A Little Yarn On The Side

Funnily enough, I had thought of the 6 gold/6 silver idea because I was more confident of my gold thread than of the silver, but after seeing the first one, I really like the silver, and thank to everyone's unanimous input, I went with all in silver and finished the last one just a few minutes ago, making Finished Project number 24.  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which leaves me..............behind.  Am I ever anything else?  To reach 100 projects, I should be at 33-34 at the end of April.  I am, by nature, completely delusional an optimist, but finishing 9 projects in 9 days sounds a wee bit daunting, even to me.  Tomorrow it's supposed to rain, so I won't be gardening and can spend the morning sewing, but in the afternoon I have an eye appointment, and after the dilate my eyes, I'm guessing all crafting will be over for the day because I'm never able to focus on anything after they do that.  You know, I really loathe the "women's annual wellness exam," b...

Meet Finished Project #23: Underneath the stabilizer is a towel for some friends of ours who host a Kentucky Derby party every year.  It's a terrific party, and after last year's party, I laid this all out in the embroidery software so I'd be sure to have it ready for this year's party.  This morning I did a bit of gardening--including my latest experiment: strawberry plants in the holes of cinder blocks.  I saw the idea on Pinterest , but there is only one cinder block because, as most of us have found out the hard way, people post a lot of things on Pinterest that don't actually work.  So, we got one block and two strawberry plants.  Wish them luck.  Guessing that shoveling probably counts as "a thing one should rest after doing," I thought it was the perfect time to embroider the towel as the party is in two weeks.  Double-checking the spelling of their last name, I hooped the towel, picked out the colors, and had gotten to the letteri...

The penguin pajamas are done!  And, while I might be getting a wee bit tired of flannel, it's supposed to be rainy today, so I've decided to go ahead and cut out the next set while I know how to work the pattern.  It will also finish off the 22 yards of flannel I bought after the spending ban ended in November, which will make me feel good.  Buying fabric that was used up quickly is much different than buying fabric that expanded the stash. And part of me is just a wee bit superstitious.  I've spent a LOT of the last 3 years in pajamas, and part of me sort of feels like if I were prepared to spend a lot of time in pajamas, then maybe I won't actually spend all that time in pajamas.  It's a very nonsensical theory, but the size of my stash doesn't exactly make a lot of sense either, so it works for me.  If I get them done this weekend, I'll have used up 22.5 yards of fabric this month, which DOES free up space in the sewing room and brings me much...

So my idea for getting the pajama sleeves cut out didn't work, so  after Theo gave the project and I some well-needed time apart, I ended up sewing the selvedge edges together on the side that hadn't been cut,  and the sleeves have a great big seam down the center.  This is not a trick for an OCD person, because the dot to line up with the shoulder sleeve is slightly to the front, so the seams can't match.  I'm not even OCD, but that almost killed me.  However, the pajamas are done, I'm currently wearing them, and another 5.5 yards of fabric, which takes up this  amount of space, is used up from the fabric stash.  Of course, the snowflake and penguin prints were purchased at the same time as the others, so it was all stash acquired this fall and not deep stash , but at least it isn't on it's way to BEING deep stash.  I washed the snowflake and penguin prints, and decided to try the version of these pajamas with the shorter shirt with ...

My favorite flannel pajama pattern is wrong on the yardage and layout.  I discovered this the first time I used the pattern--even getting out a tape measure and doing the math to prove that their proposed layout doesn't work for anything except the extra-small and is wildly off for a medium--but had extra fabric so I was able to make it work.  So, when I bought the music and roses flannel, I planned for the error and bought extra yardage.  Five and a half yards, which is theoretically the amount I was able to make work last time.  And, even breaking every sewing rule by flipping the back of the pattern, I can't figure out how I got it to work.  I double-checked this blog in case I'd left myself any helpful notes, but I didn't.  I am guessing that this fabric shrunk more than the other one did, because this did work somehow with the other fabric.  I have now made a note to always buy SIX yards of flannel for these blasted pajamas, but that doesn'...

I am a slow, slow learner with the back thing, but even I have realized that I probably can't seven days of a sewing vacation in a row.  Channeling common sense I don't normally possess in these matters, I'm also thinking that walking in the pool 2 days this week was a stretch for me, so walking in the pool today might fall into the "too much" category, so I'm going to walk over to the gym, lift weights (lots of reps, lowest weight) and walk back.  That will be about 3 miles, so a decent walk but not as hard as walking in the pool.  After that, we'll see.  We have a birthday party to attend tonight, so I won't do any gardening today as I haven't found "moderation" in gardening yet, so I'm not sure what else I'll be doing today.  Maybe working in the greenhouse.  I might be able to finish cutting out the new pajamas, as that falls in the "relatively safe activity" category, and would prepare me for a second sewing day tom...

So, last night going to bed at 5:00 won out because I was really tired, but this morning I was up bright and early and by 9:00 AM, Andy's pajama top was finished!  I'd almost forgotten what a finished object looked like, hadn't you? Then I moved on to cutting out the problematic pajama bottoms, and after being really careful to cut them out right side up and to get the pieces correct, I sewed them together wrong.  I don't know why, exactly, but I somehow just assumed that if I cut the music print pieces out with the pattern right-side up, they would end up on alternating legs. Why I assumed this is anyone's guess, but that wasn't the high point.  After ripping out both seams, I got the music prints put together correctly, but put the black ones together on the wrong side, ending up with two of the same legs.  So, after making a HUGE chalk "x" on the right sides of the black, I finally got them put together correctly, and they are now awai...