good when I woke up on Tuesday, ran a couple errands, then was at the very back of a huge store when my back suddenly just HURT.  Literally, out of nowhere I could barely move--it was like being mugged by my own backside.  And, of course, because walking is so important to my therapy and general health, I had parked my blasted car in the farthest space in the parking lot....

Jeeves is busy making icicle ornaments while I'm writing this, so I'm hoping to be at 298 ornaments any moment now and at 300 by the time I head downstairs to tackle the last of the tomato harvest. And not to get ahead of ourselves, meet ornaments 296 and 297,  which I just love.  The one on the right has a little too much stuffing so he's got a bit less neck than he should, but maybe he's a football-playing kitty ornament.  One of the "immediate need" things in those Joanns' boxes is some black embroidery floss, so on Friday they'll get hangers.  And sometime during that week, they'll probably get a few friends as I just love these little guys. I thought I would have another ornament done this weekend,  but I decided this still needs a little something in the center of that white--perhaps more stitching?  Right after getting this far, I discovered another item for the "never, ever do this again" list: sitting in a chair wi...

Last fall, I thought I was being quite clever by sorting all the yarn I thought I would use this year into one large bin, which looks like this as of today.  To be fair, I think it might be 5 or 6 balls of yarn lighter than it was at the beginning of the year, but obviously my optimism runneth over just as much as the bin does.  Of course, my favorite "preparation error" for the year is probably this: Last year, after getting so tired of using up an entire bag of stuffing per project, I finally decided to buy in bulk, and since it was on sale and I was going to make 365 ornaments, I bought THREE of them.  Now in my defense, I had no idea they more than doubled in size when the box is opened, but it's almost November and I haven't even used half of the first box.  Perhaps by this time next year..............?

"Finishing Friday" got scrapped this week for getting ready to have friends over last night--a very worthy cause indeed--but today I've got some crafting time before we go to a Halloween Seafood Boil tonight.  So, there are new mitten ornaments!  Can we tell how much I love the green and white mitten combo?  With these done, I have 70 ornaments left to go for the year.  Time for the sewing room! I'm still stuffing the cat ornaments, and have outlined a few more ornaments to work on,  so maybe I can get caught up today.  First thing though, during the whole 2-year back saga, I have spent an insane amount of time in pajamas, and my very favorite pajamas--homemade, even--developed a hole in the seat.  Do you mend things?  I've been getting better about it--especially when it's something I really like or will be really expensive to replace. I still had some scraps of fabric from making these, but as I didn't even attempt to make the r...

One week from today will be the last day of the spending ban--for this year at any rate.  Can you tell I'm just a wee bit excited? Actually, I'm probably more excited about the crafting vacation the following week, but they sort of go hand-in-hand.  I canned two rounds of crushed tomatoes this week, which cleared up a tiny bit of room in the freezer for the rest of the tomatoes as they ripen, and if I make a huge batch of tomato soup to can next week, I think I'll be sort of done with the canning for a bit.  I'd still like to can some roasted red peppers, but it isn't mandatory as I still have some left.  I should at least be able to take a week off from canning to CRAFT!!!!! I've been wimping around here with a cold the last two days, though Tuesday I still canned tomatoes because I'd gotten most things ready the night before and being around the steam actually helped, but yesterday I rested and, made it to 292 ornaments.  Since I'll run out of ...

....but I'm not going to discuss how long it took me to get the cats turned inside out: The tails had me a bit baffled until I finally consulted the directions and realized that they wrap around the cat from the back.  At first I just thought I had done it wrong.  I think they'll be quite cute when done, and so far they resemble the pictures in the book.  I'm not a huge fan of the "country" look, so I won't be making the goose anytime soon, but maybe the teddy bear or the rabbit.  I also dug up the cookie cutters again since the whole idea is that you trace the shape onto the back of the fabric, stitch that shape, reinforce it a bit with a small zig-zag right outside of the seam, THEN cut them out.  I can do that with most shapes, and I think it will be a great way to use up fabric scraps.  I was surprised that they didn't use Christmas fabrics, but when you see the ornaments, it doesn't really matter.  I am using a Christmas fabric scrap, but I...

I'm catching up!  Even if it is with Jeeves's help.  Red is pretty much the only machine embroidery thread I have left in any quantity, so there are three new red icicle ornaments.  Theoretically, I could have done 6 more and gotten caught up, but my back is still pretty fragile after jury duty, and these were the limits of my sewing room time.  It's healing, but obviously I won't be pushing it for a while.  It is making progress, and they still think I'll be able to do most things.........just maybe not race-walking or sitting for long periods, especially not on hard benches. While Jeeves was working, I dug out the ornament shapes I'd cut out earlier, which has been sort of counter-productive.  The whole idea of setting a goal to do a crazy number of ornaments was to give myself the freedom to try new things.  For unknown reasons, cutting out a stack of shapes all at once has made me less inclined to use any of them for experimental ideas....