The Best Laid Schemes, Gang Aft A-Gley

Last week, I told you all my plans. Wow. I don't even know why I pretended to plan last week. Let us review...

Thursday: cross-stitch

I think we already know how this turned out. Now, I did cross-stitch a tiny bit that night, but ten or fifteen minutes of cross-stitch doesn't really count, does it?

By the way, thank you to everyone who so kindly complimented my socks. I'm a little defensive when people do so because I believe they look hideous in my mind, and I'm not taking the compliments. I'm sorry. They are very soft and very warm, and if I can find some colorways that I like, I will be buying more of the yarn.

I have talked of hating crazy varigations in the past, but I'm a hypocrite. While I'll always believe that a colorway like Space Dust will look like clown puke when knitted up, I'll happily buy Koi Koi or any other pinkish/bluish colorway. I believe it was Christy, my future sister-in-law, that said to me that I liked yarns that looked like unicorns had thrown up on them. Sigh.

Sunday: sewing, another cloth book

I didn't even craft on Sunday. On the weekend itself, I might have done another thread or two of cross-stitch, but nothing noticable.

Monday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)

I knit about two rounds of my Slytherin scarf. Okay, lie, I finished one of the gray groups, and started on my green rounds. I'd be sad at the slow progress if it weren't for the fact that I haven't worked on it at all for months!

Tuesday: cross-stitch OR drawing

I might have spent a few minutes cross-stitching this night.

Wednesday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)

I went to Helen's, ostensibly to knit. Then, her three foster kittens brought me low. It was horrible! I was knitting while watching The Tudors and then these three kittens sat on me and my knitting. I then proceeded to pet them because KITTENS.

So, I was going to let this whole entry going to go pictureless, but I think we all know what I think about blogs without photos. Here is a picture of The Rose of Sharon cross-stitch.



Hours and hours of work to show you that I added about two square inches of work from the last time I photographed it. Perhaps less. Next time, I'm just going to link to other people's WIPs and pretend that I did a lot more.

I also have an updated photo of the scarf!



In case you're curious as to why it is laying so oddly, I keep the actual yarn stuffed into the center of the scarf to prevent my kitties from taking it out and carrying it around my house. Since I spent part of the weekend simply rewinding my silver yarn again, I clearly needed to take action.

So, are you asking if I have plans for the upcoming week? Yes, I do. I'm not giving up on my plans. I think I have started alternating projects to good effect, but I do need to be a little less stringent about my planning.

My plans are thus: two days of sewing, two days of knitting, one day of cross-stitch, weekends are free as usual. Ideally, I'd also like to start Nathan's matching ugly socks. I'm still working on leaving my computer a bit earlier, though I've failed tonight!

I do still want to get my cloth book done for my cousin's baby, but I'm itching to start another garment with my sewing. I wasn't going to do the Flouncy Tank Top project from the book Sew Everything Workshop, but then I saw a gorgeous version that made me drool.

Mmm, I love when I find inspiring blogs or photos.

Lastly, thank you to the person who came to my blog and followed my links to Amazon and made purchases. It was nice of you and I made a whole dollar! I was stunned when Amazon told me it had happened, actually, and then I told myself that I'd buy a Simplicity pattern to make for my blog! I love the dollar pattern sales at Joann!

The Crafting That Doesn't Ring Any Bells

As I'm sure all of you fellow bloggers know, there are some blog posts that are hits, and others that are misses. The hits are normally the ones where you post some incredibly gorgeous finished project. The misses are where you talk about your lame work in progress. This is the lame work in progress post, only it is even more boring than that. So, I've been working on my hideous anklet socks which bring me down every time I look at them. Both Helen and Paul (who are creating a cooking blog between them, the traitors) ask me why I keep going on these socks that are sucking my will to live out from under me. I answer, because I must. Once I start something, I always feel I must finish it. It's the way I roll. I'm going down the foot of the second one now and if I just dedicate like two or three nights to them, I'll finish them, but I'm not even out of the hole then! I still have to make Nathan a matching pair of ugly socks since I will have approximately two hundred yards of sock yarn left when I'm down my own ugly socks.

Also, if you like to cook, you might want to check out the H & P cooking blog, The Secret Is Salt. Paul hasn't posted there yet, but Helen has already built up a good number of posts. I've already run the idea of cooking at my mom's place once in a while across them since my mom redid her kitchen to be twice as large as it once was, and it is mainly composed of counter or table space. The only bad part of that idea is that Paul would need to pack up most of our kitchen tools and pantry before we went.

So, what other non-sexy, non-ugly-sock stuff have I been doing? Well, buying sewing patterns, fabric, and slip stitching stuff. I ended up a failure in the cloth buying department again. Twice. I bought some lovely embroidered silk for a top. I needed a yard and three-fourths for the top. I got two and an eighth. I bought some kitschy cotton (with cartoon cats drinking coffee) for some silly boxers for myself. I needed a yard and three-fourths. I bought a yard and a fourth. I think I'm not meant to buy fabric, people.

I did buy a soft cloth book kit from Joann. It was fast to make (most of the work is pinning the layers together), and it was a cute result. Please ignore the fact that I've protected Nathan's full name from the internet with some awesome Photoshop scribbles.



Nathan was totally not interested. Five seconds after I took the next picture, he threw the book at the floor and nearly kicked it.



I liked the results though, and my mom has never been so impressed with me! Take that, Nathan!



After finishing this on the machine, I spent one full night just slip-stitching crap. I've learnt a lot from that. First, I'm a suck-ass slip-stitcher. Seriously. Check out that first picture in original size on Flickr. You'll see where I 'slip-stitched'. I ended up whip-stitching on my first attempt after I screwed up. By the third slip-stitched page, my work was improving to non-hideous. I also slip-stitched the waist band hole for my wrap skirt, which allowed me to finally hang it in my closet.

Since I haven't been getting much crafting done, I've decided I'm going to take some advice from Gives Good Knit, the podcast. She has decided to have projects for days of the week. I think I'm going to do this too. I have sewing, knitting, cross-stitch, and drawing. I'm just going to have to divvy up the days. I will detail more about this in the future.