Experiencing setbacks and setting this week's goals

 Sunday afternoon I started working on the second sleeve of my Harvest cardigan. 

I knit and knit, and knit and knit. I may have knit almost all the way to bedtime, with a small break for playing Animal Crossing with some of my friends. 

So ... no finishing my cardigan by the end of the weekend.  That's okay.  No biggie, right. 

Yesterday, after dinner, I settled in my chair and knit some more ... I was tempted to push through and knit the last five inches so all I would have to do today was binding off and attaching the button. 

This morning I finished the last decrease repeat and measured the arm.  It was at the correct length so I just needed to switch needle size and knit the cuff. 

I opened my needle case and the slot for the needles I needed was empty. 

I knit almost the entire sleeve with the wrong size needles.  

That has been my crafting life since the new year started.  I don't even get it.  When I'm crafting I don't  feel stressed, or really any pressure to get the project done. Why do I keep having these issues? 

So at 6 a.m. I ripped back 16 inches worth of sleeve. I did compare the two sleeves and there was an obvious difference in gauge.  I know I would have never been happy with it as it was. 

Tonite, after dinner, I picked up the stitches and knit a few rounds.  I decided to call it for the night. Give myself a break from it. 

 Sooooo .... my goals for this week is to reknit the second sleeve and finish spinning the fiber that I didn't finish spinning in January. 

I'm going to take a bit of a break from most everything tonite, though.  

Tonite, I'm going to toss on "Community" and sew together the leftoever squares from my daydream wall quilt.  

I'm short two white squares.  I have no idea how I wound up with extra half-square triangles.  They will be ripped apart and pieced together to make full white blocks.  I'm thinking mug rug? Small pillow? Still deciding.

In other news for the day I had to make a run to town and the office.  I made the rounds to the stores and found the yarn I wanted for making the emotional support chicken. 

These two colors are probably the closest I will find for Furby's colors. I can start knitting the emotional support chicken at any time. 

I also picked up a string of fairy lights for the she shed. 

They need to be adjusted still. I'm sort of wishing I had picked up a longer string.  Oh well.  It is a nice pop of color and sparkle. 

One of the ladies at my work building called me about noon today.  There was some excitement after I had left. 

One of the guys had just returned from the post office.  He came through the front door and a moment later there was a terrific crash of glass breaking.  Some lady was going through the area and smashing windows of businesses and houses.  She's been arrested.  That is all I know. 

Someone from my work building posted a photo online. I was able to see the damage. 

It's not the first time there has been "excitement in my work building neighborhood.  I'm sure it won't be the last. 

We have reached that point of winter ...

 It's too cold out to really do anything.  Too much snow, but not enough for anything fun. 

Unless you are in to ice fishing on the bay.

Winter doldrums ... the Monday of winter. ... whatever you want to call it, we are in it. 

I'm not even sure what I mean anymore.  The cold snap (and I use that term loosely, considering the area I am in) is done.  Today we had a high in the upper 20s F.  The rest of the week the high temps are supposed to be in the 30s.  I'm just waiting for spring fever to hit me. 

Okay ... 

Last week I had Thursday and Friday off of work.  I have vacation time to burn before my work anniversary in February.  I'll have been at the paper for 21 years. TWENTY-ONE years! Can you believe it?  I can't. 

I decided to make use of this time to catch up on some of my crafty endeavors, and maybe knock a few things off the list. 

My last blog post talked about how I measured incorrectly for my binding on the Daydreams wall quilt. 

I went to Walmart and looked for the fabric.  They did not have it.  I was disappointed but not surprised. It's been a year since I purchased this fabric.  A yard of plain white fabric was purchased, to ensure I did NOT run short this time around. 

Wanna take a guess as to how much binding I would have needed for the original fabric? 

Here, it may make you weep. 

Maybe six inches?  When I set that up to see how close I was I immediately went looking all over the craft room and out in the she shed to see if I had ANY scraps of this fabric left.  I don't have a problem with piecing fabrics together. 

Nothing. 

Here's my finished wall quilt. 

Daydreams Wall quilt

Started: 2/5/23

Finished: 1/18/24

Designer: Sew Sampler Box, Jan. 2022

Fabric: Beautiful Day by Corey Yoder. Background fabrics from walmart. 

Made for: myself.  Will go up on the wall in my bedroom. 

On the bright side, it is my best binding job, to date. 

I put the binding on Thursday night.  I'm very pleased with it, overall.  This was my first time using the walking foot, with the bar, instead of drawing out all those lines.  I used a hera marker and pressed the first line, going each way.  Then used the bar to space them out about an inch apart. 

Friday I decided to tackle the apron I've been wanting to make for around two years now. 

I had the video going, and wasn't feeling stressed at all.  

Bam! The piece I had cut out for the body of the apron. ... I accidentally grabbed that piece and cut the straps out of it. 

Seriously? 

I posted about it in a few places on my social media and a few people gave me suggestions, since I did NOT want to have to buy more fabric. I promptly folded this fabric up and put it away until I could think more clearly about it. 

I figured it would be a good time to break out the WIP progress bag I wanted to make. The WIP-style bag I like, and have made several of, is the one that Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop shows how to make. 

Cruising along with it, and quilting the back of the bag was going easily enough. 

 Then I about 25 percent into the quilting and I thought 'Hey, did I check that both fabrics are the right way?  You can see in the upper photo, to the right ... No, they are not!

I'm pretty sure I said out loud "Are you freaking kidding me?"  

I sat there for about 30 seconds and thought to myself "I should have stopped after the apron, and just gone and knit." 

Then thought "I don't care." The bag is for me.  No one is going to see the back of the bag.  I use vinyl on the front to help showcase the fabric." Then I continued quilting the fabric. 

There may have been an email to my mom's group in the interim about this. ... *ahem*

Before I trimmed down.  I thought I'd take a photo to show how the fabric was. 

After it's all trimmed up. 

The finished product.  I'm thrilled to bits with it.  Naturally, I want to make another one. I also want to put a Valentine project in it.  Cross stitch or sock, it doesn't matter. I think I'm ready to be done stitching Christmas charts. 

Spring WIP bag

Started: Purchased fabric from walmart in early 2023

Finished: 1/19/24

Used tutorial from Fat Quarter Shop

Made for: myself

Gotta say .... my new Janome came with an awesome zipper foot.  The zipper foot with my older Janome is a bit confusing to work with and I'm never quite sure I'm using the right side of it. 

I finished my WIP bag on Saturday. Friday night I worked on it until 10 p.m. and only had the binding left go to.  Thankfully I had enough. ... 

Sunday I tackled the apron again.  Since I had stepped back from it, I was able to go "Oh yeah, just sew the pieces back on!" 

That I did! 

And here you go.  You may not be able to see the three pockets I have sewn on there. I'd love to figure out a way to sew snaps on so I can fold the apron in have and use it to haul stuff in from the garden. 

Farmhouse apron

Started: Purchased fabric at walmart in 2022

Finished: 1/20/24

Designer: Sewing tutorial from Cosmopolitan Cornbread. 

Made for: Myself.  I've wanted a harvest apron for some time, and i think this will fit the bill. 

Would you believe that as soon as I hung this up I realized there was something that I forgot to do when I was assembling the pieces together on this.  Yeah ...  I'm not going to say what, however, because I firmly believe in not pointing out your errors, especially if they aren't obvious. 

And, yes, now that I've struggled through one of these aprons I want to make another.  One in a lighter color. 

I'm a glutton for punishment.  It's a really nice design, though.  Simple and you don't have to worry about ties. 

This weekend I worked on few of my knitting projects.  I'm hoping to record a video this week, and I'll share about them in the video.   Naturally, I had some battles with a vanilla sock and my harvest cardigan. This wasn't my week for crafty things. 

In other news, my hubby is hatching an idea for our solar set up and the ability to charge up the batteries with a generator when the solar panels are covered in show, or when we haven't had sun in several days.  That's kind of exciting.  We haven't had any new homesteady-type projects in a while. Unless you count expanding the garden.  

Bird watching and a quilt update

 The last several weeks I've been feeding the birds. 

It started out with chicadees, some finches and nuthatches. 

It's now blue jays, squirrels and one lone starling. 

I watched this starling integrate itself into the group of blue jays that comes to my feeder each day.  It was off on it's own and slowly moving towards the group.  The next time I saw it, it was sitting in the middle of the bird seed pile, surrounded by all the blue jays. It's made itself at home. 

The birds and the squirrels show up every morning and tussel around, taking turns at the suet cakes and the plate I put the bird seed in. 

I don't know what this guy was waiting for. 

I do like watching these guys flit around.  

I've been paying extra attention to my quilt project the last couple of weeks, right? 

Last night I finished the quilting. 

I decided to save the binding for tonite. 

Then I started sewing the binding on ... 

And discovered I don't have enough binding. 

NOOOOOOOOO! 

I have no idea how I messed up this royally.  

The binding fabric was purchased at walmart.  I think they still have some at the store. 

*sigh*  I was *so* close! 

My goal is to get this wrapped up by the end of the weekend. If walmart doesn't have the fabric, I will have to rip what I sewed on, and use a different fabric. 

The cold is here

 On Thursday or Friday the weather people said to prepare because snow was on the way, followed by sub-freezing temps. 

What it looked like on Thursday. 

Lovely, huh? 

Well, the heavy snow went around us. The southern part of Wisconsin was slammed by a blizzard. 

One of my friend's said her power went out for a few hours.  I also heard a rumor about the Milwaukee airport shutting down.  I heard later that it did not shut down. 

We did not get the big storm that was promised us. We got four inches at the most. 

It snowed a wee bit on Friday and overnight. 

Not that I was disappointed at the small amount of snow that hit our area. 

Remember the tractor we purchased? There hasn't been enough snow for us to really test it out. 

So it is the ATV plow for us, to push around this fluffy stuff that isn't amounting to much. 

This weekend wasn't very exciting. It's surreal to have snow on the ground. It also doesn't seem right to have subzero temps now.  It's supposed to warm up a bit by the end of the week. 

Saturday we took a trip to town and Sunday we bummed around the house, taking it easy. 

I stitched, knit and sewed a bit. 

Knitting on my Harvest Cardigan.

My wall quilt. 

On Friday I hauled in a little something ... 

The garden soil had to thaw out.  

Even though I was all keyed up to start some seeds this weekend, I did not.  I still had to set up the lights in my seed-starting greenhouse. 

I finally did that today, after work. 

I flipped the lights on and it was an an immediate burst of something ... Like "Wow!" and feeling upbeat and chipper almost right away.  Crazy how lights can do that. 

I've been reading stuff on the book of Faces, and watching some Youtube channels about seed starting, gardening, etc., and I got to thinking a little bit. 

Ever since I got in to gardening it's been a dream to have a "real" greenhouse, but for various reasons one hasn't been built yet.  

With the recent cold snap I've been reading a lot of people asking for tips and advice on how to keep their greenhouses warm so their plants and seedlings don't succumb. 

I got to thinking about this a bit and how much maintenance a greenhouse is at this time of the year.  One person said they are spending $1,000 a month to keep their glasshouse warm enough. Can you imagine?  

Anywho ... these last several years I've learned a lot about gardening and seed starting.  And I realized that every place I lived since I got into gardening, I've worked my seed starting set up to fit in my house.  Greenhouses are nice.  What I am seeing is that having one is kind of the exception, not necessarily the rule. 

A lot of the blogs and channels show how to start seeds indoors with a seed starting station. 

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this because it's getting a bit late and I'm a wee bit tired.  I see a lot of people poo-pooing the type of greenhouse I have outside and that is a shame because they work well. There is at least one well-known YouTuber who said disparaging words about this style of greenhouse and I think she did a real disservice to those who are just getting started with seed starting and may feel bad that they have this "greenhouse" but not a "real greenhouse."  My only wish is that mine was a bit bigger because I start so many seeds now that my greenhouse is full to bursting when it's time to bring the plants out there.  However, I do have a second greenhouse and I may set it up this spring if I need it. 

So, yeah. If you are a hardcore gardener, you find a way. 

And my way is to have my seeds start in my craft room.  How close is everything?  You can see where my quilting station is, and my umbrella swift. 

Oh yeah, and the incubator behind it.  If I was hatching eggs out, I'd have the mini-greenhouse in a different spot. 

Fun times ahead! I can't wait. 

A mid-week catch up

 The last week has been pretty quiet.  Mother Nature remembered it is winter and we have a mild snowstorm going on right now.  Big fluffy flakes when I was last outside. 

One day I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. 

My son assured me they were tasty.   He blew through them pretty fast. 

I started the grand spinning project. Well, I started spinning the four ounces of fiber I wanted to spin this month. 

Fin Wool Top

Purchased: Paradise Fibers

Started spinning: Jan. 8, 2024

I also started up my first set for "Make Bundles for Babies"

I made one of the patterns listed on the website.  My crochet gauge is so loose that the next hat I make I will need to lose one row.  I'm currently working on a matching granny square blanket.

Most of my attention has been on my DayDreams wall quilt. 

One square. ... 

Two square ... 

Three square ... 

Four!

Last night I wrapped up the four squares needed.  Now I need to sew on the sashing.  Then the borders and all the other fun stuff. 

It's going to look so nice.

In other news, I made a trip to the office today and swung by the stores before heading home. 

I stopped in Menard's to see what they had for potting soil for seed starting.  The seeds were out. 

Um ... yeah ... I may have picked a few out. ... 

Tomatoes, some herbs and flowers. 

Lemondrop basil

Hollyhock - Country romance mixed colors

Hollyhock - Fordhook giants miced colors

Tomato - Delicious

Tomato - Sandwich slicer hybrid

Tomato - Cloudy Day Hybrid

Thyme

Sweet Pea - Queen of the Night, mixed colors

Lemon Balm

Canterbury Bells - Cup and saucer mixed colors

Rudbeckia - Black eyed Susan, single mixed colors

Chamomile - German

Delphinium - Pacific Giant, Mixed colors

Sage - Broadleaf

Onion - Walla Walla

Foxglove - Excelsior Mix

Butterfly weed - Asclepias tuberosa

Rosemary 

To be fair, the tomatoes were on my list to restock my supply.  I had those last year and was happy with production.

I'll be starting some of these this weekend. (Finger crossed) Along with some of the others already in my collection. 

*squee!*

Tonite my hubby and I had a project. The other day one of us decided our spice cabinet was in a very poor state, and we both agreed something *had* to be done. 

I wish I had taken a before photo, because the transformation is remarkable. 

We had no idea we had so many spices! This isn't all of them, either. 

The top shelf is my husband's pepper collection. 

We spent a few hours going through our spices, transferring them, combining the duplicates, and marveling at our spice collection.

Getting into the swing of things ...

 And trying to set myself up for success.  Set myself up for reaching goals, I mean. 

Yesterday I started working on the DayDreams wall quilt I'm making for my bedroom. 

I started my day off with Pat Sloan keeping me company. 

Sewing the pieces together. 

The first phase of my quilt making. 

Looking good so far. 

Probably the easiest piece of the whole thing. 

First square

All sewn together. 

Close to being able to sew this square together. 

I was a good girl and went a grabbed a bag of spinning fiber. 

Wool fumes is a real thing. ... I opened that bag it the smell just brought me back to when I was first learning to spin. 

I weighed it to ensure I had at least 4 ounce to spin this month. 

It's so pretty! 

In other news, I set up my indoor greenhouse and gathered almost everything I need for seed starting. 

And I made a quick little video showing the garden. 

Last little bit for this one ... 

My son ordered my Christmas gifts and they arrived yesterday.  When he asked me what he wanted for Christmas I said stuff for the garden.  

He found me some cute things online and ordered them. 

And a planter.  

I need to think of what to plant in there.  It will need to be a low growing plant.  Succulents, moss? 

Very last thing: I created a blog entry that will list the books I read this year.  A personal goal for this year is that I wanted to read and listen to books again.  The last few years have been very dry and I think my brain is starting to atrophy.  I set it up so there is a direct link to this entry just below the blog header. I did the same with my Goals for 2024 post.  

Until next time!