It's taking soooooo long!

Well, I have to report that I am missing a magical being to work on my projects while I sleep.  After reading all those fairy tales growing up, this seemed like a more common occurrence than it's turning out to be.

The biggest problem is a lack of free time.  I'm taking Spanish 2, so my Monday and Wednesday evenings are lost por hablo español.  I've added another committee at church, which has monthly meetings and stuff to do in between meetings.  Jeff and I exercise after work every other day, and then it's time to make dinner when we're done.  If we're not exercising, then we walk for about an hour after dinner.  Just not enough time!  I need a time turner!

There have been some trips lately, but I haven't made as much progress as I would like.  Here's where things stand - I have five more colors to go on the stripey shawl.  

I've started the decreases on the waist for Catherine's sweater.  This is the slowest project by far.  I have made more progress since this picture.

I'm almost done with the first ball of yarn for Jeff's scarf.  This is usually my TV project, but we haven't been watching much TV lately.  It's over 2 ft long.  No current picture for that one.

Nothing else has been started.  I did, however, decide to participate in a knit-along, where a bunch of people will all knit these cute new socks "together" online.  They've got short legs, so I think they'll go quickly.  Plus, I always need to use up sock yarn!  

Other excitement... Ginny got sick before my trip to Minnesota.  She had mastitis, probably from excessive licking?  It was not fun.  Jeff and The Boy did a great job medicating her while I was gone.

Smallest gave me some African Violets last summer and they are finally blooming!

Oh!  I have a cross stitch dilemma!  (speaking of cross stitch, I think you need to pick up some 0.5 power reading glasses for your new project!) I have been working on the border and realized I messed up!  I have already ripped out parts of the side twice, and the error is up at the top right corner.  I do NOT want to rip it out again, so I think the answer is to make a corresponding mistake at the bottom left corner?

I think that's all I know at the moment.  I only have one trip this month, to see Smallest in her end of the year performance.  She has been auditioning for companies this spring and has two apprentice offers, so I think she will take one of those over taking another trainee position.  It's either Minneapolis, MN or Manassas, VA!  If we go by the strange coincidence that everyone seems to be 1000 miles away, it's Minneapolis, but we'll have to wait and see.

You're making great progress on all your things!  I am impressed!

A cross-stitch mystery

This Tuesday I got started on one of my cross-stitch projects (where there aren't colors listed; I mentioned this in section 3 from my last post). The fabric I picked is so small in gauge that I had to take my glasses off & hold it right up to my face to know where the needle goes. It's kind of weird when the needle comes up right toward your eyeball! :O But, it's coming along well so far. Can you guess what it's going to be? 

I also had a training where I only needed about 5% of the information given, so made a little progress on the purple hexagon. My first trip this month is in two days, so I'll hope to finish these two and start some others! Having a needle close to my eye (for the cross-stitch) definitely doesn't seem like a safe plane activity...

Full flowers: still 7/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

Muddling along

A few updates since last post:

1. The bugs have finally been handed off!! It seems that the recipient liked them. I forgot to take a picture, though - will get one next time I'm at their house.

2. I forgot I have one other mending project in process - another dress that I'm turning into a skirt (this time partly because it would be better suited on someone not so tall and because the top was just not my style). That is first on the list for when I next pull out the sewing machine.

3. I started picking out cross-stitch thread for three things I've been wanting to work on (one of them being the 2008 project). The patterns I'm working from don't give you thread numbers, so I'm having to look through all of the thread I have and guess what the best matches will be, which also triggered an overall sorting of the thread since many were floating around in a colorful mess. I finished the organizing and got through picking colors for two of them. The 2008 project (a baby announcement for a child that's now 16 years old, good grief) also needs some redesigning, so I don't even know what colors I'll need yet.  

4. I had a little sewing time during some webinars, and made some quilt progress. See? The pink and yellow were partly done last time, and I wasn't in the mood for more long seams after I finished the pink so I started the purples. I've got two trips coming up in April, so perhaps I'll make some more progress on those. :)

5. Not at all sewing related, but celebrating: We got our windows replaced in the summer of 2021, and the edging of the new windows was plain wood. We painted two of the windowsills right away, but for some reason the others just ... escaped. FINALLY I painted them all yesterday. Here is the big bay window with all it's happy plants, looking pretty (the edging on the back door to the left is also newly painted). 

Full flowers: 7/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

Oh frabjous day!

Bags are done! Zipper is done! Calloo-callay! 

I still need to work on my zipper tabs - the zippers + tabs were too long in both of these bags, which I am realizing now is why those top corners won't pop out nicely; too much material smashed in there. 

Still, I think they turned out cute! The lining is a good match for the outside fabric but hopefully still light enough to see what's inside.

This clearly is not the ideal outfit for the finished skirt - I was getting ready to go for a walk in my green tights (for St. Patrick's day!). :P I also ironed the whole skirt after taking this picture, so hopefully it won't look quite so rag-tag after being in the closet for years.

Yay! Now on to the cross-stitch...

- Catherine

Punching it out

I am excited to report progress on two fronts! I had some time chatting with friends last weekend and a virtual book club this morning, and sewed hexagons: 

I also started the bags with the punch needle designs! I had much better success applying the interfacing this time, even with the giant clump of thread from the punch needle preventing the fabric from lying flat. I found some cute ribbon to cover up the seam between the punch needle canvas and the regular fabric, and I've prepped the zippers, both of which needed to be cut. Now it's just a few seams and they'll be done! And I have to figure out some way to fluff the pineapple/llama back up without pulling weirdly on the threads, since the iron really smushed them. But I think they will be very cute. :) 

Next on my agenda: Finish the bags, redo the zipper in my blue skirt, and then make a plan to finish a cross-stitch I started in 2008 (!!). Exciting!

Full flowers: 6/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

All that and a bag of fish

I have been meaning for some time to convert some punch needle products into little pencil cases for two friends, but I was intimidated by trying to get the stiffness of the bag right and generally not having made one of these before (or many things that incorporate a lining). I finally worked up my courage by deciding to do a test bag. I offered it up to Evil Twin, so he got to pick the fabric and size, but with no promises that it would be any good.

I am pleased to say that it mostly turned out perfectly! The instructions for the fusible interfacing were far too gentle - trying to use a cloth between the iron and fabric just led to limited glue activation, and when I used a *damp* cloth (per the instructions) it just led to a soggy mess. However, brute force - i.e., iron right on the fusible, for ~2-3 times as long as the instructions said - helped a lot. It also wasn’t really clear from the video I was following how close to the zipper I should sew the various fabrics, and I was too aggressive there. As a result, there is a tendency for the zipper to get stuck and the zipper tabs didn’t have enough room to make nice corners. Not bad enough to fix on the test, but great to know for the next!

It’s so fun to finally be making progress on these old to-dos. :)

- Catherine

Mending mania

I'm glad to report that I made the most of Evil Twin's absence (even despite an early return, the sewing could not be stopped!) and had an excellent weekend of clothing repairs and adventures.

I repaired the waistband of some scrubs that Margie gave me back in the dark ages, so they are now serviceable again. I put iron-on patches on:

- a tanktop that had a long skinny tear

- a pair of jeans where the belt loop had pulled up, ripping a hole in the main pants material (and then used some nylon thread through the loop & patch to make sure that it was all contained)

- the stretchy sleeve of a fabulous hoodie I got in New Zealand that has been sitting in the closet for far too long while I was intimidated by the stretchy material.

Yay!

I had also previously dismantled a dress (from India?) that was super cute but for people much shorter than me. I had been meaning to turn the front of the top into a little bag. And I did! Not any fancy sewing required; just needed to get on it. Isn't it cute? I'm using it to store the hexagons I'm actively working on.

I also wanted to turn the bottom of the dress into a skirt. I had to find and decorate some red ribbon to match the waistband in the front half of the skirt, and install that, and put in a zipper. I did successfully put in a zipper, and wore the skirt out to dinner on Saturday night. A fashion debut!! But I also offset it in the wrong direction on the seam so that the zipper was more visible from the front than the back, and the zipper I had on hand - white - was so distracting that I decided to redo it. I also discovered while reconsidering this situation that I had forgotten one of the bits of decoration on the new ribbon. So on Sunday, I pulled everything back apart. I got a new (blue) zipper on Tuesday and will finish that up soon!

I still have some more mending projects, so will try to keep the pressure on. :)

- Catherine