Month: April 2021

I am wearing a skirt. Not just any skirt, but a skirt that fits!!!!!!!! I am so stoked, and sew happy!

Fabric, cheap, dirt cheap, walmart purchased less than $3 per yard checked flannel fabric. I bought 10 yards, not sure with my body type whether or not it would work for me.

Pattern? None, really. I watched a gerties video on youtube. She uses buttons, but those don’t work, and I end up with problems. I usually just sew most button closures up to the point where I can still get into it but don’t have to mess with buttons. I made mine a wrap around skirt.

Proceedure? I did the hems, vetoed the pockets, and gathered the upper hem. I had gathered too much, and so I added a panel, so that I can simply treat it like a old timey skirt that has an underskirt. I’m not sure how to explain it. Basically I added a panel inside a few inches to the left seam. That way the overlap looks like an outer skirt to the non-petticoat.

Results? I’m wearing a floor length pleated and gathered skirt that will adapt to my size no matter what size I am. It is both warm and comfortable, and will work as a petticoat as needed.

Next under the needle is panels for the next skirt, as well as another skirt. The remnants from this skirt will be inner panels for another skirt.

The no-pockets thing. I wear a belted pocket. I don’t need to add to a garment like this. I also have a huge knitting bag for the few moments I need to go out in public. My phone either goes in the belted pocket or in my knitting bag.

-L

I am sick of having a phone. So, I’m taking some time off from it and the most common social media. I still use my tablet and laptop for entertainment and work. That’s a given. Especially since we don’t have cable or radios here.

However, I got a message from someone to get ahold of them today, so I called them via the app, not the telephone. It was a hurry up and wait situation. They desperately needed me to get ahold of them, but for f’s sake, did not have the time to do what they needed me to do.

I’m sitting here angry, and shaking my head. THIS IS WHY I HATE PHONES!

So, I’m going to put on a podcast, listen to something lovely, and stitch for the day.

-L

You ever watch a puppy or a dog sleep? I mean, those innocent little fuzzy faces, and those warm little bellies. Have you ever seen them smile in their sleep? Sometimes they will woof, or twitch, sometimes they will run….

Those things are tender and sweet, and full of loving snuggly goodness. It’s great! Until I’m wakened at the wee hours of the morning, by a consistent tickle on the back of my right leg. Duke was dreaming, and kicking in his sleep. And he kept nudging my leg just enough that it tickled the hell out of me.

Oh well. Best alarm clock ever in the right circumstances, and even in the wrong ones too. Fuzzy wumble snuggle bear, that’s my Duke.

I screwed up my knitting, and now it’s a design element. Just so you know. I was visiting 2 friends yesterday, and I brought the knitting. Sitting in the sun and the breeze, relaxing, and enjoying the day together was so cool! I finished another row, and started a new one. No big deal right?

Well, I’m a combination knitter. Pi Shawls are knitted in the round, unless you wrap and turn, you end up twisting stiches. I did not wrap and turn. Now it’s a design feature. Whoops!

In combination knitting, you knit and purl differently. It’s the way I learned how to knit, and it works. It’s also fast. I also have learned English and Continental, Eastern, Portugeuse, and a few other ways to make loops with yarn.

Knitting isn’t always about knitting one specific way. I remember watching Vickie Howell on Public TV, and cursing at her when I learned from her the “Proper Way” to form stitches. I spent a whole year cussing at her, learning the difference. It wasn’t until I learned Portuguese knitting that her way made sense to me at all.

The thing about doing Continental in the round, is that it twists the stitches if you don’t wrap and turn. I’d forgotten, and now have a good portion of a row that I either need to rip out, or just continue. Now, the thing about that wrap and turn? It helps with the little jog that sometimes happens between rows. On the next row, I just pick up the wrap and knit the wrap and the stitch as one.

Sighs, I will keep the row of twisted stitches, it’s a lesson, and now a design feature. Especially now that I’m knitting two strands in colorwork. I don’t want to either rip or tink that for the moment.

Besides, if I wanted it to look like it was knit on a machine, I would knit it on a machine.

Hugs, -L

Good afternoon, am working on a sinus infection, and have been spending a couple of days asleep. That’s what I do, when the bugs decide to attack. I know, it’s a luxury for most of the planet. However, being on the disabled list, if I don’t sleep when the bugs attack, it turns into a dratted siege.

That said, I have been knitting but not sewing. It’s a little hard to sew at the machine when I’m either sleeping in the recliner or in bed. Knitting, I can take with me.

Just got a giggle. The hubs asked me to drive him to the glass store. He asked by telling me he was going to walk to the glass store, because I won’t take him. I’m not sure that this conversation about the glass store has taken place.

Anywho, when we went to get our vaccinations, I’d been up all night, and was exhausted. He had demanded that I take him to the glass store then, and I’d refused, saying that I just couldn’t. We went anyway.

Now here’s the tldw (too long didn’t write) on the whole thing. Hubs can barely walk to the driveway, and he was threatening to go to the glass store to pick up a heavy window, which we had had repaired, all on his own.

He thinks nothing of asking me to do things when I am sick or exhausted, by the way. And most of the time, in this house, I wear noise canceling headphones because of the fans running constantly.

Yet he may have “had a conversation with me” about going to pick up this window. Most of the time he mumbles, has whole conversations with people, who are not here. He has them under his breath, and I’m assuming that they “reply” because he has arguements with them.

He may have had such a conversation with me in the last two days when I was sick and asleep. I wear headphones most of the time, because on the rare instances that I am not wearing them, he is mumbling most of the time.

Mumbling drives me nuts.

Now, back to the knitterly and sewing goodness. I have 2 pairs of socks on the needles right now. One, a generic pair that is mostly a tube sock with an afterthought heel, and the other, footovens by the yarn harlot. Both are in Red Heart super saver, and both are in a neon rainbow stripe.

The foot ovens use 2 strands, and they are truly variegated, on size 8 needles. The other is on size 2. I am following the Yarn Harlot’s pattern for the 2nd, and am looking forward to getting them done. Both are for my sister. She needs warm socks, and works from home. Her feet get cold.

The everlasting shawl is still on the needles, and I am almost to the end of the grey skein! Woot woot woot! I’m going into the Peachy Orange skeing next. The good news is that the stripes are getting smaller, and I can vary the yarn quite a bit.

Erratta: I’m going to online meetings exclusively. However, I am going to start attending a ftf meeting with social distancing starting tomorrow! Yay! I can’t wait.

That’s about all for now. Hugs. -L

He’s resting. We returned before 5 pm today. We were actually gone less than 5 hours.

The Hubs and I have both had skin cancer. His is much more recent than mine, and we had to go back today to have more of him harvested and the wound cauterized.

Perhaps that is the way to think of it, as harvesting the cancer. I don’t know. Once he was done at the Dr’s we had lunch, okay a feast of the worst of drive-thru salt, fat and carbs and headed down slow roads on the way home.

We like slow roads, for talk and scenery on these trips. The way there, always the shortest quickest route. The way home, we like to see horses and cows. We want to see fields and stop at rest areas. It’s the way of it.

Sometimes we will stop at a park and eat our feast. Sometimes, we eat it on the road. It just depends. Once in awhile, we pull off on a gravel road to recycle some bad coffee.

Life is what it is. It’s truly good to be home again. We both have had our naps, and I’m getting ready to go back to bed. Last night was a short night.

-L