Fresh Start Monday/Tuesday

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Happy Monday/Tuesday, friend! I had planned to post this yesterday, but my Monday turned into a very long day with no time for blogging, so a Tuesday post it is!

What are your plans for this week?  How are you faring with the weather and the season?  I’m seeing a lot of evidence of the February blahs all around me here, so I hope you’re doing what you need to do in order to feel as well as you can during this time of year.

We were blessed with an unusual bout of mild weather last week and I made a point of going out into my garden and getting some sunshine.  I didn’t accomplish much out there; I mostly just looked at what sort of work was in store for me in a few weeks, but it felt good to connect with that space and allow myself to do some dreaming about what spring and summer holds in store.  The rhubarb is starting to grow, and I was excited to create my first recurring garden reminder of 2024 to check the garden for some homegrown produce in the weeks ahead.  I normally just make rhubarb crisp—do you have any great ideas or recipes for rhubarb?  This plant is prolific and I do not use as much of it as I could, which I’d like to improve upon this year.

We celebrated Emily’s 20th birthday over the weekend with too much food and, at her request, a big bunch of Dungeons & Dragons, so I didn’t make much progress on crafty things, which is totally fine: People are what matter more!  She created a quick-play campaign based on Greek mythology, and it was the first time I’d play the game since I was in elementary school, so I was agonizingly slow at understanding what was going on, but we were having a grand ol’ time by the finish. My character is Penelope O’Paca, a Tyrian purple llama centaur cleric who is a member of the weaving guild. I had a blast healing everyone, using my downtime to collect plants for dyes, and weaving magical garments for my party of warriors.

The Baa-ble Hat is coming along quickly.  It’s become my watching-TV knit, and it’s February, so there’s many moments to work on it, even with the unexpected milder weather.  I’ve mostly just been making socks in recent years, so it’s nice to zip ahead with such a small project.

I’m a little leery about whether or not it’s going to actually fit me, because 1) The circumference of my head is 2 inches larger than the average 21 inches that most adult hat patterns strive to fit, and 2) It’s stranded color work, which, even though it’s my favorite thing to knit, is usually less stretchy because of the carried strands.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever made myself a stranded colorwork hat that ever fit.  I’m trying to keep the floats loose, but…you know, it usually isn’t enough.  This is such an easy knit, however, that I would be willing to re-knit it on bigger needles if it doesn’t turn out the size I need it to be.

I’m not sure if I love how the white and blue yarn are creating a wispy cloud effect, or if I don’t like the lack of contrast between the sky and the clouds.

Looking at the week ahead, I’m hoping to:

  • Finish the Baa-ble Hat
  • Start or pick up another knitting project for on-the-go crafting—there’s a lot of dental check-ups this week, which means a lot of sitting around in waiting rooms. Knit Picks has a sale on their Swish yarn this month over at crochet.com, so I’m thinking about starting a project with that yarn because it’s machine washable and easy to care for.
  • Make a dent in the quilting of the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, and maybe even finish the quilting—I think I only have the borders left to do, which is quite possibly my least favorite part of quilting a quilt, and I’m really stuck as to what I should quilt in the borders.
  • Put some time in on the Chatsworth Block of the Month.  The fabric is almost prepped, so it should be easy to pick up and start.
  • Start prepping fabric for Nathaniel’s birthday quilt.
  • Start working on a new pattern from Fat Quarter Shop.

There’s so much more I’d like to be able to say I’m going to do, but that list alone feels like too much, so I’ll stop there. 

I hope you’re able to find time this week to pursue some creativity and restore your spirits! We’re beyond the halfway point between the darkest day of the year and the Spring Equinox (when the days become longer than the nights), so we’re almost back into Sunshine Time. You can do it! February isn’t forever!

The Big Pie-in-the-Sky List of Projects for 2024

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It is mind boggling to me that I managed to abstain from most creative endeavors for eighteen months!  Of course, one way that I dealt with the inevitable withdrawal pangs was to promise myself that I’d be allowed to work on crafty things to my heart’s content once I was done with school, which has resulted in a HUGE “Want to Make” list.  Unfortunately, now that we’re to the point of being able to grapple with all the beautiful projects I earmarked, I’m overwhelmed by all of my choices!  What a fantastic problem to have!  Hee hee.  I work through decisions better with writing and visuals, so here’s what’s on my mind:

Quilts:

Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt:  (ASAP)  I am finally quilting this!  It’s horrible quilting because 1) I’m very out of practice, and 2) I wasn’t that great a quilter to begin with, but it’s in-progress!  I’ve realized that the quilting step is the huge bottleneck for my quilts; there was a time when I could just send them out to a long-arm quilter and wash my hands of the task, but prices and shipping have gotten so expensive in recent years that I can’t justify the cost anymore.  I invested in another sewing machine with a much larger throat space so I can quilt my own quilts, but they’re definitely not as pretty as the long-arm pantos that I love.  Sigh.  Done is better than perfect here.  And hey, maybe I’ll actually develop my quilting skills to a level that pleases me.  The Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt will not reflect that sort of level, but I’m telling myself it’s ok because it’s a scrap quilt that will get the snot kicked out of it anyway, so wonky quilting won’t be a tragedy.

Far Far Away Quilt:  (ASAP)  I started this one back in 2022 and even worked on it a little during a school break.  It’s sewn into its rows and is awaiting the rest of the top assembly, which will then require me to pull out all the foundation papers, which is causing me some task paralysis because papers removal just plain isn’t fun!  But, oh…it’s a pretty quilt!  Cara!  Just slog through the unpleasant part and get this finished so you can have this awesome quilt!  Geez!

Chatsworth Block of the Month:  (January-December)  This is a sew along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop this year and I really want to participate because I’ve been collecting some fabrics for a couple of years now that will work really, really well for it!  The first installment of blocks were due by the end of last month, but I haven’t started yet.

Piece & Quilt Sampler Sew Along:  (March 2024-February 2025)  Another sew along with the Fat Quarter Shop.  I bought the pattern book a while back because it looked awesome, and then I saw there was a sew along this year and I got really excited about it.  I’ve even stash-dived and decided on some great fabric to use.  The question is whether or not I have time for it? You can look at the general info and fabric requirements here if you’re also interested. It’s going to be a pretty quilt!

Birthday quilt for Nathaniel:  (April)  He at least has his own Christmas quilt, but alas, still no everyday quilt, and he rarely resists the opportunity to bring it up in conversation that I’ve deeply neglected him in failing to provide this necessity of life.  He’s given up on the Rocket Age quilt, and has been asking for a pig quilt for a couple of years. 

Reading Nook Quilt:  (May)  For the most part, I avoided even looking at fabric while I was working on my master’s degree; but, during a particularly stressful couple of weeks of student teaching, I indulged in a lot of online window shopping as I grappled with the challenges I was facing.  As luck would have it, Ruby Star Society’s “Reading Nook” collection was released that week and I was completely smitten with its adorableness and ordered a fat quarter bundle of it with the promise that I could make myself a reading quilt once student teaching was completed.  I’ve mocked up a pattern for it, it’s super simple and satisfying, but I’ve lacked time to start working on it.  I’d really like to finish this as a birthday gift to myself this year.

Fig Tree Strawberry Garden Block of the Month:  (May 2024-April 2025)  Another FQS sew along; I absolutely love it and hope I can make it happen!  I’ve placed a reservation order for the book and I’ve definitely got enough stashed Fig Tree fabrics to work with, so it wouldn’t even require purchasing fabrics.

Renaissance Graduation/College Quilt:  (June/August)  ‘Cuz I gotta. No idea what I’m going to make or what fabric/color palette I’ll use. I figure that will get worked out once we get her through the college application/acceptance process.

Penguin Christmas quilt for Renaissance:  (November)  Because she’s a senior in high school this year and she still doesn’t have her own Christmas quilt!  She’s been making do with the Hipster Christmas Tree quilt, but I’d really like to get her very own, made-specifically-for-her quilt done before Thanksgiving this year.  I have no idea where she’s heading after high school; she’s vacillating between studying music out of state or staying close to home and earning a technical certificate in pastry arts, so the quilt could be a “welcome home for the holidays” thing or it might not be.  It is nerve-wracking to watch your barely-adult children make these huge decisions.

Gingerbread Christmas quilt for Rachel:  (November)  Rachel also doesn’t have her very own made-for-her Christmas quilt.  She’s been making do with the Double-Nine Patch quilt I made for Fat Quarter Shop back in 2018, but has been wishing and wishing for a gingerbread quilt for years and years.  Due in large part to the euphoria of having submitted my last ever final paper right before Black Friday, I bought an embarrassing amount of fabric at various quilt shops’ Black Friday sales, and the majority of it was various precuts and yardages of the Holiday Cheer collection by My Mind’s Eye, solely for the purpose of finally sewing up a “just for Rachel” Christmas quilt.

English Paper Piecing quilts:  I have four in-progress and it would be nice to finish up some of them.  There’s the Star Spangled Diamonds quilt from forever ago that needs borders, the Smitten quilt that needs a few more filler pieces to assemble the top, a Christmas-themed jewel quilt I started this last Christmas because I wanted a Christmas project to work on in the car, and the Roses Hexagon quilt that I’ve slowly been working on for years whenever I need a break from current projects.

Knitting:

I don’t think I have any definitive knitting projects in mind, which makes me sad.  It’s just not that cold here in Washington, when compared to winter weather in Utah, so the need just isn’t that high anymore.  However, I just like the *feel* of knitting needles in my hands, so I’d like to do more knitting…I just don’t know what to work on.  I wonder if I equate knitting with babies and children for the most part, and because there’s really no little people in our families anymore, there’s not a lot of pressure to knit right now?

However, I do have a lot of stash.  Some things I’m inspired to make when I think about my stash are:

Lace shawls:  I have a lot of laceweight yarn in really beautiful colors.  Unfortunately, I don’t really lead a life that uses lace shawls, so creating them to then just let them sit is silly.  I could try to become a shawl-wearing person, though…or just enjoy the creative process and not worry so much about the end product.

Socks:  I also have a lot of fingering-weight yarn that would make good socks.  I think I just need to grant myself permission in this vein.  Socks are awesome mindless knitting that are oh-so-portable.  I should pause my EPP in the car and concentrate on knitting instead until the weather warms up. 

School mascot hat/beret:  I was exploring yarn shops in the area and bought some yarn in my kids’ high school colors because I had a vision of a cool beret knit in fair isle technique of the school mascot.  Should probably move along on this idea.

Brooklyn Tweed Shelter project:  I’ve been collecting random colorways for years, and decided, on a whim, to cast on a Baa-ble Hat last week. I’m enjoying knitting it up!

Clothing

I have so much apparel fabric and I literally have no plans to use any of it.  It’d be nice to get back into clothing sewing, but my focus may just be on quilts this year.  I don’t know even know where I’d start with clothes.  There is a lovely feeling of satisfaction when you sew your own clothes, though…I miss it.

Embroidery

Weird things happen when you put things on your Amazon wish list—sometimes your husband will actually buy you the things!  Michael generously gifted me an embroidery machine for this Christmas, and it’s on my radar to learn how to use the thing…at some point.  I didn’t think I’d ever receive it as a gift, so I have no plans in effect.  I put it on my wishlist while I was really leaning into tablescaping for the holidays and I think I’d enjoy creating specially embroidered table linens.  And monogrammed bridal handkerchiefs.  And I’ve always wanted embroidered pillowcases with matching embroidered flat sheets, and, and, and…hee hee hee.  It might take A WHILE to circle around to this, though; I really do have a lot of quilty plans to plough through first!

So that’s what I’ve got on my mind for 2024. I guess I should print out this list and hang it up somewhere to remind me that I’ve got some serious sewing to get to this year! I really got out of the habit of daily creativity during grad school, but I missed it dearly and am going to make an earnest effort to reintegrate creativity back into my daily life. Wish me luck! And I wish YOU luck with your project goals for 2024!

#craftygoals Check-In: July 2023 #2

Hello again, my crafty lovelies! I missed a couple beats on the crafty check-ins, but I’m trying to get back into it again. I do this every year: I think that summer vacation will mean lots of downtime and I’ll use that downtime to sew and knit and embroider and paint and all the happy creative things that make my heart sing, when in reality summer vacation is doing a lot of stuff with the Brookelets and trying to get the house cleaned up and ready for the next school year. Not an actual lot of time for crafting. AND THEN I think, “OK, well, just wait until autumn and when the kids go back to school because then you’ll have time for crafting.” But nope! That’s when pep band, drama practice and everything else starts. The teenager years are busy, busy, busy!

The Big Declutter 2023 Project is still going big in our house, so that’s cutting into crafty time tremendously. Also, the kids have become obsessed with spending time together as a family in the evening, and I had scheduled the bulk of my sewing time for the evenings because they normally do not want to spend time together after dinner…so…yeah…even less crafty time happening because I’m choosing to spend time with my kids when they ask for it. It’s weird and I don’t know how long it will last, but I’ll show up for every minute until it ends.

Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: I officially started and finished quilting it today, so major progress finally happening on this project! I ran into a lot of problems getting my new machine set up, and the craft room was a disaster that needed some decluttering, and then blah, blah, blah…took a while to get going on the quilting. After I’m done writing this post I’m planning to head back into the craft room and trim it and hopefully get the binding done today. I’d really like to get this into the mail on Monday.

Scrappy Thursdays: I started working on my Farm Girl Vintage “Mixed Berries” quilt this week! I have background squares and stem squares cut for all sixteen 12-inch berry blocks.

Going forward, I think I need to boot the Clementine Quilt out of the Scrappy Thursday line-up because I simply don’t show up to work on it when it’s its turn. I am not gelling with this quilt right now, and I think it needs to be back into hibernation so I can get some actual work done on anything else. Clementine’s time will come, eventually.

Next week I’m supposed to work on the Leaders & Enders quilt, but that might change because I have no plan whatsoever for it and I’m eyeing Christmas on the horizon and I’d really like to start on some Christmas gifts. We’ll see…

Smitten EPP Quilt: I pieced my first of many of the small hexagons into a large hexagon filler block, and started working on the second one. I need to cut some diamonds for the filler blocks. I work on this while I’m sitting in the car at my kids’ music lessons, so it limps along in the summer due to last-minute cancellations and the like. It’ll pick up steam in the autumn when lesson schedules are consistent again.

Nilla the Unicorn (Knitting): I’ve made it a goal to knit for thirty minutes after lunch most days. Renaissance bought a cross stitch kit on one of our excursions in recent weeks, and so she joins me outside each day as well and we stitch in the sunshine together. It’s one of the best parts of my day!

Since my obsession with the Little Cotton Rabbits has not died down, I decided to do a test run with knitted animals and dug out a knit unicorn kit that I bought four or five years ago for Rachel at the Madrona Fiber Festival that she never got around to knitting up and I’ve been working on that. My family has named it Eeyore and insists that it’s a donkey because it turned out that I had no yellow worsted-weight yarn scraps to make its horn and I’m waiting for my KnitPicks order to arrive so I can do that.

So that’s it for the last two weeks. #craftygoals for the upcoming week are:

  1. Finish the Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt and get it in the mail!
  2. Possibly start on the Farm to Table Baby Quilt.
  3. Scrappy Thursday: Either keep working on the Mixed Berries quilt or start a scrappy Christmas gift. (I’m pretty sure the Leaders & Enders quilt is not going to be happening right now.)
  4. Use music lesson time for EPP and not phone scrolling. (I can’t really make a more specific goal for this quilt each week because it’s so dependent on so many different people’s schedules lining up.)
  5. Possibly finish Nilla the Unicorn.

Progress: Building Block Socks, and Notes on How Long it Takes to Knit a Pair of Socks

Getting close to the end of these, which is good because I may or may not have fallen prey to a yarn store-closing sale that is now shipping seven new skeins of sock yarn to me as we speak…sorry/notsorry.

As I’ve been knitting on these, my brain keeps trying to make me feel bad about how far behind I am on these, and it occurred to me that I might have a faulty sense of how long it actually takes to knit a pair of socks, thereby dooming myself to always feeling like a failure whenever I knit a pair of socks. As it stands, it feels very comfortable to knit a stripe’s worth of yarn each day on these, and so I counted up the stripes in the completed sock, and it’s 23 stripes. That’s a little over three weeks’ worth of knitting at a comfortable pace. Multiply that by two (because two socks in a pair) and you get 46 days, which equals 6.5 weeks to make a pair of socks for Michael.

In my head…I thought it took four weeks. So of course I always feel like I’m behind when I’m knitting socks for him. It’s good to figure out the numbers on stuff, because numbers generally don’t lie, and I like knowing exactly how things are going to go and numbers are the way to figure that stuff out. It takes seven weeks to knit up a pair of socks for Michael. No wonder I can never finish the “started in December” pairs I always try to make for Christmas. This timetable has been noted in my Christmas preparation notes.

More Progress: Michael’s Building Block Socks

I aim to knit one stripe a day if I can. I’m now about halfway through the heel flap. The plan is to have these done by the end of the month, which should be an easy goal to achieve. What are you slogging away on?

Still don’t know what hand stitching project I’m going to work on once these are finished. I’m really tempted to just keep cranking this pattern out over and over again simply because I don’t have to do a lot of thinking when I’m working on it. I like that.

In other news, today is Emms’ 18th birthday! So weird. If you don’t hear from me in the next few days, it’s because I’m still crying. 😜

Progress: Michael’s Building Block Socks

Now that the Nereid Mitts are finished for my bestie, I’m moving on to the pair of socks I had hoped to gift to Michael for Christmas. I really love the idea of knitting him another pair of socks each Christmas, it seems so homey and cute. This/last year’s socks are a little more bold than I normally go for him, but I unearthed this yarn in my stash, and, eyeing the atrocious shipping times on everything last autumn, decided to work with the yarn I already had on-hand.

(A little funny: I was in the midst of deciding whether or not to use the stash yarn or order new yarn, and I mentioned it over lunch with the kids. Nathaniel said I should definitely use the stash yarn because it would “make your husband glad you didn’t spend any more money, which might feel like another gift.” Which made me laugh, but then also made me wonder what’s going on in that kid’s head regarding husbands and wives and their money?)

Socks-in-progress for the husband, made from KnitPicks’ Felici Sock Yarn in “Building Blocks” colorway

So, this is my hand-stitching project for the next little while, and I’ll update you with its progress each week until it’s done! I’ve got one sock already finished, so I just need to power through this one.

The real question is: What hand-stitching project will I work on next? This is the last hand-stitched overdue Christmas project, so I can kind of do whatever I want after this. Work on a UFO? Start something new? Decisions, decisions. Maybe I need to dredge up the list of knitting UFOs and my Ravelry queue, so I can make an informed decision. I am monstrously green-eyed as I scroll through my IG feed and see the many oh-so-lovely knitting WIPs going on at the moment. Hmmm…there’s also EPP and historical sewing to consider, so there’s a lot of potential projects to choose from. What’s a girl to choose?

Nereid Mitts Update

Yeah. They’re finished. And it never would have happened this fast if I wasn’t publicly shaming myself to get through them. Blogging is awesome.

I hope they bring you joy, Denise.

It’s so funny to read through other people’s write-ups of this pattern. Not many like it. It’s not a bad pattern at all, it’s just finicky and brain-consuming, and a lot of knitters knit in order to zen out. This is not a “zen out” pattern at all.

I’m also worried that they may have turned out a tad small. Which would be highly annoying, seeing that it took me almost ten years to make them.

Details:

Pattern: Nereid Fingerless Gloves, by Denise Sutherland (Ravelry link)

Yarn: madelinetosh Tosh Sock, “Flashdance” colorway

Needles: US 1 (2.25mm)

Modifications: Not on purpose…ha ha ha

Click here to see this project’s Ravelry page.

Fourth Monday in January

Monstrously behind in my crafting schedule, but there’s just not much I can do about freak nerve pinchings, and I really needed to get that COVID booster shot. This week has a little bit of extra free time in it because the kids don’t have school on Thursday and Friday, so I’m hoping to get a little more crafting done on those days. We shall see.

The fast and dirty rundown:

  • Cat Lady Quilt: Done and blogged.
  • Rachel’s Birthday Gift: In-progress, near completion. With the loss of almost two weeks of creating time, I had to give up on the idea of keeping this secret, so Rachel knows about it. It’s another circle skirt, this time made from the “Cast a Spell” floral print in the “Spooky & Sweeter” collection that Art Gallery Fabrics put out last year. It works well that she knows because I needed to measure her and then I figured I’d ask her if she even liked the idea before sinking hours of time into making it. It’s been super cute–she “wanders” into the craft room and stands behind me while I’m at the sewing machine and watches as the skirt gets stitched, and then wanders away, only to reappear an hour or so later to check on my progress.
  • Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: I ran into a hiccup on Rachel’s skirt and needed to take a break from it, so I went around and gathered up the various materials I needed to work on this and prewashed everything that needed it. Ready to baste. Could potentially finish this week.
  • Far Far Away Quilt: Also prewashed everything for this with the Chiffon stuff. It’s A LOT of fabric! So excited to hopefully get to working on this.
  • Brickhouse Quilt: Blocks 1-4 done.
  • Clementine Quilt: Almost done with Month 3. Probably finish this week.
  • Berry Quilt: Haven’t started, but will probably start this week.
  • HST Leaders & Enders Quilt: Haven’t started, probably won’t get to this month.
  • Nereid Mitts: Done! Need to photograph and blog.
  • Building Blocks Socks: Putting in the time, so they’re coming along.
Skirt with pockets!

It was a very productive weekend after many weeks of feeling poorly. It’s amazing how much you’re actually capable of doing when you finally start feeling better.

Second Monday in January

Good morning, lovelies! Hopefully the new year is still treating you well and you’re making progress on the things that matter most to your heart. This week I’ll be (hopefully) finishing the Cat Lady quilt. The quilting is finished, and it’s trimmed; I just need to get going on the binding and label. I’m thinking I’m going to use the loads of C+S Bluebird scraps I have on-hand from when Denise made a dress for Em out of that fabric, which means I’ll be doing a scrappy binding construction because the scraps are very weird shapes–there’s very little yardage that will work for WOF cutting. BUT…it’s C+S fabric, and I have loads of it that I’ve been trying to sew through for years, so this will make a significant dent.

I had hoped to finish the Cat Lady quilt last week, but geez, what a week! Washington got a lot of snow and ice and rain and it just threw everything off kilter all week long. My kids had a two-hour late start for school four days out of five, the roads were flooding over…you don’t realize how stressed you’re feeling about stuff until you get past it and realize that you’ve been holding your shoulders up to your ears for days. And now we have to deal with rescheduling all the stuff that got cancelled, and adding it on top of all the regularly-scheduled stuff…I just wish that people would let things go when they get cancelled? Like, it’s too bad it didn’t happen, but let’s try again next year, rather than trying to fit it into the next couple of weeks that are already booked? Please? But alas…that’s a rare outcome.

Once the Cat Lady quilt is complete, I’m hoping to start work on Rachel’s birthday gift, and I can’t show you anything about it or she’ll figure out what it is. Which also means I have to clean it up everyday and not leave it lying around on the cutting table or the ironing board. Let’s see if I can actually remember to do that everyday…who else thinks that I’ll forget and Rachel will know what her gift is before it’s even finished? It also just occurred to me that I can’t work on this over the weekend days because she’s somewhat of a constant fixture in my craft room on the days that she’s home. So I guess it will take twice as long to stitch this up because I really will only have two days a week that I can work on this. Awesome.

I’m still working on the Nereid Fingerless Mitts for my bestie, and hopefully will have good news to report on them soon. This “tell people you were making them a gift if you didn’t finish it before Christmas” idea has been the perfect motivation to keep me working on those gifts. It might add extra incentive to get things done before Christmas in future years, too: I’m going to lose that special moment of surprise if it’s not done before Christmas because I’ll have to announce it on the blog. I don’t like doing that. But I do like finishing stuff, and so here we are.

Scrappy Thursday this week is for working on the Clementine Quilt. I don’t know if anyone remembers that I was one of the quilters in the original Clementine Quilters group, but I had to quit because we were moving. I hated quitting, but it was definitely the right call at the time because here we are, four years later, and it’s only now that I have the feasible time to work on it again. Fat Quarter Shop supplied me with the fabric to make the quilt, and I don’t feel right accepting fabric from people and then not using it, so it’s been on my mind ever since that I definitely need to get this completed so I can fulfill the obligation that I signed up for originally.

Update on Marshmallow: He’s doing better than he was. It looked like his hind legs were permanently paralyzed for many days, but in the last three or so days he’s started using them again, somewhat regularly. We changed up his meds the day before that development, so it looks like we’ve hit on a combo that works well for him. Pretty sure he’s gone blind though–he seems to only be responding to sounds, and he runs face first into things a lot. He got pushed down the stairs by Charlotte the other day because he walked near her, which is not a thing he used to do because she’ll bat any cat in the face that gets that close to her. (She’s such a GRUMP.) I feel like I need to set something up that will keep her away from him while I’m gone from the house because I’m afraid I’m going to come home to a murder scene or the like. Sigh.

So yeah, bad weather and geriatric cats…last week was intense. Hopefully things are a lot calmer this week!

Progress: Nereid Fingerless Gloves

In my last post I pondered the idea of publicly sharing any handmade Christmas gifts that weren’t done yet, in a last-ditch effort to follow through on their completion because publicly talking about said unfinished gifts will keep them at the forefront of my crafty brain. And then…ugh, I made a really, really silly mistake on these mitts and every fiber in my being wants to throw them atop the hibernation pile and ignore them for another year, and NO THAT WILL NOT BE HAPPENING.

So here we are: I was hoping to finish up a pair of fingerless gloves for my bestie for Christmas this year, but I got sick for most of December and didn’t make the deadline and darn it, these are getting finished NOW. There will be weekly progress posts on these things until they are done because I started making them in August of 2012, people! It’s been almost TEN YEARS! They are beautiful and they deserve to be out in the world making my friend happy.

One mitt is done, and the silly mistake was that I didn’t start the thumb increases during the third repeat on the second mitt, so I have to unpick half a repeat and do it all over again and I was so close to being done but now I’m not and it was a very low moment for me. BUT…public pressure to continue on and persevere…hopefully I can show you much progress next Wednesday!

And, then…there’s another project that didn’t get finished for Christmas, and I’ll tell you all about it when these gloves are done! The anticipation builds!