Gettin' stitchy with it

Oy! Projects are piling up on me.

1) I have my second Jaywalker to the point where I need to pick up stitches around the heel flap.
2) I have that blue Romney top almost all spun.
3) I suspect the recipient of the Tux scarf I'm working on would like it before winter - and I also need to make one for Hubby.
4) The Busy Bee sampler is in progress, but I haven't scored the charm and sequins yet.
5) I would like to participate in the Cross Stitch Olympics on Livejournal.
6) I would like to participate in the Ravelympics with Team Pejoritive Epithet (sponsored by Atheist & Agnostic Crafters)
7) I just picked up 4 dolls to dress for the Goodfellows - and two of them are a different shape, so I can't just whip out the pattern from a few years ago. Due date is Oct. 1, so at least there's plenty of time.
8) I've only completed 1 2/3 projects from my goal list for the year.
9) I have yarn for another pair of socks burning a hole in my stash.
10) I have to go to work, sleep, and at least keep Mount Dishmore from taking over the kitchen.

So...my plate is full, and my tendency to flail is stopping me from making too much progress on any of it. So...I will sit, and thoughtfully analyze where I am.

Project 10 is kind of ongoing. It limits me to about 90 minutes of crafting time most weekdays. I can get in more time if there is gaming (I can knit and roleplay at the same time!), and on Fridays and weekends (assume about 3 hours those days - but gaming is unpredictable). This must be kept in mind as I set reasonable goals.

Project 9 can kind of be scratched: I must return the Cat Bordhi book to the library, and I must hide the skeins of sock yarn from myself, and then it won't cross my mind until I let it.

Project 2 will take me two evenings of work to finish up - one to finish the length of top into a single, one to ply it. I think that will be my Goal For This Weekend. It would be my goal for tonight if I'd remembered to throw my spindle in my car this morning...alas.

Projects 5 and 6 are mutually exclusive. And it's a tough call, because I think if I were to concentrate on one craft for two weeks, I'd feel guilty about neglecting the others. But I think what I'm going to do is enter Tradewinds in the "UFO Comeback" event for Cross Stitch, because it will let me scratch an item off my Annual Goal List. This has a requisite time frame: August 8 through August 24. (Another option is to do TW and Busy Bees as a freestyle entry...)

The Jaywalkers are slightly stymied at the moment - I need to get off my butt, dig up a small crochet hook, and just gosh darn pick up those stitches. After that there are probably about 15 hours of work left to do. Should I add "Learn to knit faster" to my goal list? One happy thing: it finally occurred to me that I might want to try on the completed sock to see if it fit, and it did, although I had the same problem a lot of people have reported where it's a little hard to get the ankle part of the sock over my heel. Go me.

The Tux Scarf is taking an eternity - the chart is wide, and each row has to be knit 4 times! Argh. Estimated 40 hours of work left on it. For a freaking scarf! Hubby's will take about 50 on top of that, but does not need to be mailed to Baltimore.

There are a couple quick hits on the Goal List: I've got 2 of the 3 stitched items finished, and one more (an Altoids box) will take a very limited time to complete - perhaps another "get it out of the way" project for this weekend? And the "knit from my own handspun", "stranded colorwork", and "Irish crochet" projects don't have to be very large. That would leave curtains and Mo's art...

And the Goodfellow dolls? They're smallish. Two of the dolls need hat and dress, two need hat, dress, and booties. I remember it took me a couple hours apiece last time I did it - I'll call them 1 stitching day each, plus 2 more for design/research. And I will not touch them until September 1.

So, the plan:
Tonight: Tux scarf.
Saturday and Sunday: Spin. Finish Altoids tin. Pick up gusset stitches on socks; work on socks for remainder of weekend.
Sunday night: Hide all projects that are not Tux Scarf.
Monday thru August 8: Tux scarf. At estimated 1.5 hours/day, + 1.5 hours/weekend day, that gives me 36 hours of knitting time. It's conceivable that I will finish it by this point. Work on Jaywalkers if I get done early.
August 8-24: Hide all the knitting. Work on Tradewinds.  Remember that it's more portable than I think it is.
August 25-31: Finish the scarf if necessary. Jaywalkers. Should be able to finish both in this time period.
September 1-7: Dress the dolls.
September 8-30: Hubby's Tux Scarf. On the standard plan, this will account for 51 hours of crafting time. Should be enough to finish.
October-December: Goal List projects. Freestyle.

During this time I will probably have to allow myself small amounts of time to spin and work on the Busy Bees, or I will go nuts....and then there's the bit about no plan surviving first contact with the enemy. We'll have to see how this all works out.

When I went into the stash to see if I had a good fabric for the Busy Bee sampler, I found sitting there, all lonely and neglected, three patterns I'd kitted up last year. They made puppy-dog eyes at me. "You loved me last year! Enough to stick floss and fabric in a bag for me! Why don't you love me anymore?"

So, umm, I'm actually stitching Little House Needlework's "Kitty Cottage Sampler" (scroll all the way to the bottom). I love the style of LHN's samplers, and I love how frakking FAST they stitch up - about five hours in, I've got the archway, a good chunk of cat, and a bunch of the lettering done. This one might only take me a couple weeks.

And, umm, that "Curly Q Ewe" on the same page is calling me. Sheepies!

Speaking of calling me, I should not ever randomly surf the Victoria Sampler catalog ever again. In my brain, I think I spent about $1000 on leaflets and embellishment packs - their whole alphabet sampler series, plus a few more. Their embellishment packs really kind of freak me out - the alphabet sampler series are not big (3"x12") but the packs run about $35. Lots of silks. I love silk, but not $35 worth for something that small.

In an entirely unrelated note, it warms my heart to know that Barack Obama is willing to hold some crazy woman's knitting for a photo apparently without a second thought. I thought about making an attempt at such a thing, if I were ever in sock-holding range, but I suspect the Secret Service would frown upon it, all things considered.

Last shopping trip at the LNS, I saw a stitched model of a sampler I really liked. I almost grabbed the pattern, but thought, "I just bought stash I don't need, and dropped off some framing that will turn out a little pricey. I shouldn't."

When I went back to pick up the framing order, I saw it again - but not only was that framing order pricey, but I felt the need to grab a whole year of Flip-Its* in one sitting because there was only one copy left of some of them, plus some floss, plus Daughter insisted she wanted a project and Hubby didn't help me talk her out of it...so I didn't want to drop any extra cash.

Then I got home, and a vague memory of asking someone at the store to find the pattern for that model kind of filtered back up. And there it was, already in my stash. I suspect that nearly buying the pattern a second time is a sign that I really, really, really love this pattern - so next up in the queue, now that I've got the project for my impending niece or nephew as done as I can get it at this point, is Sweetheart Tree's "Busy Bee" sampler. If I do it on 28-count instead of 32, I've got everything I need but the beads, charm, and paillettes.

(I'm finding lately that I'm really drawn to traditional and semi-traditional samplers, especially ones that include specialty stitches, which kind of makes the number of Teresa Wentzler non-sampler designs in my stash kind of discouraging...ahh, well.)

*Flip-Its are small, cute, monthly-themed designs by Lizzie-Kate. The obvious thing to do with them is, of course, to work all twelve as one somewhat larger project. They're $4.50 apiece for the pattern and a charm, which doesn't sound bad when you're buying them one at a time, but that's $54 in patterns and charms for a whole year. Plus, Lizzie and Kate apparently love GAST and Weeks overdyed threads, which add up even if you're judicious about where to use them. (They are courteous enough to provide DMC substitutions, which means I don't have to spend $2 on a skein of floss that will be used for 5 stitches in the entire project.) Plus, that turns the small, cute designs into something of a BAP, or at least a MAP. Reflecting upon this has led me to question my sanity in starting the whole thing, but I suppose my sanity has always been in question, and now I've spent $54 on patterns and charms...

As usual, brought to us by Renée:

For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new stitchers. For newbies: What stitching term or acronym would you like defined?

Wow. This was a tough one - I've been in the cross-stitch net culture for long enough that acronyms just kind of slide past my eyes - but I remember in the question thing that went around recently, there were two terms that confused people:

Railroading: a technique for getting threads to lie parallel on the fabric. Instead of using a tricky, expensive laying tool, when going from the front of the fabric to the back, you pass the needle between two of the strands; in theory they should kind of loop around and straighten out. (This works for any number of strands.) Some people railroad both the top and bottom leg, some do just the top, and some don't bother. Some people have also reported that the floss kind of unplies when they do this.

SABLE: Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy. A condition where, given your rate of stitching and the amount of stash you've stashed, it's become physically impossible for you to completely empty your stash before you die. I might have reached this point, given the number of TW patterns I have stashed with every intention of stitching up someday.

Quick, simple, and to the point:

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future generations as family heirlooms?

Everything? Hee. In all seriousness, I'm very proud of the two traditional samplers I've done (City Stitcher's "Sampler of the Bees", and Little House Needlework's "Willow Tree Inn"), and I hope they're enjoyed by my great-great-grandchildren someday. In my stash, I have a few patterns that will probably result in heirloom-quality pieces - but I just don't see "that cutesy thing from a Dimensions kit" being passed down and cherished through the ages, y'know?

Beesampler

• I think I mentioned at some point in the past that knitting a sock always seems to go faster once you're past the heel. I'm going to stick by that statement - the individual rows on my first Jaywalker of the pair are going by zip, zip, zip. But I'm in a Knitting Black Hole or something, because the sock doesn't seem to be getting any longer. Maybe I cursed myself by trying it on? At any rate, I know the likely result of this is that tonight or tomorrow I'm going to knit one row and then discover that I should have started the toe two inches ago.

• I need to get a Spinsanity spindle of my own. Daughter picked one up at a fiber fair, and she's learning decently with it finally - but I tried it out last night, just to see what it could do. I took about 4 inches of roving from Daughter's ball of Crap Fiber, and turned it into about 6 yards of two-ply laceweight! - it came out similar in thickness to a #5 perle cotton. I do remember thinking at one point "Holy crap I'm spinning sewing thread"... I don't think I'm going to do anything with the yarn except maybe show it off, but my gosh I'm proud of it, and I'm almost tempted to cable it back on itself to see if it comes out sockweight.

• Hubby's grandparents are in the process of moving - they've sold their house to move into an "independent living facility", where Nana won't kill herself keeping up with the housework and there's assistance available to care for Boppa. So they've given the grandchildren a chance to claim any furniture or knickknacks they're interested in, and I told Nana, who also cross-stitches, "I'd like a couple of the samplers." She sent four - three she made herself (two traditional samplers and a really cool Santa piece), and one I wasn't expecting (mostly because she'd told me previously she wanted to hang onto it herself, but she'd stick my name on it for after her own eventual death): a family heirloom, worked by Hubby's great-great-great-grandmother in 1836, when she was 10. Some of the colors have faded, the linen has darkened, and little Martha A. Goldsberry didn't leave quite enough room for the motto so some of the letters are kind of jimmied in - but I appreciate the family heritage that goes with it as much as the art of the needlework. Pictures will follow as soon as we've found a good place to hang it (and the others).
  

The SBQ stands for "Stitcher's Blog Question", and is thoughtfully provided by Renée on a theoretically weekly basis - kind of like the meme I posted earlier this week, but one question at a time. :)  Regular use of Google Reader has made this much easier to keep on top of; it will hopefully appear here routinely.

This week's question:

How do you handle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you start a piece, or do you grab what colors you need and blend when the need arises? If you kit up the blends beforehand, how do you store them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

In general, I blend as I go - with the floss baggies I use, I generally have a loose 18" length of each color going at any one time, and it's easy as pie to just pull off one strand from each length and have at it. I'll stitch until that length is used up, even if it means (gasp) counting over to a new area to stitch.

The big exception: working on Tradewinds, and this could apply to any other "confetti" piece, I used a gizmo that consists of a piece of cardboard with slits in it, and a strip of magnet running down the center. The blended thread gets slipped into the slit, the magnet (theoretically - I've had one big accident with this) holds the needles in place, and I'll label the card with the chart symbol for the blend and the two color numbers involved. This could mean using a lot of needles - but I suppose there's nothing but the "omg what a pain" factor stopping someone from just slipping the floss into the labeled slits and rethreading the needle every time.

I found a meme-thing on the LJ cross_stitch group (although I had to go back about four jumps to Kendra's blog to find question #4 - someone dropped it along the way). Since I know you were all dying to know how I stitch...

1.) How do you hold your fabric? Normally on a Q-snap, these days. I might pull out the scroll frame if I've got a piece that's a good size for it, and I just did a teensy little thing in-hand.

2) Floss licker? Guilty as charged. I need to remember the thing where you fold the floss over and push the loops through the eye.

3) How do you thread your needle? As noted, I'm a floss-licker when I forget the thing where you fold the floss over.

4) What needle do you like best?  Unless I'm stitching on low-count fabric, I usually use a #26 tapestry needle - no preference to brand; it usually amounts to "what's cheap where I'm needle-shopping".

5) Are you a needle loser? My husband assures me that I am. He's usually the one to find them, sadly.

6) What fabric do you prefer to stitch on? I like Monaco and Jobelan - Monaco has a nice bit of body to it, and Jobelan is just so gosh-darn soft.

7) Bobbins or floss bags? Floss bags FTW. I never could stand the thought of winding all those bobbins for no good reason.

8) Are you a scissors collector? I'm more of a scissors-loser. I have two pairs of nice embroidery scissors, but I only know where one is at any given moment. Also a couple pairs of cheapy folding scissors, and one pair of kiddie craft scissors.

9) Do you do your own framing, and if so, do you lace or pin? For the most part, yes, although that may change now that I've actually had a good experience with a pro framer. I pin - someone once suggested Tidy-Pins, which are kind of like giant staples. They're expensive, but not as expensive as pro framing, and they won't work through the fabric.

10) Are you a floss floozy? Typically, I only buy what I need for projects...except that I picked up a lot of Caron Watercolors at a LNS that had them on clearance.

11) Silk? Yummy! More silk! If I knew where to get more colors than my LNS stocks, I'd go out of my way to use it.

12) Railroader? I typically do the top leg consistently, and the bottom leg inconsistently.

13) Are you a pattern or designer snob? I have a definite taste in patterns, but I acknowledge that my taste is not everyone else's taste, and I try not to judge. There are also a few designers I really admire (and also admire the tenacity of people who can complete their designs), and others where I just do not grok the appeal.

14) Do you get antsy when you give someone a stitched gift? Definitely - unless I've previously given the person something stitched and received sincere appreciation for it.

15) Have you reached S.A.B.L.E.? [...counts TW patterns in stash...] Yes, at least where patterns are concerned. I don't have nearly enough fabric and floss to stitch everything I intend to. I really kind of miss the job I had where I was able to stitch on the clock.
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16) Do you wash your projects? Unless I can look at it and verify that it is spotless, or unless I have reason to believe it will bleed. Latest method:  a soak and some squeezes in warm water and Oxi-Clean - although I do still have half a box of Ivory Snow from when it was actually soap instead of detergent.

A recipe:
1   Science project about crystals, involving a cup of saturated salt solution with pipe cleaners stuck into it
1   Knitting bag
1   Cat

Position science project on countertop, near edge. Position knitting bag on floor, directly below science project. Turn back on cat for less than 30 seconds.

Yields: One knitting bag drenched in saltwater, and one daughter disappointed by fate of science project. (Fortunately it was being done for her own amusement rather than a grade...)

On the bright side, the cotton and wool located near the top of the bag were absorbent, so the books and papers in the bottom of the bag barely got damp. The bag itself was a Meijer reusable tote; I'm not excessively worried, because I suspect that over its life it will have far worse things than salt in it.

On the downside, I'm hoping the salt won't do anything horrible to the wool and cotton; the salt crystallized out almost immediately. I guess I have laundry to do.