A Little Yarn On The Side

I've had a 5-day weekend, which would be more impressive had my boss not bothered the sales staff repeatedly with unimportant emails to remind us we needed to sell things and if we hadn't worked insane hours the weekend before last and STILL had to show up on the following Monday at 8--which not even the stupidest charity in the world would expect.  And the extra days were NOT charity--we won them in a sales contest.  Next time we'll know to request a break from the sales manager as well.... I've spent much of my mini-vacation crafting.  Wednesday I made Andy's birthday gift, finishing it even a bit early , which is kind of amazing.  I debated about the next project, then remembering that the sewing room is still pretty much a crazy mess, and decided that the next project would be something I could find.  So, flannel in July: Sure, it's crazy-hot now, but this will be a lovely shirt for winter--as soon as I figure out which buttons. I thought the blac...

I DESTASHED 7,146 YARDS--OVER 4 MILES --OF YARN YESTERDAY! And I loved none of it.  Like this one:     I enjoy knitting cotton washcloths, but after purchasing this cone , I knit a few balls of this colorway, and as soon as this yarn gets wet, the colors bleed together, so it looks like some sad, half-melted Christmas mint found at the bottom of a purse somewhere.  I don't like how it turns out, so I was never going to knit with it.  Ditto this:   In December of 2007 when I was gearing up for my first year without buying yarn--I hadn't even come up with the term "cold-sheeping" yet--and I allowed myself one "last hurrah" purchase , and bought Knit Picks' Shine in both worsted weight and this sport weight.  The worsted was easily the worst yarn I've ever used--it sheds, every single ball (and they were less than 100 yards each) had terrible splices that look like they'd been done with an egg beater, and the sweater looked ratty and ol...

Sorry, should I have warned you?  I know it's such a rare occurrence that the shock might be too much here, so sit down for these next bits: I am donating an entire (overflowing) box of yarn. I have admitted that 3 old sewing WIPS are truly irreparable and have tossed them. I am donating Christmas crafting books.   I am even donating one of those huge Rubbermaid totes BECAUSE IT'S NOW EMPTY AND I DON'T NEED IT! I know, right?????????????????????????????????????? This is even a visible dent in the craft room!  To be fair, none of the yarn was good stuff--I even found Fun Fur lurking in the bottom of the tote (which might be breeding as I swear I purged all this stuff before moving), but I still struggled a bit to part with this, which is crazy.  I believe I bought this for a sweater for my sister's first child, and he's now in high school.  In my defense, he did get something like 8 sweaters, but this has been in my possession for at leas...

Friday when I got home from work, I found a family of quail in our front yard, and as I was trying in my COMPLETELY unstealthy way to not frighten them, I frightened them into the bushes.  Wildlife photographers everywhere remain completely unthreatened by my prowess.  I spent a fair bit of Friday afternoon out watching to see if they'd decide to come back out--doing some weeding as a cover, just in case my neighbors would worry about shrub-watching as a new hobby or something--but I haven't seen them again. But they were adorable.   Yesterday was surprisingly chilly, so aside from some yardwork and a few chores, Venus and I worked on the quilt: Thanks to a thread-cutting button, I'm sewing rows of stitching on the larger dragonfly print blocks in long rows, and I'm just over half done on the second row of blocks--there are a total of 8.  So it's a long process, but it's a good after-work project as it's just the same thing over and over.  Slow is ...

So my new job is with a radio station/advertising agency, and we have live events and radio remotes and I've worked the last 2 Saturdays, so I haven't been keeping up with the blog, laundry, the garden, and pretty much everything else.  But let's catch up, shall we? Several weeks ago now, I went to a sewing expo, which was rather disappointing.  I'd gone two summers ago and there were SO many things I would have purchased had we not been packing and moving.  This year it was about half as big and there weren't that many things I was even interested in, but I did find this lovely little clock for the sewing room: I love it!  I've been looking for a clock for the sewing room, and this was just too adorable to pass up.  Don't you love the little scissors as a pendulum? My three-day weekend was unfortunately only a 2-day weekend, but there was some serious craft time.  While I set up the new machine to embroider some towels, I set up my other machin...

That's a nice way to start a weekend, isn't it?

And I haven't finished a single sweater.  I am indeed working on a sweater, and I think it's probably more than half-finished, but for the sake of my sanity, I'm thinking I should update my goal to 6 sweaters, quilts, or shawls.  They're still all large projects, right? And that brings me to ONE finished large project for the year, since I can count the quilt for my friends.  Now only 5 more to go.......