The things you find while out to lunch

well “out to lunch” could be interpreted many ways and those of you who know me personally — you do not need to comment on how “out to lunch” you think I am or some  past incidents have proven! ROFLOL  But I had lunch with a friend today (which only perpetuated my week of know really knowing what day it is because I normally have breakfast or lunch with her on the weekend).  It is only Friday.. must keep repeating that to myself since all day Tuesday I thought it was Wednesday – how depressing! 🙂

Anyway, while out to lunch, we stopped at Wisconsin Craft Market which has greatly expanded the yarn they carry and carry more brands that I like (3 Irish Girls – and today I found Zauberball there which I haven’t seen before!).  Anyway I left the 3 Irish Girls and Zauberball there (only because they did not have enough of the 3 Irish girls in the color I wanted) BUT…..

this did come home with me to as a replacement for the yarn I can’t get gauge on.

  Berroco Lustra. The luster of this yarn is so pretty – especially with that dark color.  I need to get swatching.

Have I cleaned the sewing room?  No.  Did I start the laundry I planned to do today – nope but I didn’t realize I was out of detergent and I have remedied that situation.  I pretty much didn’t do anything but fold a load of towels and go out to lunch. Oh I got groceries and put them away and I’ve been planning dinner.  Don’t want to do anything too taxing on a day off.  I picked up some Chili Oil to try with a shrimp stir fry of sorts but couldn’t get the same brand I used to buy so will have to see if this one has any kick to it.  The shrimp will be very healthy after my not healthy Reuben Melt and some fries at Perkins – YIKES talk about wasting a whole bunch of WW points — it was good but I don’t know that it was THAT good. LOL

Time to wind some yarn and see if my shrimp have thawed.  I need to finish my owl quilt tonight – sewed most of the binding down last night but have a few finishing touches to add, and I’ve got an applique block I need to get finished to mail next week.   The sewing room cleaning …. that sounds like a Saturday task to me!

On the Needles – Friday 2/21/14

  Sleeves are on the needles –still… But I have finally started the arm cap decreases so the end is in sight although it’s a bit debatable if these will be the right length or not but time will tell.  I’m getting anxious to be able to block all the pieces and start sewing together to see how it is turning out.

 

I also started on the KAL sweater even tho the KAL hasn’t actually started yet.  But what’s on those needles so far may get ripped back.  I did two different gauge swatches and neither one comes up to what the pattern says it should be.  I went up a needle size, which is very strange since I knit loosely, and still was getting more stitches per inch than called for.  I was going to go for it anyway since it’s a top down sweater so you can try on and adjust as you go, but I’m just not liking the looseness/openness of the yarn fabric knit on the larger needles.  I do just love the color of that yarn and with the smaller needles knits a really nice feeling fabric so I’m thinking I may save this for a Customfit sweater where I don’t have to worry about gauge and find something else to use for the KAL.

 

And the final photo – when I ordered the Blood Orange yarn for the KAL sweater, when I was placing that order I had added and removed and added back in and removed a hank of sock yarn, Loopy Ewe’s February Celebrations — I just loved all the various colors in it but I told myself I did not need to buy another hank of yarn for socks.  I thought I had decided against it and was pleasantly surprised that I must have decided at the last minute oh what the heck just get it!  Cause there it was in my package. Aren’t the colors in it gorgeous?  Off to do a bit of cleaning after I check out what everyone else has on the needles at Patchworktimes.com.

More exciting than a grapefruit spoon……

I pulled out my mad money and look what’s coming to my house……  Yes — even more exciting than the new grapefruit spoons. LOL

I’ve wanted a new machine to quilt my quilts on for years but just wasn’t willing to pay some of the prices they started out at when manufacturers started making the extended harp area.  I am able to quilt large quilts on my nothing fancy Janome but it’s a wrestling match to do so – so even an inch or two larger harp would be fantastic.  And the wrestling match is not just because of harp space — my Janome has no extended bed on it so there’s very little room to put your hand on the left hand side so you have to constantly be stopping to shift where you hand is before it falls right off the side of the machine.  That was more annoying than the small harp area.

My Janome has been a great little machine considering I bought it at least 15 years ago for less than $250.  It has been used mainly for just machine quilting all those years and has seen a lot of quilts come and go.  It deserves a vacation.  Even with the foot pedal to the floor, it just doesn’t machine quilt as quickly as I would like (remember this comment about speed is coming from the gal who when learning to sew on her mother’s sewing machine would hear her mother saying “slow down” from the other room because she could tell by the sound of the machine I was speeding along.”  🙂

The new Brother Nouvelle 1500S only straight stitches and can stitch a mere 1500 stitches per minute — yes, speed, I will like that. 😉  So my Janome will get a nice shelf in the closet with a dust cover to keep it warm and dust free until I need to do buttonholes or zig zag or satin stitch something.

I had very few “needs” for a new sewing machine — extended harp by at least 2″ more than I currently have, more speed, extended bed, and I didn’t want a computerized machine  or lots of plastic on the machine.  I wanted a metal machine that I could take apart and clean out and not have lots of computerized things that could go wrong that I certainly could do nothing to fix.   This  machine has all those things.   It is simply icing on the cake that it also has an automatic needle threader (my depth perception problems will be very happy about that), auto thread cutter, and knee lift and was on sale.

It will arrive tomorrow.  Good thing I gave myself a day off work today — I may need to spend it cleaning the sewing room so that when it arrives I can give it a test drive on my nephew’s quilt that has been waiting next in line to be quilted.  First, while I go find some breakfast, I’ll have to go open the sewing room door and kick up the heat a bit.  We went from 30s yesterday back down into the teens today with high wind gusts – which just happen to be gusting on the sewing room side of the building and it’s definitely chilly in there.  At least it’s not hailing outside like it was yesterday.