A Little Yarn On The Side

Meet Finished Project 33: and because 60-degree ruler projects tend to need enough triangles for a second project, project 34 could be done this weekend.  50 projects is still within striking distance!  Especially with a three-day weekend coming up...... The Fall Stashdash has been really motivating--or at least for some of us, so I've probably done more knitting in the last month than I have in the last year.  I've gone back to keeping knitting in the car.  For Boise, I have a long commute involving a lot of stoplights, and it's surprising how much knitting one can do at a stoplight.  Bonus points for totally freaking out other drivers--I think they think I knit while driving.  I have seen people doing all kinds of crazy stuff while driving (reading a book on the freeway, texting, applying makeup), but so far no handicrafts, though I honestly wouldn't say it doesn't happen.  But I've been in outside sales for a long time and have learned to...

In case you're feeling daring enough to pack up all your possessions and move to a new location, let me warn you that it takes about a year to achieve any sense of normality.  That doesn't mean you'll have figured out where you stashed things when you unpacked, or know how everything works, or anything of that kind--that will still be happening.  But to go back to any sort of activity that you would have done before the house prep/sale/move saga rather than something dominated by the ordeal.  This morning I visited blogs while eating breakfast.  I haven't regularly done that in a year and a half.  I've barely done any knitting all year, but last night I sat down with the Kauni cardigan and got 5 more rows in.  I cooked TWICE yesterday--the new house has the kitchen of my dreams, but we just haven't been "settled" enough to get back into the swing of cooking rather than "scrounging."  It's August and stupid-hot, so gardening is at a mini...

110--that's how hot it got last Friday.  110 degrees, in Idaho. Blech!  In spite of enjoying the flowers, I think I'm ready to break up with summer.  To be fair, hiding inside with the air-conditioning did give me time to finish two more table runners, but still..... So, I'm ready for fall, and as a special request, I brought back a challenge I'd created several years ago on Ravelry - Fall Back Into Love Stashdash. From August 15 until November 30, it’s time to fall back in love with the things you already have. New yarn cannot compete with a long-term love. Complete as many of the following as you choose. As always, please feel free to involve other hobbies or crafts as well: Love at First Sight - pick a yarn in your stash that was truly an impulse buy--a yarn you just fell in love with. Find a pattern that will do it justice. Soul Mates - make a pair of socks, slippers, booties, or stockings from stash yarn--the deeper the better Glas...

Good heavens-- I finished the scarf!!!!!!!!! Which brings me to a grand total of TWO finished projects for the year.  On a knitting blog.  WHEW!  Watch my speed............. Obviously, I'm doing more sewing than knitting lately.  I'm having a lot of fun making clothes, as you might have noticed.  I think I now have 6 of these jackets, but I'm pretty sure that no one wastes time thinking about my clothing except me, so I can wear whatever I want.  Besides, a crazy amount of clothing is better than a crazy amount of stashed fabric FOR clothing, right?   Next up are shirts for Andy and I out of a floral cotton shirting,  though mine is slow-going because it's a new pattern with lots of pieces and instructions that don't always make sense to me. But I'm hoping I'm making progress.  Either that or I don't yet know what I've done wrong--one of the two. The extreme heat has wilted much of our plant live, but my zinnias ...

 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...