This year I resolved to get more active in the (awesome) online sewing community. I joined do. Good Stitches which is a really fun quilting bee for a really good cause, and I’m really enjoying my bee group. And I even signed up for my first swap on flickr. I’ve done swaps on craftster.org and etsy before, but they were never this active or organized of a group.

For the Love of Solids is a HUGE swap with 100 swappers! It’s a secret swap so no one knows who is making something for them. My partner had a really great inspiration mosaic that really helped me decide how to style her items. Everyone makes one big item (from solid fabrics), and then a second item can be either handmade or purchased.

I can’t tell you who she is, because she hasn’t received her package yet (even though I sent it a week ago!! — Yes, I’m panicking!). One of the items on her “big item” wish list was a knitting needle roll. So I made her one based on the design I did for Alexis’ colored pencil roll. I, unfortunately,  don’t have the best picture of it.

For her small item, a little pouch made from linen and one of Faith’s solstice stars. With some hand-quilting. I also threw in a little stack of bright solids, and a sampler pack of Aurifil threads. I had an extra sampler and everyone should get to try them out don’t you think?

Then, last week I received my package from my partner, Five Baht Elephant. It’s so awesome! I love the dark neutral with the bright colors on this great mini. I just have to decide whether to take it to work to hang up or put it up at home. Sean thinks it’s a fabulous play quilt. I just think it’s fabulous.

She also sent along this really cute ruffled/pleated pouch. I mean, who can’t use another pouch. Noone, that’s who! And I wish you could see the awesome zipper pull on this thing. Amazing!

As if that weren’t enough, she even made some cute little scrappy coasters. My favorite is that stripey one in the middle there. It’s just so happy.

A huge success of a swap (so far… I wish my partner would get her package!! Stupid post office.) But it might be a while before I join another. Even though things have let up a bit, I’ve still got lots to do. But as I said before, that’s a topic for another day.

Have you joined any swaps? Which is your favorite?

It’s the Misti Alpaca Hand painted Chunky yarn, and the “Ribs and Ruffles” free pattern from their website.

This yarn is so soft and squooshy (and cheaper than a cat!). It also comes in a whole bunch of different colorways. I can’t even tell you how many different skeins I’ve bought and knat into just this pattern for gifts. Maybe my friends are just too polite to tell me otherwise, but it has always been well received.

It’s also a super fast and super simple mindless knit. I can whip one of these up in an evening in front of the TV. It’s one of those great projects for when you feel the need to have something accomplished… now.

This was my last skein from an order a couple of years ago, and I think I am going to keep this one. But I’ve got to go order more yarn to have on hand in case I need an emergency gift… yeah, that’s the reason. yeah.

1. My earliest gymnastics memory is of Mary Lou Retton hitting her perfect 10 on vault at the 1984 Olympics.  That Christmas I – and everyone else on my gymnastics team – got a Mary Lou leotard. You know, the one with the stars on one shoulder and the stripes on the rest of it? I think that was the only 3/4 sleeve leo I ever owned.
2. I only see doctors I really like, and I’ll drive a long way to get to them if necessary. I figure if they aren’t going to listen to me, or they consistently diagnose the wrong condition (a la House without the almost dying part) they aren’t worth my time or money. Some of the pickiest people I know have asked me for MD references, and as far as I know, no-one has been disappointed yet.
3. I hold a first degree black belt in Tang Soo Do (that’s TONG SOO DOH) and I regret every day that I’m not still training. I miss my fellow students and the training and sense of community within a school, but I try to live my life by the basic eastern principles that are taught with traditional martial arts. Some day I hope I’ll find the right place to train again.
4. When I started college, my major was pre-med. I changed it to computer science after I took my second programming class. I have no idea what possessed me to take a second programming class because I hated the first one so much. Some Most days, I wish I hadn’t switched.
5. Over the years I’ve tried about every craft or art out there. Sewing, quilting, painting, writing, throwing pottery, collaging, crochet, cross-stitch and finally knitting. I think knitting is “the one”. I enjoy it more than any of the others, but I still dabble often. And I’d still love to take a class in large scale metal sculpture.
6. I am falling apart. I’ve ruined tendons in both ankles, had knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus, and now there is something unknown going on with my shoulder.
7. I wish I lived on Castaway Cay — only with out the hummingbird sized mosquitoes at night.
8. I have an enormous capacity to forgive wrongs against me, but will hold a grudge forever against those who hurt my loved ones.
9. In my junior year of high school I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Until the diagnosis – and sometimes even after – my teachers and counselors insisted to my mother that I was on drugs. My grades fell drastically and I dropped from the top 10% of my class to the bottom half.
10. I love my house so much that I never want to move.
11. On the last day of my senior year in high school, my English teacher told me that I am the most sorry excuse for a human being she had ever met. I left the classroom because I didn’t believe I had to sit around and be treated like that. But a cop in the hallway stopped me. When I told him what had happened and that I was going to the office, he pulled my teacher from the classroom to confirm my story, and she ADMITTED it was true. What a dumb ass!
12. I dream about staircases to nowhere on a regular basis. These dreams are often so terrifying that I wake shaken for the rest of the day.
13. I went to college out of state, and I’m still paying for it.
14. The older I get, the more I look like my mother. I found a picture at my aunt’s house a few years ago. It took a second for me to realize that it was of me at about 1 yo sitting on my mother’s knees and not me holding my daughter.
15. I totally can’t work a fax machine.
16. I met my husband on America Online. He was chatting with me about how to break up with the jerk I was seeing at the time.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent gift recipients

me: godI could so easily spend $75 on yarn to get free shippingno comment?Chris: nope, I understand how that worksme: :)wellI put the fawn in the cart  then went looking for kid friendly machine washable wool…found it$10/skein… 1 skein per kidChris: cool me: so that’s like 35 bucksbut then… I started lamenting giving my new petting yarn awayeven though I bought it for xxxxxxxChris: there is a blog in here somewhereme: oh godyou’re rightexcept your mom reads itso the question iscan I justify spending $44 on yarn that I will likely just pet?Chris: in the long run….  it’s cheaper than a cat me: LMAO  that is so greatI just want you to tell me to buy it even though I was bitching about money this morningChris: thank you, I’ll be here all week, enjoy the buffetbuy it even though you were bitching about money this morningme: hehdid you cut and paste?;)Chris: pretty muchhighlighted and draggedme: I’ll probably kick myself on 1/1… but I can pet my new cat and feel betterChris: definitely a blog in thisme: good thing google auto saves these conversations

So giving up the writing made me feel a little lighter, though, if I could have just given up work I think then everything would be better… well, until the bill collectors showed up. And I had to go knock off a yarn store to feed my addiction. Seriously, what in the hell do I need with these?

No freaking clue. But I just *HAD* to have them. They look so squooshy and yummy and fun. And warm. Have I mentioned the weather in Austin lately? I mean COME ON! It’s still supposed to be 70 degrees outside. This is central Texas for Pete’s sake. This cold sweater weather should not be here until late January! Though, to be fair, cold sweater weather to me is about 50 degrees. Which is why I will never move further north than Austin. Ever. Um, yeah so now back to the yarn. Yeah, I only brought it up so that I could insert eye candy into an otherwise completely rambling boring post. Click on the pictures to get to the etsy shops where I bought them.

And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I did finish the Butterfly dress… I even wore it on the cruise. But guess what? We didn’t take even one single picture. Which is actually ok with me, because I wasn’t thrilled with the way the underneath dress came out. (So on a side note, why is it that whenever I make a pattern using my actual measurements it comes out about 4 sizes too big and then I end up altering the crap out of the finished product and throwing away about half of the fabric I spent a small fortune on?)

I do, however, have pictures of my hair from that night. Seriously $35 to have someone else tease my hair into next week is completely worth it. I don’t do hair. You can ask Alexis who likely had burn marks on her neck from my attempt at curling her hair that night. Poor kid has hair just like mine. Sure it’s all soft and shiny until you come near it with a hair brush, then, forget it because it’s just flyaway city. I don’t think I’ve ever had a decent updo that I did myself. Even ponytails come out looking like I stuck my finger in an outlet.

Well, for all that rambling, maybe in the next few weeks there will actually be something interesting for me to share. It is getting dangerously close to Christmas, and there are now far too many babies to sew for -Anyone else noticing an explosion of baby girls? There should be lots of good material to pick from, if not just good eye candy.  Until then…

So instead, onto the dork stuff. I’m still plugging away at the butterfly dress. I really need to take new pictures of it, I’m actually almost done with the decreases, which means I’m getting closer to the bust, but it’s looking pretty damn short. I’m sure it will stretch lengthwise when blocked, right? Don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know. Tell you what though, that pattern is horribly written. They fail to mention about how to keep the correct number of stitches on the needles. With all the increasing a decreasing, you’d think they’d mention something like that… but no, there’s a chart, and it doesn’t even start in the right place. Anyway, it’s going better now, and I hope to finish it in the next 48 days. Before our cruise. Ahhhhh.

In other news, I threw these blocks together this weekend. I love them. And I love my linen board thingy, too. Quilt blocks just stick to it like magic. No more worrying about the dog stepping on carefully arranged blocks. Hopefully it’ll be a full fledged quilt top by bedtime tonight. I really need to start quilting it.

I’m having trouble getting anything done. The Olympics are taking waaaay too much attention. And the gymnastics coach/karate instructor in me is being overly critical. But that’s another post.

For now, it’s just good to be back.

I’m not feeling particularly wordy these days, but I have been knitting! I’ve started the hems of the Rowan butterfly dress. Of course, I never do anything by the instructions so I’m planning on knitting it in the round instead of flat. Someone just shoot me. I should be shot, don’t you think?

Anyway, it is going very well. At some point during the first layer of hem, about 5 stitches FELL OFF my needle, and I had no idea how to pick them up. I was so frustrated I even yelled at Chris and Alexis. Bad mommy. But since then, it’s going much better. I have the 8 row sequence just about memorized, and I’m more than half way there. I’m really really ready for the dress part, though, I’m sure after 35 repeats of that I’ll be bored as well.

Work was pretty good in that I am about this | | close to being done with stuff about a week early.

Get home, fire up Quicken (which sucks for Mac BTW) and start paying bills. Yeah I know, what’s good about paying bills? Well, nothing usually. Usually it’s unbelievably depressing. You know, when you’ve paid all the bills and you have like $32 leftover? Ugh. But yesterday was a big milestone. Another credit card PAID OFF. Then, I went to check our utility bill. Remember when I said we had not turned on the A/C yet? Well we finally gave in and turned it on at the beginning of this month. I was expecting a huge electric bill. With the A/C on, and the pool running more, I was just sure it was going to be astronomical. But NO! It was LESS than last month. WTF? Doing all of this stuff really helps.

But then, there was one more surprise. In the mailbox. And this one is good.

See? I told you it was good. It’s a lace hand dye from Heritage Needlework on Etsy. 50% merino, 50% silk. I don’t know why I needed it, but I did. So now I’m searching for the perfect pattern for 1200ish yards of yummy, shimmery yarn. You know, because I have so much spare time.

And only one more happy note. Friends and I are ducking out of work to go to Alamo Drafthouse at lunch so we can see Sex and the City and drink at the same time.

Zilch.

Zero.

Zip.

Nothing new to share. I tried to take pictures of the shawl I’m knitting, and of the now 3/4 quilted baby quilt, but the pictures are terrible. I’ve also been ignoring my Etsy shop. I haven’t made anything or listed anything in days weeks. I have a couple of Elefelts in pieces in the sewing room, but I think they might just stay there for a while.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with how draining work has been lately. I’m not even sure why, it’s just trying to meet deadlines, and I’m not really behind, but blah. I’m not upset about it or anything, just completely apathetic about everything lately.

On the other hand, I’ve had a horrible headache for several days. I’ve tried everything. Even exercise — see? you know I’m desperate. I swam 50 laps (about 5oo m) in our pool yesterday for the first time this season, and all I got were sore arms. I mean really painfully sore arms. Usually when I get sore it’s about 2 days before it sets in. Last night, laying on the floor watching TV, I thought my arms might just fall off. And my head hurt more. Go figure. I suppose I’ll have to swim again tonight, just to loosen up the arms.

I also downloaded some software that is supposed to help make writing stories/novels easier. I actually picked something to write about, too. But damn if I haven’t been stalling on writing it. I even organized the desktop on my computer this morning to avoid writing it. Sigh.

Maybe this weekend I’ll find some motivation to write or finish a project or something. But for now, has anyone seen my blankie? I wanna go back to bed.

Wow! Remember this yarn? Well here it is, all knit up into the CUTEST baby sweater. This is by far the quickest knit I’ve ever done. And I love, love, love it!

And I know I’m repeating myself, but the pattern is Baby Bolero in the book One Skein by Leigh Radford. You know, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time.
The night I cast on, I finished the bottom and both sides. I think the entire thing took me about 8 hours (4ish nights) to finish. It’s been done since Sunday, and I tried to post it on Tuesday, but iPhoto ate my pictures!

I did try to match the stripes, but for the most part, things worked themselves out nicely. And the little eyelet detail on the back is adorable. I wasn’t sure how that would work out as some of the ones I saw online kinda looked like a big hole in the back… But maybe that’s what happens when you put a baby inside it.

So now, I’ll just leave you with the eye candy/knitters porn.