Coats, Scarves and Sweaters

I had taken Friday after Christmas off as well as Christmas Eve. Joseph went to work. The other guys and I worked hard on our house shifting and actually made some visual progress. When I picked up Joseph, I informed him that we had something now that we haven't had in years - a coat closet!

We all worked on sorting and shifting again Saturday. There is some hope of actually finding the family room someday. Of course, the "office" is filling up much faster than the stuff is disappearing. I had hoped on putting at least one set of shelves in there, but that's not happening anytime soon. I also wanted to put up a rack to hold my Stampin'Up punches, but I can't find wall space!

I unburied my sewing machine - last seen when I made my skirt for David and Teresa's wedding reception. Can't get it to work. That's too bad.

Among other things, I was hoping to sew across the scarf that Debi got. I had crocheted 3 brown scarves with different stitches. I didn’t want to decide which was for whom, so I wrapped them without names and put them in one bag for Miriam, Ruth, and Debi. Debi ended up with one that was much longer than she wanted (but she liked the stitch). They had to be pretty long because the girls wanted pockets for their hands. I was thinking over the head, around the neck once or twice and then arm length – nearly 12 feet. Debi’s was one that I chained the entire length and then crocheted the width, unlike the others where I chained the width and crocheted the length. The girls had seen that stitch on the infamous elf sweater and requested it, and they wanted it in vertical, not horizontal pattern.. Naturally, this is the one that needed shortening. I couldn’t just rip out the amount not wanted. I ended up hand stitching across the scarf, cutting it off, and hoping that I sewed and crocheted it across well enough that it won’t come undone. The seam is buried inside the connection between the pink pocket inset and the scarf and hardly shows. So, MAYBE it will be OK.

Which reminds me of the gorilla sweater. The first half of 2008, I crocheted a sweater for my secret homemade gift. But, I thought it came out a bit too small. So the second half of 2008, I worked on a larger version. As it turned out, the much larger, two-toned, gorilla armed version. Pretty hopeless. I had David try on the first one when he was up for Thanksgiving. He got it on well enough and just thought the waist was a little small. But David is the biggest of my guys, so I decided to go with it. I haven’t heard whether or not it fits though, which worries me that perhaps they haven’t the heart to tell me. Now I am ripping out the gorilla sweater, which takes longer than one would think! I really secured those end joinings! I don’t think I will try another sweater any time soon.