A Little Yarn On The Side

It's September, and I'm 14 projects away from my goal of 50, and 5 projects away from my goal of 6 finished quilts, sweaters, or shawls.  And I have a new helper: Believe it or not, I am making some progress on quilting the dragonfly quilt, partly because Charlie can sleep/play under the table I bought for the new machine, and I can still actually quilt--unlike her version of helping me cut fabric: I don't have a picture of her "helping" me knit because I'm diving to save the yarn too quickly.  She can hear me taking knitting out of the bag from across the house, so the only knitting I'm really doing is in my car or outside, which at least is getting easier now that it's no longer 100 degrees, but I'm still not that close to finishing a sweater right now.    To preserve my sanity speed things up, rather than using the quarter-inch channels I'm using on the squares, I did half-inch channels for one side of the blocks,    ...

Back in 2007, I started a pair of flannel pajamas for Andy as a Christmas present out of what I thought was a fun coffee print, only to discover after making the pants, that I was about a yard short for the top.  We searched Joann stores everywhere, friends searched--nothing.  Three years later , I gave up and bought some brown flannel.  Andy actually never wears brown because his mom insisted on dressing him in brown when he was a kid and he's never worn it since, but for the sake of a finished set of pajamas, he agreed to try.  However, when I started cutting, I found I hadn't bought enough of the ugly brown flannel either!   And it was probably around this time when I discovered I didn't know where the pajama-top-in-progress was, so mixing the two fabrics was out.  When Andy and I were driving back from our trip to Ashton and Yellowstone, we stopped along the way for lunch in a town that just happened to have a Joanns, and by this time I'd acquired ...

Charlie has been so much of our last month,  that several weeks just slipped away, but BEFORE Charlie: *  I MADE A KNIT SHIRT!!!!  I've not really sewn much with knits in spite of the fact that I own a serger, and usually I would have talked myself out of doing this because I might ruin the fabric, but instead... I made a shirt almost entirely on the serger!  I couldn't figure out how to do the hem on the serger, and it turns out I didn't do a great job on it with my old sewing machine either, but it's done and I'm pleased with my first attempt.  In fact, while the things I would change were still fresh in my mind, I got two yards of another velour knit to make the same shirt again to make sure I was really learning how to do this--and getting some fun new shirts for fall.  I don't think I had any velour in my wardrobe, so these are fun additions. *  I also finished another table runner for Christmas: * We've also been spending a lot...

Almost a month ago now, Andy and I set our for a walk bright and early on a Sunday morning, only to find a frightened little kitten hiding behind a garbage can on the greenbelt.  It was amazing that we even found her as there is a hawk family right in that area, and they'd eat a kitten in a flash.  We caught her and started knocking doors along the houses closest to where she was, but while we met some really great people--including one lovely woman who let us borrow her cat carrier to save on being scratched--NO one was missing a kitten.  We finally brought her home and took some pictures for posters for the neighborhood, but she had other ideaS-- like staying .  "BUT WE ALREADY HAVE 3 CATS," we told her.  She responded with even more cuteness: Not to be deterred, we put up posters, posted on Facebook, and took her to a vet to check for a microchip (and receive her first shots).  Nothing.  She continued her campaign to stay, taking up an inte...

I got up early yesterday and finished the jacket from last weekend,  and to add the buttons to the flannel shirt,  so now my fabric tally is just over 60 yards of fabric for the year.  The thing I love about using up fabric--besides generally getting clothing out of it--is that it makes a faster dent in the sewing room.  Had I not been on a few fabric benders since we moved, I might well have decreased the overall stash by now.... Ahem.  I believe both of these are from fabrics I bought since we moved here, which would be surprising to someone who didn't know me after heaving box after box of fabric up and down stairs in the move, but there was a fabric store close to my old office that I could visit on my lunch break.  That is NOT a recommended practice, and besides just being a dreadful job, I've saved myself some money by changing jobs.  :) This morning, I'll be cutting out the next project.  I started to cut it out yesterday, but derai...

So I was feeling pretty good about finishing a pair of socks over the weekend--having taken just under 2 months--when I saw this today: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7210117/Grandmothers-Caston-Norfolk-knit-life-sized-woollen-model-Queen-60-others.html They knit the Queen of England as she appeared on her coronation day in 1953.  PLUS 60 villagers to recreate scenes of the times.  I truly hope a museum snaps these up and they go on display forever.  AND that they include how much knitting time it took, because that's my first question.  Do you think they started the day after?

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...