Down to the Wire

Just the gift wrapping was last-minute. Usually I don’t even do the wrapping, but we switched things up this year. One year I was finishing the binding on a quilt on the way to the Christmas Eve party. Yes, there were two quilts finished on Wednesday the 23rd. But it was a realization last week that one top was finished, the other was partially assembled, and with an empty quilt machine, I had decided that they were good gifts for two 4-year old great-nephews.

Making seven knitted gifts was very doable. Four were machine knit scarves. One skein of a subtle color changing mohair blend with just a hint of silver glint was knitted in stockinette, two skeins of kid mohair/silk blend with a simple pattern made by skipping some needles made a generous scarf from each, and one long striped scarf from two colors worked up very nicely by changing colors on alternate sides, and using a crochet hook to attach the carried yarn to the edge. The two cowls were made on circular needles with different patterns, and the lacy scarf had been started early enough—even after deciding to order a second skein of yarn.

And now back to regularly scheduled projects – plus some. I committed to making 10 squares for charity by January 1st, and knocked off 2 ½ squares in one evening, using double crochet. There is a large lace knitted shawl that needs to become my go-to project when I can work from the chart without interruption. A few new bundles of fabric are sitting and waiting to become new quilts (from fabric gifted to me, sorted into donation, projects and an up-for-grabs bag to bring to the next meeting.)

It’s curtains

The kitchen was repainted this summer, and the curtains must have been held together by cobwebs. The eyelet lace fabric was in no shape to go back up. So the kitchen has been free of curtains for several months. That is, one curtain and six valances. The curtains on the driveway side of the kitchen hadn’t lasted through the labs’ puppy hood, and it still is not practical to replace them.

Last weekend was time to get sewing. The large curtain was finished first and hung up, and the valances hung up as they were finished. I used a scrap of bias binding for the hem on the large curtain, and made binding for the rest from scrap muslin and my trusty Clover binding tool, as it made a nicer, flatter hem. The lining is stitched at the sides and the main fabric folds around the edges, and twill tape makes the casing at the top. I stuck to a simple gathered casing and dropped the original idea of box pleats. They're quite different, but they work with all the wood and tile in our kitchen, definitely an upgrade.

Christmas stockings were mailed off, and placemats for Meals on Wheels delivered, so of course I was twitching to start another stash reduction project. I was of course gifted more stash two weeks ago—what goes around comes around. It has been sorted for donation (largest pieces), two charity quilt bundles (fabrics for top & back for both), bags (3 finished) and giveaway. The new project is another Heartstrings quilt, this time using the pages from the small yellow pages that isn’t needed, in a rectangular shape that will make diamonds. I’ve sorted and cut navy strips for the centers, and blue, white, cream, red and gray fabrics for the rest of the strips.

Knitting and spinning have been happening two, one Christmas cowl is complete (done by hand), and a striped scarf knitted by machine just needs the ends woven in and blocking. 440 yards of stockinette in less than three hours, which included moving the machine carriage from side to side and crocheting in the trailing yarns over color changes. Also a airy scarf from two skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Haze done by machine in just over an hour. Two bobbins of the auction fiber are spun, and DH made me a new, heavier Lazy Kate so when I’m plying the eventual three bobbins the Kate won’t be pulling across the floor.

Charity Stockings

21 finished, and they'll go off in the mail tomorrow.

Plain

Fancy

Projects A-Flying

The October sewing retreat with the ASG group pushed me through several projects:

• Orca quilt binding – pushed myself to quilt it the weekend before, so just the binding to finish. It went off to the dorm before I could get a picture.
• 9-Patch swap blocks (the blue ones) – set on point, values giving a 3-d or Baby Blocks effect.
• 9-Patch X quilt quilted and ready for binding.
• Little Bear Quilt – leftover panel fabric from a swap, bears fussy cut and set into a square in a square – blocks ready for quilt top assembly.
• ASG Project – Troop Bags, drawstring bags that will be filled with goodies and sent to troops. After making 6 with given instructions using French Seams, need to re-write for serger, using a buttonhole in the casing.

Latest charity project: Christmas stockings for Toy Rescue Mission in Tacoma; 10 finished so far. Started with felt, and moved onto printed cotton (11 more cut out)

Spinning is still going slowly, though have finally learned to pre-cleaning dirty fiber (pulling out several yards and picking out the veg matter). Pulled out my spinning guide card and was surprised to look at how fine my spinning is now. I love to ply and prefer lighter yarns, but at some point will need to practice spinning thicker, and learn to be consistent at that weight.

Dyeing: Pale yellow yarn + red dye = red yarn (NOT orange, unless you pull it out of the dyepot early). Apparently even after re-reading the directions, I’m still putting too much dye for the fiber and getting very saturated colors. Forgot how much water dying takes (mostly in the rinsing). Does this justify buying beautifu hand-dyed yarns from someone else?

Knitting: Finally finished the Daily Sweater – took me almost a year from start to finish, with a couple of long breaks (doubt, summer heat). What I learned: don’t buy a yarn on sale unless you’re really happy with the color—it would be better to spend full price and get a finished product I love. Made two more kitty blankets for my sister's cats, finished with crochet edging.

I'll post about Christmas knitting next time...trying to find a reasonable number of small projects. Hats! Scarves! Gloves! Now that it's getting colder, I want warm things myself, and am also thinking about family...

Falling for the New

Do you ever fall head over heels for a project? The color, the pattern, the fabric or fiber? Sometimes it’s a quilt, sometimes it’s a fabric, other times it’s a sweater (usually a sweater, not something small like a scarf or hat). For the knitting infatuations I’m using Ravelry to my advantage by queuing or favoriting the project, then doing some research by looking at projects made by other people. What did they think of the pattern? The yarn? I’m also trying to use my stash listing to link to these projects. The last two sweater pattern I fell for are still in my queue, and though one required purchasing a back issue of Vogue Knitting, both are tagged with yarn already in my stash.

Quilts often get drawn up in Electric Quilt 6, and good notes are taken so five years down the road I won’t think it was something designed by me. It’s great fun to resize the blocks and use my own colors and fabrics. I’ve scanned my own fabrics a couple of times, but find it easier to find the images online and just import them. The Electric Quilt website has tips and links for doing this, and they also have lots of free fabric libraries to download. Sometimes I stalk fabric online for a while before purchasing it. I thought I had waited for a good price on a quilt kit at an online store only to discover that the discount was only that the kit no longer included a backing. Fortunately I was able to find the same backing online and even on sale—this was one of those fabrics that really wanted to be a backing: XOXO The Cat by In The Beginning, with hilarious notes from the cat.

Machine knitting is still very appealing, though the blanket that I thought was going to charity is now the cat’s. The piece was over 40” wide on the machine (and it was knit very tightly), and I used basically all of the wool that was the same weight for a length over 30”, and once it was removed and blocked, it is much smaller than the minimum size requested. It shrank almost 7” in width alone.

By doubling some 14/2 linen, I machine knit some great washcloths that have just a bit of scrubbing power, and are more absorbent that I would have guessed. I was contemplating trying to make some felted boxes on the machine, but after re-reading the pattern realized that they will probably be too bulky, as they are knit with bulky yarn doubled. Browsing Ravelry I found a cute pattern for a worsted weight spinning bag that looks like it can be converted to a flat piece and seamed before felting.

De-Stash Projects

I have a bad habit of taking a small project and talking myself into making several of them, turning it into a much larger project. Sometimes it’s a practical idea, especially for gifts, like the three Boo the Bat amigarumi toys knitted for my three great-nephews last Halloween (note: after looking at the picture I remembered a 4th one went to my sister.) I took it a bit further with the 40 placemat project for Meals on Wheels (finished way early!) for this Thanksgiving. This had double points since it was such a great stashbuster—using up small batting scraps and fabrics.

Continuing on, last weekend 20 cosmetic bags for charity used up the largest pieces of upholstery samples from my SIL and the last of the gross (144 in the box) of turquoise blue zippers gifted to me by my FIL. Next up is a batch of quilt tops from some large fat quarter bundles that must have been a really good price some years back.

On the knitting front, I have made eight charity scarves from washable wool, using my Bond knitting machine. It’s a good way to try new techniques, and using up yarn that probably would not have been loved in sweater form by anyone in my family. I learned to skip needles for better drape after the first one came out a bit stiff (but still very wearable). The fabric knits up with a slight ribbed appearance, though when one of the first scarves was wet blocked, the tension evened out and it disappeared.

One small scarf/kerchief knitted as a triangle was a success, with interesting patterns from the sock yarn. I started from the long edge and decreased on both sides as I worked. The next attempt was to knit a larger one sideways, but I’m just not getting the increases to take. I foolishly plunged on trying to knit one half, starting from the center, but hadn’t done my math and came to the halfway point of the yarn way too soon, so will have to practice on some other yarn and try again later (was attempting to start from one corner edge, with increases on one side until the full width of needles or the yarn halfway point was reached).

Yesterday I brought five pieces of garment fabric to my ASG meeting and four of them found new homes. Most of it was rayon, one piece of silk, all of them older than my son. I have a collecting bag for Project Linus going too, and a project box collecting pieces for next year's ASG national project making drawstring bags for the troops.

The Latest Fibery Addiction

The Bond Ultimate Knitting Machine has been on my radar for over a year. It didn't quite seem worthy of the investment, even with a discount coupon. But more than once I had been disappointed when either the sale was over or they ran out of stock at a certain online superstore.

Last week I caved, and there is no looking back. There was even a storage table the right length that already held containers of yarn, and it's in a room that can be closed off from the cat and left undisturbed. Finished so far: a sample swatch waiting to be stitched up into a baby hat, one large baby blanket center (planning to edge by hand with knitting or crochet), a dishcloth/swatch from cotton chenille, a charity scarf from sock yarn, and 4 washcloths waiting for a crochet edging (done in one piece with waste yarn in between.) The chenille swatch is helping me plan my first sweater, and the sock yarn scarf has me optimistic for other projects with lightweight yarns.

My week off from quilting-for-the-job gave me time to do some custom quilting on one of my own quilts. It needs some thread cleanup and binding before it's photo-ready, and it felt great to take the time to give this particular quilt the quilting it deserved. It's made from swap blocks from a group, with additional applique done on each block by me.

The Fudgy Quilt

When you use pins and steam to get quilt pieces or blocks to fit more precisely, you "fudge" them. This little quilt is very fudgy. The checkers are actually printed on the fabric, and are about 1" square. It took careful cutting of the strips and blocks, and then piecing along the printed lines to give the appearance of being more or less square.

This little quilt is only 42" square.

I'm trying to decide if my six inch red and white 9-patch swap blocks want to be a larger version of this quilt. That would require making alternate 9-patches for the center of each "X" block, with 5 white and 4 red squares each. Many of the settings I like for 9-patch blocks require making setting or alternate blocks.

9-patches and hourglass blocks or 9-patches and snowball blocks give the appearance of stars. 9-patches and churndash blocks are also fun. My blue 9-patch blocks will be set on point and offset every other row to give a 3-d effect. I've made some partial blocks for the sides so none of the swap blocks have to be cut in half.

New and Old

I've been doing quilt bindings the same way for a long time, but while doing 28 corners in one day (7 placemats), my corner technique has changed. I used to stop 1/4" (or the seam width) from a corner when turning, but the corner of the backing kept flipping when starting the next seam, making a lump. Sometime ago there had been a quilting demonstration where you would sew off to the corner, making a mitered seam, so I gave that a try, and it really helped. I thought it was Eleanor Burns, but the video showing her technique is slightly different:
http://quiltinaday.com/television/video-binding.asp

You can teach an old quilter new tricks!

With some unexpected free time, I plowed through a lot of projects in the past two weeks, finishing 4 quilts, lots of placemats, some sweater knitting progress, and even some spinning. The current spinning fiber is from a charity auction, it is not as clean as previous fibers I’ve spun (have to stop every foot or so and pick out pieces of grass, and frequently sweep the fiber crumbs off foot pedals). It is soft, a cream with some darker fibers for a heathered look.

I did a small machine digitized embroidery project – changing DS’s beloved hat from a rival school’s logo to his current college, with the help of a small scrap of fake ultrasuede to make a patch. And learned a new crochet technique--Tunisian crochet from a book, 3rd dishrag finished already. The fabric is nice and dense, and so far has been holding up well. The first was Lion Cotton, the others CotLin.

Found two local podcasts – The Manic Purl (Vancouver BC) and Doubleknit. They both do some traveling, but mostly are talking about things closer to home than SoCal or the Eastcoast.

Knot a Problem group on Ravelry – totally cracks me up! There is competition to untangle other knitter’s yarn! Raverly rocks!

Bits and Pieces

Bits and pieces of projects have been worked on in the last few weeks. The green Corriedale spinning has been plied, washed, and measured.

New spinning was started last night - some lovely oatmeal fiber that was purchased from an auction last year. It was wound in a "cone" about the size of an oatmeal can, and the first step was to carefully unwind it into a laundry basket so it would feed without extra twist. It has a lovely crimp and comes off in flat ribbons about an inch wide.

Eleven placemats are finished, two more have binding in progress. They are quite fun to make, as it's so fast to go from selecting several pieces of fabric, cutting one out, cutting other versions from the scraps, piecing and quilting with a simple grid on my sewing machine. Some of the bindings are completely done by machine, and others using narrower strips are hand finished. There are five more fabric bundles stacked and each one will make at least two tops.

The next group will have more oranges and browns. I'm making 4" squares and 4" rail fence blocks from scraps - some with a basketweave pattern and others that resemble pinwheels.

I may work on some Christmas print versions for one or more of the charity shops once this grouping is complete, in sets of two or four.

The Flower Basket Quilt top is finally complete - the borders carefully added, the backing pieced, and it's ready to quilt. A small Wolf Quilt for charity went together with the leftovers from a twin bed quilt made for my son many years ago. The fabrics were from the same line and were not very compatible with any of my other stash. It was also quilted on a sewing machine rather than the longarm. It just needs binding to be complete.

Back on the yarn side, a couple more scarves for charity have been finished, one knit and one crochet. I'll be able to expand my color selection after reading about the Warm for Winter program that Pacific Fabrics supports--last year they indicated the need for darker masculine colors, but they also serve women and children.

The Daily Sweater is moving along again, one half of the lower ribbing is finished and the other halfway done -- then just the sleeves to finish. Even being a cotton blend it is still warm when it has to sit on my lap.

A Large (small) Stash Project

The latest podcast of Annie's Quilting Stash had some great ideas for using and organizing fabric stash. The idea that hit home with me was placemats for Meals on Wheels - fall colors for Thanksgiving. I have a lot of assorted leafy/fall fabrics that work together in small groups, but not necessarily together for a large project. My local Meals on Wheels sounded receptive to the idea, and they told me the current number of people served is 35, which is reasonable for me to finish by Thanksgiving on my own (if the number was 100-200 I would have asked quilting friends for help). Three placemats are pieced & quilted (not bound), two more tops & battings are ready. The battings are being pieced from the 4" strips leftover from customer quilts that were too small to return and too large to throw away. I will probably finish them with regular quilt bindings rather than the serged finish I saw on some similar projects online. Two fat quarters per placemat, with a bit leftover, are being used (so far Rail Fence and 4" squares, but I may use other patterns.)

In knitting stash reduction, two more charity hats and a scarf have been finished too. A February Baby Sweater (Elizabeth Zimmermann) had been started too, but only after finishing the yoke did I realize that she had assumed we knew to put buttonholes in...and the yarn is quite awful, so I will purchase some nicer yarn and re-start, as this will be a gift. The yarn is splitty and a bit scratchy, so it will be recycled into something more decorative than wearable.

Starts and Stops

It’s been several weeks since I’ve come home from the biannual American Sewing Guild. It took me a week to organize projects to bring with me, twice as long to put things completely away. The two main projects I worked on didn’t come home with me – six dolls destined for Honduras, and nine pillowcases for the local Ronald McDonald House. Both were simple projects, but took a lot of prep work – selecting fabrics and coordinates, cutting out the pieces ahead of time. The projects used cheerful fabrics since they were for kids, and the hair for the dolls was recycled wool that still had kinks from the sweater that was blocked but never worn (and ripped).

I also worked on three quilt tops – one is finished and ready to quilt, consisting of three jungle prints with bright green sashing and orange/yellow batik cornerstones; an “I Spy” quilt needs two more squares to complete the layout before it is assembled, and a fairytale quilt needs some adjustments to get the sashings worked out to convert a soft book into a quilt top.

Spinning is happening several times a week, sometimes just for 30 minutes at a time. The second bobbin of a mostly teal green roving from CMF is almost done. Two bobbins of plied slubby cotton are ready to be cable plied for a 4-strand yarn. I’m learning lots about weights and WPI.

The Christmas quilt is finished, binding is complete. Now it will sit in the closet until December, unless it is gifted before then. Two more simple quilt designs have been drawn up in EQ but not started. Blocks for a group raffle quilt are finished (I made 12 Peaky & Spike blocks), fabrics for the next 3 month’s work of 9-patch swap blocks have been selected but not yet cut and sewn. It’s been harder to select fabrics for another group’s raffle quilt blocks – the fabric guidelines are a bit challenging, and I need to find out what colors have been collected so far, so mine will fit in.

Ply, Ply, Ply

Spinning still feels more like play than work. The natural colored merino that I bought with my spinning wheel is finally finished, and the plying process was even more fun than spinning. It doesn't take quite as much concentration and the result evens out my lumpy singles. After it was finished, the next fiber was 8 ounces of Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino, in the colorway Midnight Hour (purple, pink and natural).

Divided into two even lengths, one half showed a lot more of the natural color than the other.

Spun up into singles, the color differences weren’t quite as noticeable, though the bobbin only shows the top layer.

The final yarn, after plying and washing, air dried without any weight on it. It’s very soft, and I might venture a hat for myself, or perhaps fingerless mitts.

Work into Play

It seemed time for a new spring hat, and a cotton blend matched my optimism that the temperature would eventually start warming. It’s been colder than usual in Seattle, with more days of snow than I can ever remember (another 3” this morning, all gone by late afternoon). The yarn I fell in love with (online, not in person) didn’t seem to be available locally without an expedition, so I settled for my LYS’s Cascade Rio, mainly cotton (robin’s-egg blue) with some slubby rayon bits of color (pink and yellow). The slubs liked to split off, but I finished a simple beret in less than a week. It fits pretty well, covers my ears and doesn’t fall into my eyes constantly.

Some of my projects that felt more like chores are out of the way – finished the dust cover for the tile cutter (drawstring instead of elastic at base), made two more cloth bags for my frequent customer’s quilts, cut sashing and borders for the flower basket quilt, and stitched the binding to the top of the Christmas quilt. Finished a charity scarf using self-patterning sock yarn – doubled (strips came out soft, not too blenderized.) Made a charity baby/child hat from a frogged scarf. Also made a label for a crib quilt made long ago from Australian fabrics, for a gift to friends of my in-laws.

Play has been spinning again. I have two bundles of hand-dyed pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms purchased at least 1 ½ years ago, that has been waiting until my spinning skills are more consistent. Half of the colonial top that came with my wheel was still waiting to be my practice fiber. I spun half of the 8 oz. last weekend, and finished it up yesterday. I did my first plying with two full bobbins, and was pleased with the result. Plying was SO much fun I went digging for the top that I’d spun last fall, and was aghast at how different (arty? lumpy? ugly?) it looked than the most recent spinning. Still, it is nice wool, I’ll play with dyes sometime soon, and perhaps make some fingerless mitts since it is superwash. It may have to remain singles though, as the twist is very uneven.

I took pictures of the CMF purple/navy/white roving that I will spin this week, and will post the results, assuming I make more time to play.

Trying to organize my projects (and actually finish some of them) finds me grouping them into categories: short-term, long-term, simple and involved. Some of the simple projects are great when I am indecisive or tired, and don’t have the energy to think through multiple steps. Last weekend the 14 napkins were the right project – double hemming them took some time but not much thought, and I caught up on some longer podcasts without falling asleep.

One short-term project that is on the list now is not a simple one: designing a dust cover for a specific piece of shop equipment. It is an odd shape, and I’ve drawn the side pattern with the unusual silhouette, but the construction is giving me pause. It won’t be moved a lot, but the shape has a couple of strain points, and I am contemplating whether putting a seam at those points will strengthen them, or if just using some kind of reinforcement is better. A strip of twill tape might be enough, but it might work best inside, so it doesn’t become a ridge that collects dust. There is also a request to put elastic at the corners to help hold it in place, and that will either need to be sewn on the inside or placed inside the hem/casing, which would be tricky to keep flat when hemming. If my stash includes sew-through elastic, adding it after the hem would be easier.


Two long-term quilt projects are moving along little by little. A big part – the quilting – of one happened last week when my scheduled work was finished early. Yesterday the binding was pieced and pressed. The other quilt needs sashing and borders cut and sewn on, the backing pieced, and then it goes into the queue for the next available quilting slot.

I was able to get into an American Sewing Guild retreat at the end of March, and yesterday I spent an hour or so cutting out pillowcases for Ronald McDonald House, which is the ASG’s national project this year. The fabrics I chose were directional, and they had to be cut in two pieces rather than just WOF, so the prints would not be sideways on the pillowcases. I had a border print with bear cubs leftover from a block swap, and four yards of a cheerful country landscape with farmhouses and cows. I have a couple more projects in mind for the retreat, both simple and complicated.

Crochet Jinx Begone!

I’m finally over the crochet jinx. There were actually two early projects that were successful, and just one bad one. The project wasn’t that bad, but the size was way off and it was very embarassing.

When I decided it would be nice to crochet a scarf and matching beret for my new Mother-in-law, of course it was to be a surprise, so I didn’t ask her about it. She walked her dog several times a day, so it was a practical gift, soft and washable. When I grew up, lots of women had very oddly colored hair. I never suspected that she wore a wig, and that a snug-fitting beret would pull her wig off. She did use the scarf though.

After that, the only other project I attempted with crochet was to assemble some afghan strips that my Mother had done years before. She must have lost her momentum when she discovered that they weren’t the same size. The project involved removing the box from her closet (so full that she didn’t notice, but her cats did, as they had been “nesting” in it), washing all the fur off them, and then unraveling the strips to be the same width. Fortunately they had been crocheted with short rows, so this was easy to do. The strips were joined together with the unraveled yarn into a usable blanket. My Mother was astonished!

Another reason why crochet was set aside for a long time was the fact that my knitting was criticized by a fellow bus commuter. She was quite the craftswoman, had taught sewing and considered herself an expert on all things crafty. I knit continental style, and use the middle finger of my left hand to help place the working yarn, and it drove her nuts! I had also asked my sister for help with a technique around the same time, and since she knits English style, she could not grasp what I was doing at all. It drove my knitting underground for a long while. I kept at knitting by myself, on and off until I was able to join a group at a local yarn store that met weekly, working our way through The Knitter’s Handbook. That was my first exposure to knitting with others, and boosted my confidence a great deal. We learned some simple crochet stitches too, and that sent me to playing with some simple crochet patterns.

My current crochet project is a simple ripple afghan. I was sure it was way beyond my skills, even though I had been happily working on three inch sock yarn granny squares after watching a video from the library. I had a collection of yarns that had been started as two other knitted afghan projects that just weren’t working. Working on this little afghan is very satisfying—using up yarn that was unhappy twice, and learning that just going though a crochet pattern line by line is really very easy and fun.

In Black and White

The list of my sewing room projects has finally been updated, by listing all the UFO's, PIG's and PIM's. Sorting them by category helps keep things in perspective, since there are 45 total.

UFO's - Unfinished Objects, or projects in progress. Ten doesn't sound too bad, though this list is mainly sewing or quilting, and doesn't include knitting, crochet and weaving. Two quilt tops need borders added, and I'm fussing with colors and sizes. These are both quilts that I will most likely keep for myself, or if given as gifts only to a very special person. Three other quilt tops have pieces cut out, and one is a group of blocks from an exchange, where I need to make about 15 more blocks plus pieced border blocks. Napkins, burp cloths and a new studio apron are also cut out and need just a bit of dedicated sewing time.

PIG's - The largest group at 26. These are Projects in a Grocery Bag (usually plastic shoeboxes), with a pattern or sketch and some fabrics in mind. They range from a small embroidery to two bed-sized quilts (backing included). Two are not fabric-related: stitch markers for knitting, and beaded snowflakes.

PIM's - Scaled back to 9, but the group most likely to grow. Projects in Mind are usually just a pattern, purchased or marked in a magazine, or drawn in a sketchbook. Unless I've printed out a diagram, the many many quilt designs in my Electric Quilt 6 program aren't included.

The last two years I have worked with my UFO list to try and finish projects, or let them go. For example last year, two sets of blocks were given away to someone else, several projects were released, but quite a few were finished. I gave myself permission to just make tops for charity, quilting them if they were really special. This lets me try out ideas or use up fabrics that attach themselves to a design in my head.

The next step is to add my knitting, sewing, weaving and spinning ideas to the list, just to help keep things in perspective. Ravelry's "Stash" database has helped me face up to my yarn accumulation, and is a good reality check every time I fall in love with a new pattern. My favorite part of creating things is choosing a design and the materials. I do enjoy the process of creating things, but often need an external motivator (such as a deadline for a gift) to finish things.

First Finishes

Our Christmas Eve celebration was delayed twice -- once because of snow, and once due to illness. The bonus was seeing more family that had been out of town, and having more time to work on projects!

The Fingerless Mitts are from the pattern Notwoven.

The Gingerbread Men ornaments are from Urban Threads, an embroidery company with very fun designs.

Resolutions

Making New Year’s resolutions is not an easy thing for a procrastinator. I’ll think of a few things, maybe even jot down a note or two, but never get all the pieces together. I’m trying to approach my different craft interests in a more comprehensive way. I belong to an online quilting group called A Dozen Done, the original premise was that we would set a goal of finishing one quilt a month. I also belong to Ravelry, where I have projects in progress, as well as a listing of my yarn stash, and some of my books. My resolutions for my fiber crafts have a lot of overlap.

I like the Slow Stashing idea presented on Knitter’s Review. It describes how to take a careful look at your yarn stash for sorting and purging, but also how to be mindful and conscious of new purchases. It would help me a lot to at least write down why I purchase certain yarns, especially with online orders. I have done a better job in the past year with fabric purchases. The goal is to purchase fabrics to finish something in progress, or complete the parts of an idea quilt (usually sitting in a plastic box with perhaps a note about the intent).

My sewing studio wants to be usable, especially the large cutting table that ends up being a dumping ground for things to put away (new purchases, leftover project parts). I want to go in the studio and be inspired and encouraged to work on things, not depressed about how many things are waiting to be finished. I got a good start on New Year’s Day by putting projects into boxes and onto shelves. I made a list of what is in the two closed cupboards, and also what is sitting on open shelves in boxes, so when I do get inspired to work on something, it can be easily found.

I want to finish some knitting and crochet projects that are actually used. There is an afghan project that is now (as of last night) in its third incarnation, that I want to finish and use. The Daily Sweater is growing slowly, but it is progressing. Charity hat and scarf projects are ongoing too, using up smaller bits of yarn in complementary colors. I like them for meetings and travel, and have been trying different patterns to learn new skills.

And I want to set some goals for gift and donation projects. Nothing spurs me on like a deadline. I made a lovely lace scarf in two weeks for a Christmas gift in 2007. I would like a similar scarf for myself! Charities collect different things at specific times of year, and the projects can be started well ahead of time. Examples: Project Linus has twice-yearly project parties at a local store; school auctions are scheduled well in advance.