A Little Yarn On The Side

Or will be if the printer ever spits out the shipping label.  I honestly wonder sometimes if technology has truly sped things up or just added new things to go wrong.  At any rate, the wedding gift for our niece getting married is finished, wrapped, and packed!  Andy made the napkin rings, which he made with thin sheets of aluminum between the layers of wood to get a thin silver band.  We saw this technique used at the Woodturner's Association show earlier this year, and while it took a few attempts to get it right, I love how they turned out. The table runner was a last-minute idea.  Originally, I had intended to do this which was in the current issue of Sew News ,  which is a nice magazine and worth checking out if, like me, you maybe aren't up to the level of Threads yet.  I even picked up the ribbon for it, but ran into a little difficulty over the directions.  They use water-soluble stabilizer with paper backing, which I d...

Heavens! It's been a week.  How did that happen?  In no particular order, a little catching up: *  The beaded scarf is done!!!  It isn't blocked yet, so it looks like a big noodle-y mess with beads right now, but yesterday I dug out my bead stash to find beads for the second one, and have narrowed it down to three choices.  The yarn is more maroon than it looks here, and the pink would blend the most, the clear are a safe choice, but the ones in the center are where I'm leaning right now.  To put it in the most unclear way possible, I'm looking for "contrast, but not too much contrast."  Thank heavens I'm not having to torture a sales clerk with this decision. *  Needing a break from beads, yesterday I cast on Saroyan , which is a scarf in worsted weight on size 10 needles.  I'm using a ball of cotton yarn I'd purchased years ago to make dishcloths with, but all of my knitted dishcloths have been absolutely shredded since I got mar...

Ta-da! They're done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And I haven't washed them just yet so I can double-check them when I'm a bit less giddy from the Finished Project fumes, but I really checked these over last night and couldn't find anything left to do.  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And it only took about 6 weeks (plus, of course, however many years elapsed between starting that first pillow case), which is even MORE amazing.  Suddenly the fact that I had TWO sets of these doesn't seem quite so insane.  Only partially.......... The most thrilling part of finishing the pillowcases was to get to check them off on my Projects to Make list.  For years I've kept various lists of projects that I have the material or yarn for and haven't yet made.  Sometimes it's worked better than others, and since we upgraded to the "smart" phones, I've been keeping it on there.  Of course, it's a relatively recent list, so the number of checked-off projects isn't t...

Ignoring for a moment that I should be at 50 finished projects by the end of this month, I am still pretty excited about finishing the trick or treat bag.  It still needs to be washed to remove the cat hair and chalk lines, and I had to come to terms with this because those lines connecting the bear's face aren't the usual "jump" threads that I can cut away--those are actually stitches that I just can't get at without injuring the design.  I think I can remove this sort of thing from a design using the embroidery software--we'll add that to the List of Things To Look Up When I Find The Manual.  It's becoming a very big list. The other side turned out fine as well, though there seems to be some damage to the writeable card I'm using to transfer designs, because it jumped between the "r" and "e" in "Treat" again, but knowing it was going to jump and when, I was able to slide the design back and finish it without t...

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement.  It is amazing what a destructive force alcohol can be at times--I had a long-standing friendship finally end a couple years ago because of my friend's drinking, and while I miss how the friendship once was, it has never been anything but a relief to be away from her behavior while drinking.  And that's a really sad thing to realize.  After all the party prepping over the last couple weeks, I have been unwinding this week, and doing a LOT of exercising.  After 70 minutes of walking yesterday, I've been a bit sore today so postponed my trip to the gym until tomorrow.  There has, however, been a new bowl, which I intended to be oval.  The odd thing about making bowls this way is that it is actually a bit difficult to achieve anything except round.  Isn't that amazing?  I couldn't draw a circle if my life depended on it, in spite of all my attempts otherwise my pizzas are almost always square-ish...

How did that happen????????? I finished May with a rather dismal tally: Yards of fabric used: 5.5 Yards of yarn used: 702 Balls of yarn used: 1.5 Projects finished:  6 leaving me with some catching up to do.  However, I do have to show you the party decorations.  These are the last thing I made:  and I spent much of last week getting the summer decorations up and getting ready: I thought the decorations turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  I was disappointed in the party itself, however.  The games went well and I think everyone had a good time, but one of the problems I've had through the years with parties is there always has to be that one person who can't drink appropriately.  When you're in your twenties, I think everyone has their moments of drinking too much, but when you're over 40 and STILL can't attend a party without getting drunk, there is something seriously wrong.  It's not even like anyone else finds ...