Yarn Crawl

Silken Scabbard Progress

I just finished the tubular bindoff on the body of Silken Scabbard. Here she is on J.Lo. I think I need to wash and block this, because right now it fits like a second skin. I think that is the intent, but I'm not sure I can pull it off - it could just be that I feel fat right now after almost two weeks of not working out after the whole gum and jaw surgery thing. It looks a little bit better on me than it does on her (I think) but it needs just the right thing to be worn with it. It's readily apparent that it needs to be paired with something very flat - a side zip skirt with a flat front or similar. No jeans or anything with belt loops.

Thoughts?? I think I'm going to wash/block it, then start the sleeves after it dries.

Quick Weekend Update in Pictures

Quick lunchtime blog:

Here's Simplicity 4074, view B in progress - I'm hoping to sew the side panels, ties and sleeves onto this tonight and wear it tomorrow to work.

Also here's Opulent Raglan - the 2nd size is perfect for me after trying it on - but my gauge is a little tiny bit tight so it measures 34" instead of 34.75" - which works great for me, especially after adding the ribbing at the end around the square neck.

It really is forest green, not this bizarro gray color. My cameras are both bugging me and I think the DLR is in my future soon.

How about a little TECHNO??

Great sewing music....here's what I'm listening to right now while cutting out my fabric for a new wrap dress - I am dancing around while I'm cutting. GOOD TIMES!!!

Or How About This Late 80s Deep House Track?

More feel-good music...my friends and I would lie out in the sun in the summertime and listen to stuff like this, or dance to it at those "juice bars" with our high-sprayed hair and our miniskirts from the Merry Go Round...

Much Better Now

Well, yesterday was a "get everything and anything off my chest" day. Jim and I had quite a bit of drama over the post I made yesterday morning, but the end result was we understand each other better, and we agreed that this time, he will make the trip by himself up there if he ends up going. For a while yesterday, I took the post down, back into draft form, but then I decided to put it back up now. This is my blog and I'm not going to self-edit.

The only thing I would change next time is that I would give him a heads up first before posting, and I feel bad about that because it just so happened that he and some coworkers pulled up the blog so he could show them my knitting and sewing (aww, he's so proud of that stuff that I do - I really love that) and then they were subjected to my rants of the day. I feel really bad about that and I apologized up and down that he had to see it, especially in that set of circumstances, as I never intended for him to read it. I thought that his workplace blocked any non-business related sites, but now that I have my own URL besides Typepad and they must have entered the site that way, I guess it snuck through whatever filtering they have.

It's not that I'll never go up there again or anything - although admittedly I do hate going up there - I just felt so put upon because of the timing and uncertainty around the whole thing. I feel so behind on everything in my life after basically losing a week to the surgery and recovery (heck, I think I'm a week behind on responding to my blog comments, and that rarely happens, I think) and I really do have a lot of work to get done by Sunday night for that MBA class. If I'm away from home until Sunday afternoon, it's going to be extremely difficult to get all of that done. The reason it has to be done by Sunday night is that we have to confer about everything as a group and we need a few days to reach consensus on things after working individually on some things first, before class on Wednesday night. Yes, maybe I could cram it all in on Monday, but I really just didn't feel like I wanted to put myself through that. Besides that, I just wanted downtime.

Although it may sound hard to believe based on yesterday's behavior of giving everyone my opinion on everything from my in-laws to my family (and they got off easy yesterday due to the nonspecificity) to my co-workers to my political beliefs, I have this habit sometimes of not saying how I feel about things until I blow up. I guess yesterday was a blow up day.

Sorry you guys all had to witness it, as it wasn't pretty, but I appreciate each and every one of you. Have a wonderful weekend! I still don't know what Jim is doing yet, but I do know what I'm doing - hanging around here and getting my s&&& done. Peace out.

What a Weird Day!!!!

OK kids, I was just KISSED hello by this visiting colleague of mine (a peer). WHO DOES THIS?????????

ETA - to answer your questions - it is, in fact, a MALE colleague - and I find it helpful to mention now that I have met him in person exactly TWICE.

Opulent Raglan Progress

As promised, here's Opulent Raglan, in process!! It's moving along nicely - more quickly than I expected. The Brooks Farm Solana is really nice to work with. Flickr's photo editor, Picnik, is having a case of the hiccups so I can't edit this photo right now to its true color, which is a semisolid light forest green/dark teal. I really need to get that DLR. Or maybe it could be that I took the picture this morning at 5 am.

I still don't know if I'm going to Wisconsin for the weekend - Jim's dad is feeling up to duck hunting and I guess the season starts this weekend. Earlier this week he said there weren't many ducks out, now he's saying there are ducks out. I think he just wants to see Jim (of course I can see the major guilt trip coming down the tracks, after his health scares over the past year, so I'm sure we're going to be going.) I'm going to really try not to complain too much if it happens even though I've got a million things I'd rather be doing here, including my MBA stuff that I have to do. It's better if I think of it as Jim-Bob bonding instead of duck hunting per se, which I think is stupid on so many levels. We'll see.

It's the whole "not knowing until a day before" part that makes me so freaking insane. I was OK with it a week ago when I thought it was a foregone conclusion, but now it's been going back and forth so many times. Let's just say that I believe the "P" characteristic on the Myers-Briggs index (is it an index? a scale?) was an inherited trait and leave it there. Frustration...I guess I could play the oral surgery card (and Jim has been trying to play it on my behalf earlier this week) but again it's the guilt trip.

More ranting to follow - feel free to skip. Otherwise, have a great day!!

It's funny (and not funny ha-ha) that my own parents can't play this guilt trip game with me - nor do they try despite their other toxic traits- but my in-laws (well, really just FIL, but MIL enables it) can do it to me very successfully through Jim. They don't read the blog, so they won't see this, and I will probably edit this post later to include only happy Opulent Raglan content, but I really need to get it out.

One's entire life one child can be treated as the afterthought, the youngest ten-year-later sibling, actually told he was an accident, last in line for anything/everything because he's self-sufficient and resourceful and (truth be told) has issues with accepting anything from anyone, but then interestingly, that child turns out to be the only one who is there for said parents in their (multiple) times of need. I'm not nice (or masochistic) enough to put up with that myself, and won't play into my own family's games (as they are WAYYYY more toxic) but I'll support Jim in all of his decisions in this regard as he is the one who can sleep well at night knowing he did everything and anything that he could have done. I would never make him choose between us, as I know he would choose me if it ever came down to it, and I would never subject him to that guilt. I'm not a believer in guilt, in general, though. Either do something or don't do it, and then own the knowledge and consequences of it. I do try to do the right thing OF MY OWN ACCORD but I won't be manipulated.

Since we're ranting, can I just say this person is FREAKING CRAZY?? Not only for this little wackadoodle stunt, but just in general!! If she gets elected, I think we're going to do the expat thing and move to Patagonian Chile.

Back to the regularly scheduled program! It's not often that I rant to this degree, but I just had to get it out and I feel much better now.

Good Shopping Day!

Yesterday I worked from home as I had my follow-up appointment with the surgeon (everything is healing perfectly, he says, and I've been able to eat more solid foods now). In between conference calls and emails, I had my new W hotel bed delivered and also the cashmere I ordered from China arrived. (Thanks again, Michelle, for telling me about yubina.com!!! I love them!)
The box it came in was super interesting - I've never received anything shipped directly to me from China before, so I had to be a geek and take pictures of the box.

And here's the actual yarn:

I ADORE this yarn - it is super soft and true to the color shown on their site and $9.95 per 120 yard (50g) DK weight skein (labeled "chunky" on the site for some reason - I guess as compared to laceweight, which they also sell) for 100% cashmere is a great price. It also arrived pretty quickly (less than a few weeks) which was a pleasant surprise. At first I was freaked out because I only received seven skeins and I ordered twelve, but they explained that the large skeins were in fact 100g and the small ones (that I ordered) were 50g. It was a little confusing because there are no labels on the yarn, but the larger skeins did look huge and at least twice the size of the small ones. So it's all there!

I also received my latest fabric.com order and my favorite was their pinwale printed stretch corduroy which I decided to try. Isn't this cute?

I just bought a yard as it is 60" wide and I wanted to make an A-line skirt out of it. Every time I order from fabric.com, I try a new category or brand of fabric within a category so I get to experience new things and know their product offerings better.

Since I bought a new bed, of course I had to go get some new bedding. I was a smart shopper though and got a 22 piece bedding set for $110 out the door. It is that teal and chocolate combo that I like so I had to go for it.

It was originally $199.99, which was a good price anyway for all of that stuff - TWO sheet sets, three decorative pillows, all the shams plus extra ones, an extra throw, the comforter itself and then four valances!! I had a 20% off coupon off any one item (one of those ubiquitous coupons that show up like every day from Bed Bath & Beyond) and a $50 gift card for that store that I chose as a reward for the points I accumulated in a few months by using my Chase debit card. I really like their leisure rewards program. I usually only use my debit card for everything, with an occasional use here or there of the American Express card - but pretty much, cash only is my mantra. I use the debit card for all the routine and nonroutine household expenses that come up and the points add up pretty quickly. I haven't even maximized it by having bills like the water bill or the DirectTV bill charged automatically to the card, but I think I will as those are set up to come right out of my checking account anyway.

I also bought a new serger, the Janome 634D, from the same site where I bought my Janome 900CP coverstitch machine, and will be selling my Viking 936 on Ebay. I just really want the serger to do 3/4 thread serging and rolled hems RELIABLY and although I've had the 936 checked out by the dealer and there's nothing wrong with it, I just think it is more fiddly than what I want to deal with. I have confirmed this through my daily reading of the Viking 936 yahoo group; I would say there are a good number of people who have issues getting this machine to do exactly what they want, and although the answer is usually that it is operator error, not the machine's fault per se, I don't need that kind of drama in my life. I want to turn the machine on, change the settings the way I want to, test my stitch on a piece of scrap fabric, and go to town. Done. Just like I do with the Janome 900CP coverstitch machine. That thing never complains or whines or decides it doesn't feel like doing a particular stitch on a particular fabric. There are no sick days.

And the best thing? I paid about $1200 for my Viking 936 combo serger/coverstitch machine and I bought my Janome 634D for $394 shipped. I saw a few recent auctions on Ebay and people are getting over $1000 for their machines like mine. One sold for $1300 the other day - and probably had all kinds of extra presser feet (which I did buy into, to the tune of about $30 and up a pop.) The Janomes don't focus on those extra feet - you can do what you need to do with the basic foot included in the machine. Simplicity is a good thing in the serger/coverstitch world, in my opinion. Save the complication and bells and whistles and specialty feet for the regular sewing machine, which I do like using in that way.

Preview of upcoming attractions:

I got pretty far with NL 6823, View D yesterday with this red/black/cream fabric.

I just have to figure out the front crossover section (I basted the side seams first to make sure it was going to fit, and I'm glad I made the size based on my measurements instead of going smaller, because this one is more fitted and runs smaller.)

I'm working on Opulent Raglan. My row gauge is a little different than the pattern (s/b 22 sts to 4 inches and mine is more like 26 sts to 4 inches) and all of the directions are given in terms of rows (do this for 19 rows, increase or decrease every 5 rows, etc.) so I'm tweaking that as I go.

Done with all the MBA stuff I needed to do so I'm relieved about that! The group is working well together so I'm extremely relieved.

Burnished Tunic Finished!

I finished the Burnished Tunic on Saturday night - here it is on J.Lo:

It is surprisingly flattering on, despite it being chunky wool (two strands of Tess superwash merino held together) but I'm still a little swelled up on the one side of my face so I'll wait for the modeled shot.

This weekend went by in a weird haze (and I only took the Vicodin a few times!) I still haven't been able to eat anything but yogurt, milk, cereal and occasional pasta. I actually had a few milkshakes, which I never do, as they were the only thing that was tasting good for awhile. I did do a bunch of errands on Friday, the day after the surgery, but then my cheeks started puffing up like a chipmunk so that put a stop to that for awhile as I figured I'd better relax and lie low for awhile. Saturday, I basically worked on Burnished Tunic all day and finished it. I then cast on for Opulent Raglan with my Brooks Farm Solana in forest green and I've just separated off the sleeves. I did go to Vogue Fabrics yesterday as a reward and they were really out of most of the cute knit fabrics. They had new "fall knits", of which I did buy some, but they weren't as cute as the ones they had before. I found six remnants after a lot of digging, as that was pretty much cleared out too. I'll show those and the new patterns I bought at the Butterick and McCall sales on Friday later this week.

Today through Wednesday I have a lot of things to do for my MBA class - review the case one of the other members wrote (we take turns writing our weekly case, then the other team members review and add comments/rewrite/discuss other points over email), do our simulation assignment for the week (it's an online software where we are running a theoretical business and have to make weekly decisions on, which represent a year of operations) and write an individual assignment about our company's strategy. I also have my mid-year review this afternoon. Tomorrow I'll be working from home all day though as I have a follow-up with the surgeon and we ordered a new mattress/boxspring set which is supposed to be delivered sometime between 10-2. We have had our existing set since oh, probably, 1995, so we figured it was time to replace it as we ran across a good deal on the Westin hotel bed we wanted.

Hope everyone has a great week! I don't see a lot of blogging in my future for the next two days.

Everything's OK!

Had my surgery, everything went well. No pain, just woke up from a nap after taking a Vicodin. It's a good thing I took the Valium last night b/c they did have issues with the IV. I guess I have "valves" or some sort of knot, from what I understand, that they have to push through to get an IV in so the nurse couldn't get it on my left arm. Thankfully they immediately had the doctor do it himself in the other arm, and he had the golden touch. I didn't feel even a pinch when he did it. Going back to sleep now, but that's the update - all is well!! -------------------------- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Device