A Little Yarn On The Side

At the beginning of the year, my craft goals were:   Finish 115 projects WITHOUT counting any lace embroidery ornaments unless they are the applique ones  Paint 2 ornaments Try a bargello quilting project Try a braided quilting project Try a stained glass quilting project Make a shoulder bag Make 3 colorwork ornaments Finish 3 ornaments from the ornament kits  Of which, I have so far only been working on #1.  Technically, the Spicy Spiral table runners are probably bargello, but I'm not going to count them because I want to motivate myself to try the one I had in mind in the first place.  I'm also not exactly making any real dent in the stash.  So far I've used up: Yards of fabric: 23.375 Yards of yarn:  4843.1 skeins of yarn: 26.615 BUT, with 50 projects completed, I am REALLY smoking that first goal!  Now, one might wonder why a (somewhat) sane person would make crafting goals or keep track of tallies or any of this....

 Sunday morning Andy and I went to the gym, and after that, gardening was out of the question.  So, I worked on a new table runner for some musical friends, and put together the snowflake blocks I'd worked on earlier: Really, I'm almost a bit tired of the winter/Christmas theme going on around here.  Almost........... I did have to try out another of the new free-standing lace ornaments.  It's so nice that I don't get obsessed or anything.......................

Having spent an hour in the pool followed by an hour or so of gardening,  I needed to take it easy today. So...... I finished Spicy Spiral runner #2!  And ironed the 4 remaining strata this evening with hope in my heart...........

Some time ago, I had cut out some blue microsuede that's been around since probably 2005,   and after the latest bunch of table runners, I thought I'd take a break and stitch up the outfit.  The pants are done except for the elastic in the waistband, but the top was a bit more problematic.  The interfacing on the neckline didn't work well with the fabric--so much so that I ended up tearing it in a couple places to make it work.  THEN, since it had worked with another top of the exact same pattern also in microsuede, I decided to use decorative stitching at the neck, hem, and sleeves.  And THIS is where I made it into an only-around-home shirt:  It worked perfectly on the test swatch.  Yes, I even did a practice run on this fabric, and it STILL managed to go badly.  It's even worse on the hem--all wavy and puckered--which it didn't do on the test piece, of course.  I think I might have enough of this fabric left to do a second shirt--I'...

It's April, the month is not over, and I have 49 finished projects!  I'm ahead!  I'm mature!  I'm planning ahead!  I could make my 115 projects goal easily!!! So, I have taken this feeling of hope and euphoria, and taken it to die where it does for every knitter: an Alice Starmore sweater.  Fingering weight yarn, size 2 needles, charts for every square inch or sweater, including underarm gussets.  Did I say sewing was slow?

Whew!  I'd like to say that we'd been off traveling or doing something exciting since the last time I posted, but the truth is far more boring.  I had to finish up our taxes, get a lot of work done in the greenhouse and in the beds, have been racking up some big walking mileage, then this weekend with two parties and dinner guests, I didn't even have enough time to rest & stretch my back, so yesterday I was exhausted.  I know--I need to be more vigilant in doing what is right for my back, and after an interesting episode this weekend of watching 2 60-year-olds with heart problems chug down a bottle of wine each while complaining about cardiologists, trust me--making good health decisions is our new driving force around here.  :) There has been some crafting: The remaining three table runners are finished, laundered, and in the gift bin, and I don't even want to discuss kimono ornaments for a while.  I am, however, probably all set for ornaments to gi...