Too Much Material

I'll give you fair warning that this post is going to be a long one. I've got lots to tell and it's all relevant, so trust me... Go get your coffee, or use the restroom first.

Now, down to business... I finished my hat in time for the Women's Tea and the needle-felting got some oohs and aahs from my knitting friends around the table.

Hmmm, do you think it could have been the sheep?I think it's fabulous, but I've decided that the hat is too tall for my head and I'm going to donate it to the silent auction at Valley Spinners next month. The Felt Hat pattern was easy enough to do so I don't mind knitting another one... I have a few modifications in mind. I might even do the lighter weight hat instead because this one also seemed a bit heavy to me.

The tea itself was a lovely day out for us ladies... Most of the pics turned out rather dark because of the lighting, but I wanted to show you my centerpiece:The hostesses set up their tables the day before and I had a little time so I whipped up these butterflies and dragonfly with some yarn scraps I had laying around. The bodies are a short I-cord on Size 4 needles, and I think I used a Size E crochet hook to improvise the wings - I then attached some floral wire to work them into my arrangement. Nice! I don't know what I was thinking, signing up to be a hostess... I certainly don't regret it (it was really fun,) but it didn't give me any time to knit on Evelyn's version of the Lace Ribbed Bolero. I did finish it on Monday though. Wanna see? Thought you might. :)

I just LOVE it. Of course, the cutie-pie wearing this tiny piece of knitted prettiness simply makes it too adorable for words. Speaking of being rendered speechless over adorable things, Phil and I picked up the kids' Antiquities portraits yesterday and would have spent a fortune if I hadn't made the effort to sell a few sittings as part of the MOPS fundraiser this year. I'll scan them in and share them with you soon - they are absolutely incredible. If you ever get a chance to do Antiquities (dressed in old-fashioned gear, sepia-toned prints) of your kids... you really shouldn't miss out. It was so hard to choose which ones to buy, they were all amazing!

Oh, wait a minute... back up a bit. I almost forgot to tell you about what my mum and I did after the tea! Phil and my dad took the boys to a Mariner's game that evening, so we decided to make a trip down to Ben Franklin and look for an easy dress pattern for the girl. We found one that looked simple enough, bought some fabric, got home and found that the woman at the counter hadn't cut enough of the contrasting fabric! It was too late to go back (they were closed) and we were determined to try it out that very night so we found something else that would work from my very small selection. Neither of us sew, so it was the blind leading the blind when it came to reading the pattern. Seriously. The first setback was that the pattern didn't come with cut-outs... We had to trace the pattern onto another sheet of paper (actually two sheets of paper taped together) and then cut it out before pinning it to the fabric to cut it out once more. We were having a good time though, so that didn't take long and soon we were trying to decipher where and when to sew. Things moved along surprisingly quickly and smoothly and then we neared the end of the pattern and came to a screeching halt. We had two pieces now - the tiny upper bodice with the cute ties to adjust the shoulder length, and the enormous rectangle of a skirt. Here the pattern (with no picture to illustrate) simply said, "Gather skirt and sew top to bottom. Finished!"

Um, what? I'm sorry, but I had no idea what to do... and neither did my mother, so we decided to quit for the night. I had to ask a couple of ladies at church the next day what in the world "gather" meant and how to go about doing it. After getting varied opinion on the matter, I learned that gathering involved running two parallel lines of basting stitches along the waist of the skirt (without joining or fastening the thread at the end) and then pulling the ends to bunch up the enormous rectangle into an evenly-spaced ruffle that was the same width as the bodice. (See? That wasn't so hard to explain, was it?) Here's what it looked like while I worked on it that afternoon:

I then pinned it to the bodice and stitched the two right sides together leaving the inside fabric to hang free so I could fold it over and hand-stitch it later to cover up the raw edges. This isn't a great pic, but here's the finished product. I'm rather proud of this sewing accomplishment... Now I may actually use my machine more often. What's so nice about this sundress is that it's going to be good for the next couple of years because of the adjustable straps - I think anything that kids can wear for more than a season is fantastic because they grow out of things so fast! I've even been buying some 4T tops for Evelyn that can be worn as dresses this summer so I get more use out of them - found some sweet Baby Gap, Old Navy and Osh Kosh at the local thrift store too.

Ok, now onto spinning... You thought I was done, didn't you? Don't say I didn't warn you...

This is "Indian Corn", the dyed Romney fleece I bought from the Pines Farm. I'm done spinning it (finally) and I'm a little concerned that I can only find these 4 skeins. I mean, I spent months of my life (broken up by other projects) on these... and it shows. Each skein is so different it's laughable. I had planned to knit this up into a Robin Hood Jacket for Jamie, that could then be passed down to Evelyn... But (and here is the sad, sad shame of it all) there Isn't. Enough. Yarn. I need 840 yds to make the cardi, and here lies 660 yds - it's not even squeakable (and it's not even enough to make the smaller version.) In my astonishment over this, I thought it couldn't possibly be true... There must be another skein hiding somewhere! Surely, I didn't spend that much time spinning only 4 hanks... I was almost crazy enough to go ahead and start knitting the jacket in hopes that I would find the other one soon enough (I said almost - I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid.) It has been a couple of weeks, and still the mysterious 5th skein hasn't materialized so I'm starting to realize that maybe I'm going to have to come up with another project for this yarn. Any suggestions?

On a brighter note, I entered a drawing at The Yarn Grove by taking an Earth Day quiz to find out my Ecological Footprint and won! They sent me 4 skeins of organic Merino sock yarn!Yay!!! I love getting yarn in the mail, but free yarn is even better. It's lovely too. And that my friends, is all I have to say!