How can I be thinking about New Year’s Resolutions? It’s only August (well, practically September). True, but I work in a school system and the new school year is about to start. Even though I am not at a school and am in a central office, things are starting to feel different. Summer slowed down, things got more casual at the office. Fewer meetings. Lots of people on vacations. You could feel a change once school let out. Now school will be starting and things will get hectic as I enter my busy season. This made me realize that all the “stuff” I was able to get away with during the summer won’t be possible after Labor Day.

It feels like the perfect time to make a few changes in my (and Bill’s even though he doesn’t know it yet) life:

1. Get up earlier. Which means…
2. Go to bed earlier.
3. Lay my clothes out the night before.
4. Catch up on ironing and stay on top of it.
5. Do a better job of planning meals. Which will help…
6. Grocery shop on a regular basis.
7. Purge.
8. Do some fall cleaning.
9. Take better care of the kids (more walks, brushing coats, brushing teeth…)
10. Take care of some small projects around the house.
11. Don’t take sweet, sweet husband for granted.

With the exception of #11, I’m going to wait for Labor Day to get started. Until then, I’ll make some lists and plan and go to bed on September 3rd with a new attitude and hopefully a refrigerator full of groceries and a closet full of crisp, pressed clothes.

And I believe in happy endings. Here is my burlap experiment: a beach bag.

I am extremely happy with how it turned out. Of course I would do a couple of things differently, but isn’t that always the case. My original plan for the bag was to only have one zippered pocket. As of last night, all that needed to be done was for the straps to be sewn in place. As I was laying in bed, ready to go to sleep, I thought that for the next bag, I would add in a pocket for my book. That’s one of the things that always gets buried in my beach bag. I knew exactly how I would do it so when I got home from work, I ripped out yet another seam and put in the pocket. I’m glad I did.

When I make another, I’m going to make sure I measure things. Most noticeable is my zippered pocket which is not centered. Or maybe it’s centered but the straps aren’t? Oh, details!

I left work irritated after having to stay late, annoyed by a meeting and slightly stressed by two projects. Thankfully, traffic cooperated and I beat a rainstorm so I pulled into the garage in a slightly better mood than when I left work. I was excited by some burlap I found at Joanne fabric. I bought it not knowing exactly how I was going to use it (I do this more than I should). My drive home gave me a few minutes to think and I came up with an idea. The pups and I went straight upstairs to experiment.

I’m about 90% complete. I used my seam ripper a LOT. But in the end, I think I will be happy with the result. Of course, I already have an idea for how to improve it. Pictures to come tomorrow when the experiment is complete.

On a separate note, I made my first purchase from Sew Mama Sew. It was such a wonderful package to receive. The fabrics are beautifully presented. I highly recommend the site!

It’s my least favorite time. Late on Sunday when I should be getting ready for bed and a full week of work. I had a productive weekend. I spent a lot of time on one of my new projects, beaded bookmarks. My mom gave me a bag of leather scraps, not knowing what I’d do with it, but when I saw the bag, I got inspired. And so started my beaded bookmark project. The bookmark itself (hidden inside the book) is genuine leather. And the tassle is silk with a variety of glass beads. I’ve really enjoyed putting them together, fingering through my collection trying to find the perfect combination.

Mom things I should get a booth at a local holiday bazaar and sell them. We’ll see how many I can put together. I may take a few to work and see what the ladies think.

I also made some earrings this weekend and am very please with how they turned out. I made some for my swap partner Ellia and she really seemed to like them. I may make some for my booth.

Meet Emmy. She is an Emerald 183 sewing machine from Husqvarna Viking. She is fancy but not crazy fancy.

I had been thinking about upgrading my Simplicity sewing machine which I bought 11 or 12 years ago from QVC. Up until the last year, I hadn’t done much sewing. Recently, I’ve been using my machine more to make pillows, out-and-about pants, and pincushions. It was a good machine, but I felt I was ready for something new, better, faster, stronger. This was just a thought and I hadn’t taken any action. My mom came to visit a few weeks ago and was sewing me two dresses. She was trying to sew an invisible zipper and it just wasn’t possible with my machine. That was all I needed to go shopping. We tried out a couple of different machines, but once I sat down and used the Emerald 183, I was hooked. The store was great, giving me fabric to fool around with, taking lots of time to show me how to thread the machine, change stitches, etc. I was having so much fun I played with the programming function. I had to have her. I bought her, bought the invisible zipper foot for my dress, and Mom was able to finish my dresses. The ironic thing is that I don’t use the zippers on the dresses. I just pull them on and off over my head.

I’m still getting to know Emmy, named after the Emmy awards because I love award shows and I love watching tv. We’re having fun together and hope to have a long and fabulous relationship. I’m actually getting ready to make my first shirt with Emmy and will hopefully be designing my own pincushions and purses! Wish me luck!

My husband’s head will be warm this winter. What were you thinking? This is not that kind of blog. Maybe it should be…

Seriously folks, I have finally knit my husband a hat. Actually, it is the third hat I’ve made him but the only one that fits. For Christmas 2005 I knit him a scarf. It is very hard to surprise a spouse with a handmade gift. There was a lot of “Gee, Dear. You look tired. You should go to bed early.” and “Honey, can you run a few (six hours of) errands for me?” I finished the scarf late one night and realized what good is a scarf without a matching hat? One thing you must realize is that my husband has a big head. Regular size hats do not fit. Rather than eyeball it, I decided to sneak up to the bedroom and measure his sleeping head. It was late, I was tired, and this seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time. Except that my husband woke up mid measure. I scared the crap out of him, he scared the crap out of me, but I was able to convince him I was just giving him a good night kiss. We got a lot of laughs out of this later.

Suffice it to say, the hat did not fit. It was huge. Then I tried again, with real measurements. Knit a gauge swatch. Again, huge. What is going on? I took that hat and figured out how many stitches I needed to reduce and tried again. I finished it late last night while Bill was still at work. It was sitting on his bedside table for him when he got home. I was sleeping when he got home, but woke up enough to ask if the hat fit. It did! Success! Thank goodness because I was really not up for doing it a fourth time.

The hat is knit in Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Yarn. It’s 100% cotton which is a little unusual for a hat. Most people do it in wool, but I like that this is softer, and I think it will still keep his head warm. It should be good for the milder Maryland temperatures in winter. It may not be warm enough for a harsh Chicago winter. But that’s okay because we don’t live in Chicago.

Here are the boring details for those who are interested. The pattern is my own. I cast on 88 stitches on size 8 circulars. At 4 stitches per inch, this gave me a measurement of 22 stitches. With the stretch, it fits his 25 inch head. (I think that my problem was not taking the give into consideration. But I’ve knit other hats without taking it into consideration and had no problems. Anyway…) I did a rib of knit 3, purl 1 for 10 rounds (or rows). On the 11th round I changed to size 9 needles and started to knit every stitch. I changed colors when I felt like it. My rough formula was to change to the white when the hat measured 3 inches, and then changed back to the caramel color at 5.5 inches. Total hat length is 7.5 inches. When the hat measured about 6 - 6.25 inches I started decreasing. To decrease, I knit 2 together (k2tog), knit 6 stitches repeated to the end of the round. Then I k2tog, k5 and repeated through the round. Then k2tog and k4… etc. until I was left with 8 stitches. (When you get to 24 stitches left, you need to switch to double pointed needles, it is too tight to knit on the circulars. Or you can use two circulars, knitting off one onto the other. In my opinion, the double pointed needles are easier.) My decreases took 10 rows. I prefer to have more decreases in a row to give the hat a more rounded look on the top. You could decrease every 16 stitches (k2tog, k14 and repeat) and have the top be more pointy. It is all personal preference and experimentation. My only suggestion is to make your decrease factor a whole number. To finish up, I threaded the yarn through the stitches, pulled it closed, secured it, and wove in the ends. Hat complete!

Husband is happy, I’m relieved, the dog is adorable. My wifely duty is complete. For today at least.

She’s done!!! I have completed my Christmas Elf Fairy. It only took me a year. Almost exactly a year. I believe I started this project in Tennessee last Labor Day. I finished about a third of it there, brought it home and worked on it a little and then it sat. And sat. And sat. And it was sitting in a Target bag next to my tv so I saw it constantly. But never picked it up.

Recently, I’ve been on a tear to finish up projects and picked her up, finally. It took me two weeks of weekends and working in the evenings after work. That’s really not that long. Maybe three (four at the most) weeks of actual time spent on the project.

It really was fun to work on. I know all the “rules” say to keep the outlining and beading to the end, but that always drives me crazy so I work on the beads and outlining as I go. And I wish I had done more of that because on Saturday, I was in bead H-E-double hockey sticks. It’s hard to see in the photo I took, but there is a lot of bead detail in there. Trust me. Sunday morning, I finished up the boots and the beading on the bottom and was then able to sign and date it. And then she got a bath.

I was nervous about washing her because the floss was not color safe but after being on a frame for a year, she needed it. I cleaned out my sink, and then used a little of my most gentle shampoo (just a little) and used cold water, ice cubes and a color catcher sheet. I rinsed her in ice water twice and then rolled her up in a towel to get rid of the excess water. She went straight to the ironing board after that and was ironed into a plush towel wrong-side up.

I could not be more pleased with the results. I had no problems with colors running and she looks fantastic all washed and pressed. I can’t wait to take her to the finisher.

Then, since there were chores to do, I started this Heart in Hand project and worked on it all afternoon until it was done. I love my hearts. The original project says “One Love” and it was cute, but I didn’t want the words there, so I changed the pattern. The fabric I used was lighter than the one recommended and I am concerned that the border gets lost, but I didn’t discover this until I was over halfway done. I will have to live with it. Bill thinks I will like it more once it is framed and there is less fabric around the border. The project is only about 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches. It will go on a wall with all my other hearts.

Oh, and the chores were started at 9pm on Sunday, having put them off as long as possible.

This was my mantra Friday night. I had a bunch of finished projects that were ready to go to the finisher. I wanted to get my Christmas ornaments in early so I decided that I would make a trip to The Stitching Post on Saturday. On Thursday, I decided to try and get one more ornament done before my trip.

The ornament projects tend to go quickly, but I knew this one would be pushing it. I started the candy canes Thursday night and brought the project to work so I could finish the candy canes at lunch on Friday. Then the plan was to stitch, stitch, stitch Friday night until complete. Bill was out with friends and I had the tivo to myself. He rolled in around 11 and I threw him a kiss with a “can’t stop, gotta stitch.” Finally, at 2 am I had to stop. I had found 2 missed stitches due to my rushing. I put it away knowing I had about two hours worth of work to finish up before being able to head out to the store. As it turned out, I had an hour of stitching work, and then spent an hour scrutizing all my finished projects for missed stitches. I found one missed stitch on four of six projects. Does anyone else have this problem? It makes me nervous that I’m going to get it back from the finisher and find another missed stitch. I think I have a way to correct it, but it’s not easy and really shouldn’t happen. I do think that I was rushing on most of these projects though. In the end, I sent four projects to be finished into ornaments and six projects to be framed:

and this one, this one, this one and this one.

I am now working on my Christmas Elf Fairy and my goal is to finish her so that I can take her to be framed when I pick up my finished framed pieces. I’m hoping to get to two other things before then too. But I have to let myself relax and breathe because finishing that ornament was more stressful than fun and this is supposed to relax me! In the end it will be worth it because I will enjoy seeing them hang in my house this December!

Have you ever noticed how some of the best needlepoint fibers create some of the biggest messes? I’ve noticed that my favorites come in pretty twisted skeins which look nice, but when it comes to working with it, it gets very messy and tangled. See the pretty little skeins in the bottom of the picture?

My new favorite fiber is Vineyard Silk. This is heaven to work with. The colors are vibrant, and it is so soft. It feels great, lays flat, looks fabulous. I have resisted the temptation to buy one of each color. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to hold off. I want to do every project in Vineyard Silk. The only problem is the mess it created.

That’s when I came up with my bobbin idea. I made it out of paper, but wanted a soft edge that wouldn’t fray the fabric. I ripped a page out of my magazine, folded in in half the short way and then folded it in half again, and starting from the rough edge, folded it 1/2 inch until I was done. And then I wound my thread. It’s not the prettiest idea, but the bobbins fit perfectly in this container store container (my favorite size). I took a sharpie and wrote the color number, dye lot and name on the end of the bobbin. Mission accomplished.