Last Week

Last week wasn't much better than the week before. I wasn't sick, but it was another busy week at work. A project I'm working on was already a week behind, and the powers that be were getting antsy. Then we had a bunch of server problems on Thursday because of some changes the storage guys were making at our Disaster Recovery site. I ended up working till midnight on Thursday, which made me miss the sewing get-together I was supposed to have with my friends from work. The worst part was that the tech support people should have been able to solve my problem in less than an hour, but they ended up making the situation worse, and never did solve it for me. One of my co-workers diagnosed the problem early Friday morning. It would have been nice if he'd thought of that when he looked at those servers the first time (Thursday afternoon), but it's fixed now, and that's what matters, right?

Oh and by the end of the week, that project I mentioned was 2 weeks behind. :-(

The bright spot in last week was taking Wednesday off to take the Simple Surfaces workshop with Melody Crust. We learned to use foil on fabric, and played with PaintStiks. I had used the PaintStiks before, but the foil was new to me. Since it was a technique class, we didn't really make a project. Here are my better samples from class:



The muslin has the foil on it. I used the orange sheet for practice because I couldn't think of where I'd use orange foil later on. I kept having issues with the glue -- I either had too much or not enough, and I seemed to be impatient about letting it dry long enough. It got stuck to the foil and made a mess when I moved it. Oh well, you live and learn, I guess. The black fabric has the PaintStiks stenciled on with a brush, which I like that much better. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but a medallion-style wall hanging seems appropriate. I have no idea if I currently own any fabrics to go with it, though.

While I'm here, I'll tell you about a "stealth project" I finished a month or so ago. I'd purchased 1/2 yd of pre-quilted fabric ages ago to make an envelope purse. That never happened, and to be honest, I don't think I'd have used an envelope purse anyway. When I took up knitting, I decided I needed something to put my needles in, and remembered that fabric. I found some instructions on the internet, made some adjustments and voila:



My very own knitting needle organizer (I have more needles than that now, btw). It's not fancy and I didn't bother hand stitching the binding on or anything. I also have to stay that the curved edges make for a tighter fit for the longer needles. I haven't decided if that's good or bad. I had enough to make 2 of these, so I gave one of them to my friend Beth for her birthday. I still had a little piece left over, and I didn't want to stash it, nor did I want to throw it out. So:



A matching crochet hook organizer! If you look closely, you might notice that I put the ties on the opposite end of the hook organizer from where I put them on the needle organizers. This was not intentional, and even now, a month+ later, I'm considering fixing that. Those of you who know me personally will not be surprised by this in the least. Here's a picture of the two of them all rolled up:



Last week I also finished the first dishcloth and made a second one. I wasn't very scientific on the yardage. I probably should have weighed the first one, and the yarn that was left, so see if I had enough to make another one. I didn't. One of them is a few rows shorter than the other, and I had tie on a piece of plain cream yard to finish binding it off. But they're dishcloths, not sweaters, so who cares?



I have more stuff to post, but it will have to wait till later in the weekend. Right now, I need to go design a label for the pool quilt.