“Well, it’s been a week of mysterious sightings of the lost and unknown among us, folks. First, Loch Ness Nellie decided to come to the surface for a little sun and some film time. Then, that blogger who never blogs, Leslie, actually put up a post. Who knows what could be next. I’d keep your pets and children away from the woods because I’m sure Big Foot is sure to emerge any day now. And now to Charlie for the weather…”
Kinda went missing there for a bit. Wish I could start out by announcing that I had won the lottery, found true love with the gas station clerk who sold me the ticket, been passed on my dissertation in the hopes that I’d donate a new library wing to the university, ran a marathon just for kicks and knit twelve pairs of socks on the plane to our exotic honeymoon on a private island. Wouldn’t that make a great blog post?
Actually, the weather has just been rather warm and I’ve actually been working so when I’m not trying to blather on about Dickens, I’ve been escaping to the waterfront on my bike. The shore of Lake Erie isn’t always picturesque, but at least the breeze is nice.
So, what have I been up to?
Baby Blanket
I used the same hexagon idea as the afghan I sent to Lone Knitter to crochet a baby blanket out of recycled yarn that I reclaimed from a lovely but unflattering sweater. (Yeah, I know, nearly
unreadable sentence structure there. Yep, and I teach English to the youth of America. We’re all doomed.) I intended for the edge ruffle to be a little more ‘ruffly’ but I was worried that I’d run out of the navy yarn as I was trying to use skeins from the stash. Easy project and fun to see the stash shrinking. Now if I could only get my hiney to start shrinking, we’d be in business!
I spend many, many of my summer hours reading and writing on the back porch. It was time to update the cushion covers so I put these together, again from stash materials. Perhaps the most exciting part of this project for me was the fact that I used absolutely all of the orange floral fabric and all but maybe ¼ yard of the plaid. I found this at some point on the clearance rack at JoAnn’s and probably just bought what remained on the bolt. It’s disturbingly gratifying to go stash diving and not have to repack anything away.
(UFO's L to R: Spring Things Shawl, Quilt to Bind, Mystery Sewing Project)
I feel like my craft output has really been limited lately but I suppose that’s a good thing as I’m pleased as punch to finally have the chance to be outside without snow boots. I’m still chugging along on several unfinished projects and itching to start something new. I started (but of course didn’t finish) a post for the summer goals contest and realized that I’m in kind of a crafty limbo at the moment. This year, I’m trying to stick to finishing projects before starting new ones, taking care of gift making, and using stash materials. I’m definitely in a ‘slogging’ point with most things, miles and miles to stitch before I blog. I also am working on projects with a deadline, although aren’t we always working on a birthday/holiday/big fancy event deadline? The shawl needs to be finished for a wedding in TWO WEEKS, as does the hand-finishing on the quilt, I still owe everyone last year’s Christmas presents and I have several plans for sock projects that I intended to start ages ago. I do feel like I don’t want to get all hot and bothered over something new until these things are off the needles. Although, I did receive a package in the mail this week that is sooooo tempting. More on that tomorrow. *sigh* The difficulties of life as a crafter…
Man, if only I really could win the lottery and hang out on a private island for a few months, maybe then I could start to see real progress on using the stash and finishing my queue of projects. Until that happens, guess I better just try to keep slogging through the WIPs and blogging more than once a month!
1 comment:
Glad to see you back and the I love the swing set! Looks like you've been plenty crafty!
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