A Little Yarn On The Side

Then I could have walked across the street to find out what the Sara Lee truck was delivering to my neighbor today: I don't know if I've ever even tried Sara Lee, but obviously some of us love her more than others....... On the crafting front, I'm still working on table runners, and I'm getting better, I think:  It does help that the top is very busy and I'm not that stressed about anyone seeing my stitches.  We'll worry about that for another project.  And speaking of another project, I've been digging through my pile of Christmas fabrics to find the eight coordinating fabrics I'll need for the Spicy Spiral table runner.  They are supposed to go from dark to light to dark, and I keep changing things out.  Oddly, the red side was easier than the green.  I'm still working on it.  Of course, I probably need to take a break from table runners and work on the shirt I've promised Andy for Valentine's Day.  Oh, and some knitting...........

Two more stippled table runners done!

I walked 4 miles this afternoon.  Doing math again--which is really not working out for me lately--I would have to walk almost 4 miles every day to walk my stash in a month.  Heavens!!!!!!  Surprisingly, I didn't grab the first project with big needles that I could think of after THAT horrible realization.  Instead, I dug out the Eleanor Cowl , which I started in December of 2013.  It got sidetracked quickly because I couldn't read the charts while doped on pain pills, and has been languishing in my pile of WIPs ever since.  It is going pretty quickly, so I might be under 20 WIPs soon.  Have I mentioned that I used to be a single project knitter with NO stash?  And speaking of uncontrollable and insanely large stashes, I have been doing some sewing!  In fact, the first stippled table runner was finished just minutes ago!  So far, I stink at stippling, and this one even had tension issues, but it is REALLY difficult to s...

I did the math, which is NEVER a good idea when talking about one's stash.  I have 114 miles of yarn in my stash   I think I need to lay down now...................

I had debated about this, and had originally planned to place one yarn order before climbing back on, but that STILL adds yarn to my sewing room, so instead I have just decided that for the next SIX MONTHS, I'm not buying anything.  Yarn, fabric, patterns--nothing.   I decided on 6 months because on my Joann's excursion on the 5th, I only bought 5 yards of muslin because it seemed quite different than what I'd been getting before, and I wasn't sure it was good enough to use for much.  I'm trying it out on the table runners, and I'm very unimpressed, so I'll need to find something different by then.  UNTIL THEN, time to use what I have! I used up all of the Patons Metallic yarn on two keyhole scarves, and ended up having to make one shorter than the other.  It will be fine once blocked, and I hated this yarn so much that I was not ABOUT to go buy more of it.  It's lovely and soft, but snags on everything--even dry skin, which is sort of hard to avoid...

There have been a LOT of table runners on this blog in the last year, but if you think that means I have this great stockpile of gifts all set and ready to go, you would be wrong. A lot of them have already been given away and only a few--if any--will still be around when Christmas 2015 rolls around.  And while there are 5 red and white runners in progress, they aren't exactly whipping right along.  Three have all the sashing, and I have stippled my first project.  I used white thread, so I haven't been able to get a good picture of it, but you can take my word for it.  I had a few tension issues, I had to rip out a bit because I got the backing muslin folded over on itself at one point, and I can only hope a real quilter never sees the thing, but I'm good with all of that.  Free-motion quilting has been on my list to try for some time, and I finally got the courage up to do it!!!!!  There's still the binding and the other 4, but I tried free-motion qu...

So I finally got all the blocks put together, and it turns out that I am making FIVE table runners.  This is fine, as I do need quite a few gifts this year, but it would have been easier had I guessed this before trying to lay them out and running out of flat surfaces.  They're pretty random, which I'm proud of myself for doing.  One of the prints is just slightly the wrong color in certain light but works in others, so I'm hoping stippling will help with that, though with FIVE table runners there might be some experimentation with decorative stitch "ties" as well.  Five is more than I had anticipated. The next step is a white sashing around the runners, and at this point I realized that I'd used all my heavier white cotton on kimono ornaments.  I have a lighter one, but the seams would show through.  Steeling myself, I went to Joanns after lunch, and the store was almost empty!  There wasn't even a line at the cutting counter IN SPITE of their b...