A Little Yarn On The Side

 The 50th birthday gift for my friend was finished yesterday! and I couldn't be happier.  I bought a set of 8 fat quarters from Craft Warehouse to make this, then ended up not liking one of the colors because it was just too jarring, so the ginormous fabric stash came to my rescue!  Yes, I did have other purple fat quarters on hand.  I don't think I'm learning good stash lessons here.  I was sewing the next strata together while working on the first one to be ahead on big gifts, so I got the 4 strata done and ironed and ready to cut... and totally messed up the cutting--to the point that it can't be a spicy spiral runner.  Oh yeah--it's in the Project Timeout bin right now and I am sulking with my knitting.  Sure, I make mistakes knitting as well, but frogging fixes almost everything......Too bad life isn't like that.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Last year had been the first Thanksgiving we've really hosted, and we were able to have a friend over who had missed the last few Thanksgivings with health problems.  We lost him this summer, and he was absolutely one of my favorite people, but his widow and some of the family were able to join us and my parents came down, and I think it was as nice a day as it could have been for our first holiday without him.  Today we're decorating for Christmas, with LOTS of kitty help.  We got Valentino right before Christmas last year, but he wasn't here for the decorating, which is entirely fascinating for kitties--as is embroidery: We have 9 Christmas parties on the calendar so far, so I might not be as far ahead with hostess gifts as I thought I might be.  This weekend I'm also hoping to get started on some spicy spiral runners.  One of my closest friends is turning 50 shortly, so I wanted to do something special for her, a...

Yep--the cold and I are still together.  I'm thinking a new bottle of Nyquil for our one-month anniversary later this week. Last weekend we planted the obscene number of bulbs I ordered months ago when the threat of having to plant them was MONTHS away and meant nothing at all.  Next spring I am just going to turn my credit card over to Andy for safe keeping.  Our yard had better be beautiful come spring, and for hopefully a bit longer than a week or two. Last weekend we also saw the touring production of The Lion King.  I took a lot of drugs to make it through, but it was great.  If you haven't seen what they did with the Broadway show, this is the opening from the 2008 Tony Awards (the show's 20th year): After such a busy weekend last weekend, the cold was a bit worse this week and I ended up working from home quite a bit, and have spent this weekend resting with the vaporizer and the kitties, and knitting when the youngsters were sleeping, exc...

First, there was the good weekend, with lots of time for kitties and sewing, finishing a new pair of flannel pajamas, and some quilting with Valentino's help.  He's discovered laps lately, and I think it's as much for the petting as the being in the way of everything--or at least close.  Luckily, there's also a good napping chair. Then the bad weekend--SICK AGAIN!  Thursday I had such a bad sore throat that it woke me up, and I spent the day at home gargling saltwater and sleeping to try to make it to some appointments on Friday, but ended up having to cancel.  I was so miserable that I just took Nyquil every 6 hours to either sleep through it or rest enough to get rid of the darn thing.  I didn't even knit until Sunday.  I know!!!!!!  Andy was QUITE concerned, as you can imagine.  The cats loved it. 

....because it guarantees that you'll get one.  Last Sunday was our 12th wedding anniversary, and I rounded out the evening by coming down with a sore throat and cold.  Clearly, celebrating milestones with wild abandon is a BIG part of our marriage.....:) We had declared Saturday a DAY OFF, so I spent the day with the quilt and went on a towel marathon: My embroidery machine is having issues again, but I'm able to coax it through designs with only a few color changes.  I'm seriously thinking about getting a new machine in December as I'm now avoiding projects because of the machine's problems, but getting a few things made helps.  The fur-brigade was thrilled: They're pretty certain the sewing room is just for them.  Isn't everything? Being sick did give me extra knitting time, so the birthday trip scarf is now done. Yay!  And before jumping straight to the new sweater, I spent some more time with the Kauni cardigan, then finished ...

Can you believe it took over a year to make a single pair of socks?  The stripes aren't even close to matching, but when it takes the span of a year, it's probably a miracle that they are even a bit similar.  So, to update the fall stashdash: 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.   I'm going to count the travel scarf for this--I think one could argue that pretty much ALL of my lace yarn was purchased on impulse, so Soul Mates - make a pair of socks, slippers, booties, or stockings from stash yarn--the deeper the better    Done! Glass Slipper - Match a pattern you already have with a yarn you already have and put them into a project bag to surprise yourself with in 2019 ’Til Death Us Do Part - complete TEN rows on a WIP that is at least one year old, or your oldest if they’re all more recent DONE - socks “Are You Lones...

Last week we took a quick trip to Portland to celebrate my birthday.  We've traveled a lot for Andy's birthdays but never mine, so it made for a nice change.  Work has been busy for both of us so it had to be only a few days, but even that made a nice change. As a crafter, you know you've picked the right city when you find this in the airport: It's made from rolls and folds of felt.  There were several, but this was my favorite.  Not only do I find it lovely and clever, I admire anyone who can handle a glue gun without permanently removing his fingerprints.  The artist's name is Xander Griffith.  Clever, isn't it? Knowing we were going to Portland, a good friend sent me a gift card for a Portland yarn shop, so after a 3-year streak,  I have new yarn.  I'm showing great restraint though and working on my existing second sock to finish it before casting on. There's also this now, which was my travel knitting project.  I'm going...