A Little Yarn On The Side

 So thanks to global warming, our summers which used to get maybe 1 day over 100 now rage at a consistent 99-105 degrees for all of July and August, which makes the lace merino travel knitting project  a spectacularly poor choice.  Today we're getting a tiny break from the heat--all the way down to 86--but will be back to 101 shortly.  Luckily, we took the escalating heat into consideration when we moved, so our house has lots of trees and shade, so it's easier than at the old house.  We're close enough to the water table that our trees are SUPER healthy, and I can have shade plants, like my new hellebores,  which even have nice leaves in the worst of the summer.  Theoretically, they will flower in January or February, but we have such strange winters, that could vary.  But it's something not being baked into oblivion by extreme heat.  Yay! Venus is becoming my most dedicated sewing companion, but when she's too hot, sinks are goo...

Tomorrow it will be 3 YEARS since I last bought yarn!  (And 45 days since I last bought fabric, in case anyone had any questions about "substitute stashing.")  Packing up all the yarn and moving it really helped with the motivation.  Unfortunately, during the last 3 years there hasn't been a great deal of knitting so the stash isn't a lot smaller, but at least it hasn't grown any.   Last year crafting lost out to moving, and this year it lost out to yardwork.  The house we bought has a lot of really lovely landscaping already done, but I still planted a crazy amount of new plants.  This is one of my new additions: Our backyard at the old house was hot, windy, uneven and really badly landscaped, and really REALLY loud with both airport and freeway noise, so we are just loving the backyard.  It's super-hot here now, but we have lots of shade so we can be out there most evenings.  Yesterday I played in a charity golf tournament in 100-degr...

While I had to go in to work Thursday morning, I was able to take Friday off and spent the day in the sewing room. With my sidekicks, who love the latest sewing room aquisition: a sewing cabinet with electric lift It's not pretty, but the lift mechanism alone was worth what I paid for it.  There's still a lot of organization left to do in the sewing room, and I hung these too low so I keep knocking thread off when moving sewing projects.  They're cheap little racks I found at Joann Fabrics, but the spindles are small enough that my bobbins can stay underneath their matching thread spool so they're the best organizational system I've found for thread.  BTW, don't ever pack thread racks with the assumption that they'll stay together--they won't, and it will be a large mess.  Just in case you were wondering. My embroidery machine is having problems again, but it can do some designs without issue, so  I was able to make some dragonfly towels...

Billowing pant legs might not be the best idea around rambunctious kittens. But I still love these pants.

So the problem with the terrible "trainer" at work did NOT get resolved, but at least last week we got a bit of a reprieve because all but one of the sales team came down with a vicious cold and all but one of us called out sick on Monday.  I, unfortunately, was not the lucky one who missed it, but this was a better way to spend the week than in "training."  Ugh. Since I'm still dragging around with the cold, we had a slow weekend and I even got time to do some sewing.  The first poppy table runner is done,  and today I finished the full-length version of this:  in a light pink crepe and started a summer shirt for Andy's upcoming birthday, which I could even finish in time.  Sorry--should I have warned you before saying that?  Sure, I still haven't even started his Valentine's gift, but let's focus on what's working, shall we? In trying-to-stem-a-problem news, it's now been 32 days since I last bought fabric, and I think it...

Obviously, I've fallen off the radar a bit.  In September, Andy's brother was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and in April we lost him.  He was 57.  Andy did get a chance to see him first, but it's still an overwhelming loss. We've both been struggling a little with work:  Andy has been working on a huge project that is both frustrating and requires extra hours, and my company brought in a free-lance sales "trainer," who has been condescending, dictatorial, and demanding that we have things like paper "pitchbooks" that were unprofessional and out of date 20+ years ago.  Luckily, the plug is being pulled on that idiot, but it's hard when you have something to really dread first thing every Monday morning. There have also been good things happening.  We are now finally and legally free of Andy's ex-wife, who has been spiteful and as nasty as possible every chance she's had.  There are lots of posts on my other blog about just a few of t...

Quick pictures to prove that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth--even if it feels like it....