February Project - Done!

I've been busily knitting lately, and haven't had much to say here at the blog. But now I do ... I finished the February project, my self-designed scarf and handwarmer thingamabobs. Here they are, once again modeled by the Dread Reverend (and a pillow).





I'm pretty happy with these. I like the pattern, I like how they match, and the handwarmer thingamabobs are really comfortable. Well, the one thumb opening is a little too large, but that's easily fixed with a little sewing up.

The scarf might have turned out better if it was a little wider, or somehow a little heavier, so it would hang better. I could add beads to the bottom. But chances are I'll just tie it anyway, and it'll still be cool.

These would have been done sooner, except genius that I am I forgot to reverse the pattern when I made the second handwarmer thingy, and ended up with two right-handed ones. Fortunately they don't take long to make, and I whipped up a properly left-handed one in just two evenings this week.

I'm pleased with my "finish one thing a month" progress, too. Well, okay, it's only really been this one month. But I still finished, and I'm still pleased.

For March I'm finally going to dive into that new Cat Bordhi sock book I bought back in November or December. I knew when I got it that I couldn't get into it until I finished my Christmas socks, but then when I had done that, for just a wee tiny period of time I lost interest in socks.

Now it's back, and I think that would be a great March project. I stocked up on some sock yarn awhile back, so I've got options.

I already know what April's project is going to be - and it's going to be a challenge. I broke down and ordered this pattern, which I saw in the Patternworks catalog and somehow became unreasonably obsessed with, and this yarn to make it with. I'm not really much of a 'shawl person,' but sans logic I just really, really wanted to make this. Although, due to it's complexity and the approach of the first event of the year (for which I need the pirate coat embroidery done), I may not get the shawl done in April, even if I start it then ... it may end up as the finished project for another month. But that's okay - my deal was to finish one thing a month - it doesn't have to be finished in the same month I started it. So if I run into a month where I'm not going to be able to finish any of my ongoing projects, I can always throw together a couple of dishcloths (I really like my handknitted dishcloths, but only have 2 so far) or sew some garb - I need that too, and the 'finish one thing a month' challenge isn't just about knitting. It can be any of my fiber obsessions.

That plan wasn't, by the way, some sort of 'competition' or 'look how much stuff I can make' thing. The whole point was, I was getting frustrated with knitting projects that drag on for years, and never seeming to have anything to show for it all. I was starting to feel like a hamster on its wheel. I was also getting frustrated because in my desire to get said long-term project done, I was hesitant to start anything else. But working on one thing for so very, very long and thinking "I don't want to start anything else till I finish this" means months or years where I can't make anything else. It also made it hard when I'd see any new project I wanted to make, because I'd be afraid to commit to it, thinking that if I did, for maybe a year or more that would be the 'only thing' I could work on.

So I decided to scrap that 'focus on one thing at a time' mentality, and add some small(er) projects into my year, to have the satisfaction of accomplishment, of actually having finished things throughout the year, in addition to my big, long-term projects. And it's helped already - as I said, I'm inordinately pleased to have completed the scarf and handwarmer thingamabobs this month. I know, most knitters do this instinctively ... knit multiple things at once. I guess I'm just a slow learner.

But I decided to include any project, not just knitting, because in the past I had tended to focus only on my knitting projects, and discount anything else I'd done throughout the year - which was kind of unfair to myself, since I make other cool stuff too, and sometimes they are quite an investment in time and skill (like the pirate coat). So now I count things like garb and embroidery projects, too.

Despite all these other distractions, Celtic Icon is coming along, too. It turns out that knitting begets knitting - just because I've added a new project to the mix didn't mean I stopped working on Celtic Icon, and in fact I've gotten more done on it this past month than in the last year. Who knew? (okay, apparently everyone but me).

I finished the first front piece recently, and started on the second front piece. After that all that's left is two sleeves, and the two side panels (one of which is half-way done). Then will come the challenge of trying to fit it all together since my pieces aren't measuring the same length as the schematic. I checked my row gauge several times on this first front piece, and it seemed dead-on to me, but for some reason the overall length of the piece was, again, several inches too long. Hopefully it'll be the same several inches too long that the back is, and hopefully the sleeves will do something similar, and it will just magically all fit together.

Famous last words of knitters everywhere who have impaled themselves on their knitting needles for projects that turn out not even remotely close to the proper size. (I know I'm not the only one who has one of those monstronsities thrown on the floor in the back of the closet, because I wanted it out of my sight so badly I didn't even have the energy to rip it out to reuse the yarn yet; someday I will, though, that was a pretty nice cotton yarn; a whole over-sized sweater's worth).

Work progresses on the pirate coat, as well. Two weekends ago I finalized the first motif with my practice piece, and I'm ready to re-embroider it onto the 'real' cuff. That is the compass rose which is going on the center of each cuff. I still need to find and/or create another motif to go around the entire cuff, to sort of frame and set off the compass, but I'm hoping to do that this weekend. I'd better ... if I don't move along on this pretty soon, I'm going to have serious issues getting it done by mid-May.

Well, NASA's not looking for me

I'd never make a NASA photographer. But in a rare (very rare) moment of not-cloudiness in northeast Ohio in the wintertime, I have had a spectacular view of the lunar eclipse tonight.

I discovered that the optical zoom on my little digital camera was good enough to get a pretty decent picture ... IF I could have held the camera still. Even with the tripod (after I scrambled for 15 minutes finding it), I just couldn't get it stable enough. (It being about 15 degrees out there and me having to kneel in the snow to see the camera's view screen had nothing to do with that, I'm sure).

Anyway, here's what I did manage. The first one - Moon Twins - is of course from the camera slipping after I'd pushed the button. Still, interesting.







Oh well, that was fun. I got cold. I'll go check it out again in little bit, before it's completely over with.

Knitting Away; And, Of Course, A Problem

I'm still working away on the Celtic Icon sweater. I've made a lot of progress on the current piece, the right front panel. I'm into the raglan reductions now. And, unfortunately, I've noticed what may be a major problem. (go figure).

On the back panel, the initial instructions said to knit until the piece measures a certain length - easy, row gauge doesn't matter if you're just measuring the piece. But once you get into the raglan shaping, then you knit a set number of rows ... and if your row gauge is off then, you will end up with the shoulder part being too short or too long. I checked my row gauge when I was working on this part of the back panel, and it was indeed off. So I did a bunch of painful math, and determined that I needed to add about 12 rows to the section to make it the right length. I interspersed them evenly throughout the section, and thought myself very clever.

That was the last time I was working on this sweater, about a year and a half ago. When I got to the part of the front panel where I'd need to make similar row increases, I couldn't remember exactly what I did, so I thought I'd just re-measure and re-do the calculations. But when I checked my row gauge on the front panel, it was dead on.

I re-measured the back panel. The section from the raglan shaping up is almost a couple inches too long. Which means I miscalculated somewhere, and quite probably didn't even need those extra rows, or at least not all of them.

If the sweater just ended at the top of the neck, I'd just rip it all out and re-do that section - I'm not putting several years of work into this sweater to have it not fit. But, it's not that simple ... the hood extension, the center strip of the hood with the cable pattern in it, that goes from the back of the neck all the way up over the top of the head to the front hood edge, is knit from the back in one solid piece. I'd have to rip out more than a foot of cable panel, then another 8" or so of the back, to get back to where I need to fix this. In fact, I'd need to rip out about half the work I did on the back.



I can't face that. I don't know yet what I'm going to do. One plan is to finish this front piece, or maybe the whole thing (both fronts and both sleeves and side panels), then see just how badly it all fits together. If I'm lucky, the different won't be horrible and I can manage to fit it all together and have it still work.

If not (which is the far more likely thing), then I can only think of two other ways to fix it. I could learn a new and interesting skill. I've read about this (so obviously I'm not the only one who has ever run into this dilemma). I can (in theory) pick up a row of stitches at the base of the hood extension, then cut my yarn somewhere below that, and remove the hood extension intact, with live stitches on the bottom. Next I'd have to rip back the center back section to the point where it needs fixed, reknit it, then ... reattach it to the hood section with kitchener stitch.

Which I've never learned to do. But it can be done. Although I'm not at all sure how you would do it in the center cabled section, to keep the cables intact with no wonky break.

Plan B (C?) would be to simply figure out how many rows I'd need to add to the front panels to get them the same amount too-long as the back, and just do that. Then, although those sections would be longer than the pattern called for, at least they'd all match and, in theory, should all sew together nicely. I'm not sure, but I don't think it would majorly distort the sweater if the section from the neck to the underarm was longer than it was supposed to be (as long as it all matched). But then, I never could visualize well spatially.

Ah, but it's not that simple. I'd also have to adjust the same rows in the sleeve, and possibly the side panel insert.

Oy. This is disheartening. I wonder if I'll ever learn to knit anything that actually measures out to the right specs, and fits. I thought I was being extra careful with this one (having ruined the last 2 sweaters I attempted to make by not paying attention to gauge). But apparently I neglected to re-measure this section before moving on, assuming that my calculations were correct. How silly was that?

If I'm going to add rows to the front panel I'm working on, I need to decide that soon, because I'm well into it already.

Moving On ... February Knitting

It didn't take me long to be lusting for a new knitting project. Keeping with my goal of trying to finish one thing a month (in addition to Celtic Icon, the other big goal for the year; and counting the log cabin blanket as my January project, just because I can), I decided to start on my scarf.

I mentioned this before, but I had two balls of yarn in my stash that I'd bought on a whim, and now had an urge to make something out of. Since there was so little of it, I thought I'd try making up my own scarf pattern, designed to maximize the yarn I had without risking running out. I was envisioning a more decorative scarf, not so much something for real bulky warmth.

I decided to make a sort of modified seaman's scarf. The ones I'm familiar with (from Stahman's Shawls and Scarves), have a neck band that is ribbed, then two tails - the 'main part' of the scarf - in a lace pattern.

I didn't think I had enough yarn to knit the neck band in ribbing, so I knit it in straight garter stitch (a la the log cabin blanket patches; apparently I'm not over that yet). Initially I started it with the garter ribs crosswise so that I could start it with a provisional cast on, then have live stitches on both ends for doing the tails simultaneously. But I very quickly decided I didn't like the look of that, ripped it out, and started over by casting on 72 stitches (a number chosen more or less at random based on the gauge on the ball band), and knitted the neckband length-wise.

Then instead of having live stitches at both ends, I just had to pick up stitches across both ends to start the tails.

The next thing I tried was knitting both tails at once on a circular needle, my theory being that I could attach one ball of yarn to each tail and knit till I ran out of yarn, to maximize the minimal amount of yarn I had.

I grabbed my Barbara Walker book "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" (she has 4 or 5; I only own one of them) and looked through the patterns until I found one I liked and thought would work well. I had knit the neck band with a size 8 needle, because that's what the ball band suggested, and that turned out well. I decided to change up to a size 10 for the lacy parts, figuring that would help make the lace more open and ... well, lacy.

A few inches into it, I didn't like the way it was turning out at all. I realize it would have looked different when blocked, but I just thought the stitches looked too big and sloppy, and I didn't think the pattern was working out very well. It looked like the type of thing that only shows itself well en masse ... the narrow band of the scarf tail wasn't going to let the pattern show to its best advantage. I didn't think it was going to look right even blocked.




I ripped that out too, began a different pattern, and went back to the size 8 needles. Much better. The new pattern I chose is called Candle Flame. I was familiar with the Candle Flame shawl and really liked the pattern, so I was happy to find this in the book (although it looks slightly different than the shawl pattern, but still pretty). I wasn't sure how it would look in such a narrow width, and I was pleasantly surprised ... to me it looks a bit like cascading leaves, since I'm basically knitting it upside down.

One other thing I changed was going back to knitting the tails one at a time. This is the second time I've tried knitting two of anything on one circular needle. It was working, but I'm confirmed in my initial opinion that it's just not for me. It's just too fussy for me, I don't have the patience for it. Well, hey - at least I tried it. Twice.

So when I started the tails over, I just did one at a time. I had a pretty good idea by then that running out of yarn actually wasn't going to be an issue after all, so I wasn't too worried about it. And I finished the scarf, and actually blocked it ...


... and viola! My first self-designed scarf. I'm pretty darned happy with this.

This is the first time I've ever blocked anything, because it's the first project I ever finished with a 100% natural yarn that needed blocking (and it did; until I blocked it, those tails just curled up into a long tube). Although I'm very picky about the feel of yarn, most of what I've made has in fact been made from acrylic yarn, for ease of care. The log cabin blanket, for example - I'm not putting that much time into something that large that I'm afraid to get dirty because I can't wash it.

So I finished the scarf, and had almost a whole ball of yarn left, and what did I decide to do? I decided to make a pair of wristlets to go with the scarf. I put some thought to it, and decided I could make them match the scarf by knitting the same pattern over the back of the hand, then having ribbing to keep them snug around the rest of the wrist.

And it turned out great!! I was very happy with this ...



(modeled here by the Dread Reverend). Except that I didn't have enough yarn left to make a second one.

Yeah, you know it's coming. I ordered one more ball of this yarn, so I can finish my matching wristlets. Some stash cleaning out, huh? But it was all good ... for one thing, this yarn only costs $2.98 a ball. And since I didn't want to only order $2.98 worth of yarn when shipping and handling was going to be $6.00 regardless, I made the order worth $6.00 S&H by adding some sock yarn to it.

Hey. Sock yarn I can always use.

So my February knitting project is well on it's way ... as soon as I get my new yarn, I'll finish up the wristlets, and have this quirky little matched set I designed myself. I'm pretty happy with that.

And ... I've started back on Celtic Icon! That really makes me happy. Here's a picture of the front piece I'm working on (unblocked, yet, of course - hence the curling sides).

Pirate Coat Update; A New Edition of "This *^#$% Old House"

My house doesn't have a real attic, it has these cubbyholes along the eaves. Like this.



And while rooting around in this one in the last few months, because it's where the holiday decorations are stored, I noticed the insulation was falling down alarmingly. It looked like this ....



Although I probably should have just replaced the insulation entirely, that was a project I wasn't up for. But I decided I did need to do something with it, so I resorted to Plan B - stapling plastic up over it to basically hold it in place (and keep any that wasn't already ripped up from getting ripped up).

So Saturday I went out to Big Lots and bought a couple inexpensive but relatively heavy clear plastic painter's drop cloths. Then I spent awhile in this cubby fixing the mess. The section I got done was the worst of it. I had a swirl of little tiny insulation fibers floating all over the place, and I'm sure a bunch of them got inhaled (because I didn't think about wearing any kind of mask for that, until it was too late and I was already in the middle of it). I had little itchy bits of annoyance stuck on me all day. And I only got this one section done.



But ... at least I got that done, and could (finally) put the Christmas decorations away. There's quite a lot more of it left to do, but I kind of figured that was enough for one day.

Then I worked on the pirate coat!

I had initially started the embroidery in rayon floss, because I thought it would look a wee bit fancier - it has a bit of shine to it, almost like a satin or silk. But even practicing and trying to be careful, it was turning out like this.


Messy. I wasn't terribly happy with it, so last night on a whim I decided to try regular embroidery floss. Wow - what a difference.


I'm definitely glad I tried this, because I'm definitely sticking with this now. It's so much easier to work with, and it looks much better.

I'm still working on a practice piece for the cuff, because I want to experiment with different stitches and how the whole thing will look, before I just start on the actual cuff. I'm really debating on adding a little bit of color, or at least shading, to help the different elements of this particular motif stand out. If I don't do that, I think I'll have to simplify it somewhat, because as it is now, it's a pretty complex motif, and if I do it all in black satin stitch, I think it's just kind of going to be a big blurry blob.

I've been waffling about the color issue steadily, because I'm afraid even a little color will sway it over into the realm of just looking tacky. I want to first try some 'shades of black' - like adding a bit of charcoal gray.

But I don't have any of that color. I considered running out to Joann Fabrics again today to pick some up, but ... we're in one of those arctic freezes, with wind chills near - 15 and a high wind warning, and I'm just not entirely sure I want to go out today. I mean, who wants to go out in this to buy embroidery floss ...


... especially when there's plenty of other stuff to do.

I could shift my focus to another part of the coat, and begin planning the embroidery for the neck band and button band. Of course, there's always knitting. Or I could just curl up under the log cabin blanket and read and drink tea all day.

While I'm on the topic, I have to brag about this ...


... this is the transfer paper I found for transferring my designs onto the pirate coat for embroidery. Okay, so everyone else in the world probably already knew about this stuff, and I'm just out of the loop. But no matter - I've found it now, and it's going to save my life on this project. It is so incredibly easy to use ... I just placed it on the fabric, placed my pencil-drawn design on top of it, and traced over it with the point of a knitting needle. It easily transferred crisp, clear lines even onto this black twill fabric. And, the coating on the transfer side didn't seem to 'disappear' - the package says you can use it over and over, and it seems to be true (well, to a point, I'm sure). This was a sampler pack with a variety of colors, but the yellow and white are probably going to be most useful for me on this project. I am so impressed with this stuff! The only thing I noticed was that as I worked with the piece, it did begin to rub off the fabric a bit. But that was easily dealt with - every so often I removed the embroidery hoop and re-drew any faded places with a white pencil. It's not coming off so fast that I can't keep up with it, so I don't think it'll be any major trauma. And the advantages of it far outweigh this little bit of necessary maintenance. So ... great stuff, highly recommended.

"It's Done! Done!" she screamed madly

Yes, it's true ... I finally did it ...

I finished the log cabin blanket!!! It's done - done - done!

Can you tell I'm excited? Euphoric wouldn't be too strong a word. I can't stop heaving huge sighs of relief.

I did some checking back in my old blog posts, and I discovered that I started this blanket on January 19, 2007. And finished it one year and 2 1/2 weeks later. It's a little bigger than I thought I'd managed to get to before I gave up ... that's a queen size air mattress it's spread out on.




In other good news, I ran out to Joann's tonight after work, and got this little gem.




It's my OTT-Lite, the little 'task' light which was on sale for $39.99 (half price! can you believe the price of these things? it better help me embroidery and cure my mid-winter blahs) and will work just peachy for my embroidery. In fact, it's lighting up the left half of the blanket in those pictures above, since I had it sitting on a side table when I took the pictures. (It was a little too far away to light up the whole blanket; but you can sure see the difference in colors between the left side, and the right side lit by a regular household incandescent light).

So I'll be all set when I start on the embroidery again - soon! I'm still going through a bit of withdrawal from the log cabin blanket. You know, it's weird when you finish a very long-term knitting project. The first time I did it, I actually had a kind of post-partum depression ... something that had been attached to my hands for so long suddenly gone and living an independent life.

I didn't really get that with this blanket ... I would be lying if I said I wasn't glad it was done. It's less like post-partum depression and more like watching your 20-year-old finally get their own damned apartment.

But I still want to savor that feeling of accomplishment, of 'done-ness' for awhile, before I officially move onto another project - especially one that's destined to be so time-intensive. (Not that I'm complaining! I live for this stuff ... the day job's only purpose is to be able to afford more fiber).


(It's done!!!!)

Let There Be Light

I see my elusive friend Rhys posted a comment in reply to my recent whine about not being able to see my embroidery stitches in black on black. He reminded me about the full spectrum lighting available which would help with that. Very true - I am familiar at least with the "Ott-Lite" which Joann Fabrics carries. I had initially ruled it out because every time I'd ever looked at them, they were (to me) exorbitantly expensive.

But I was just checking online, and these lights happen to be on sale for 50% off through Saturday, which means I could get this small table-top model for $40. It's very small, but that also makes it very portable, for moving around to different embroidery locations (which will happen). And, I think my financial situation is going to improve in the very near future, so I think I'm going to go splurge on one of these lights for myself this weekend. Ah, if they have any left by the last day of the sale. That could be a problem. Maybe I should run out there tonight after work. Especially considering that I'm going to need it really soon, since the embroidery is about to shift to my primary focus now that I'm running out of other things to work on. (hint hint ... more on that later).

So thanks, Rhys! If you hadn't mentioned those lights, I'd have never bothered to check, and wouldn't have known they were on sale. I suppose this means you're going to claim an interest in my coat and want to borrow it at War Practice? Trust me - it won't be as warm as yours. Although I'm already thinking about making a second one, fur-lined (fake, of course) for those cold-weather events (i.e., every one I go to except Pennsic).

Magnum Opus: Pirate Coat Update

I worked on the pirate coat all day yesterday. Literally. I had a nice dinner planned, and was resisting even dragging myself away from it for that, so the Dread Reverend suggested we order pizza and wings. He so rocks.

I got the coat mostly done. It doesn't technically look much different than last week, just hanging on a hanger, so I didn't take a new picture. Maybe one evening this week I'll model it for a photo shoot. But I got the entire front and neck facing put on; I put the second sleeve in; and I completely fixed the cuffs.

The cuffs in this pattern are really difficult. The first time I made this coat, for the Dread Reverend, I ended up scrapping the suggested cuffs and just making some modified simple cuffs. A friend of mine who also made this coat told me he had trouble with the cuffs as well. The two problems are, the directions make no sense and don't tell you what you actually need to do; and the cuffs are way too huge. Everything else about the coat is very well made, but those cuffs are like a fantasy costume instead of a realistic pirate coat. They are just silly big.

I knew going in that I'd need to modify them. But since I had never completed the cuffs on this pattern before, I didn't know how or how much I would need to modify them without seeing them in their original form. So I made one complete cuff, basting it only, and then once I figured out what it needed, I removed it and modified it. I ended up taking off 2" from each side of each cuff piece (for a total circumference reduction of 4"), and taking 1 1/2" off the height of the cuff. I had already taken 3" off the bottom of the sleeve to fit me, which also reduce the width somewhat, since the sleeves flared out at the bottom (for some stupid reason). After taking another 2" off the width of the sleeve, everything fit together great.

And it was perfect. The cuffs looked much better this way. So I put both cuffs together, but did not attach them - because I have to have them unattached until after I finish the embroidery, so I am not embroidering through both layers, and the underside of the stitching will be hidden inside the cuff.

The only other thing I didn't finish on the coat was the bottom hem. That's a pretty simple thing which can be done any time, but which is going to take awhile (it's many yards of just straight stitching a hem), so I left it for later.

Now comes the embroidery - and with the ideas I've been having and the brief experimenting I've been doing, if I pull this off, and do what I want to do, the way I want to do it, this thing is going to be a work of art. It's going to be my embroidery magnum opus. Which is pretty ambitious considering I haven't really done all that much embroidery in the past - I've started a few small projects, only one of which I ever actually finished. It's going to be amazing. It's a lot of embroidery. I'm only mildly intimidated. (Okay, maybe a little beyond mildly). But I'm going to forge ahead and go for it.

I decided (quite wisely, it turns out) to do practice embroidery before I start on the actual coat, using some leftover scraps of the fabric. I'm starting out trying rayon embroidery floss, because it's satiny with just a tiny bit of shine, which I thought would look nice. Here's a picture, more or less - it was very difficult to get a good picture this morning, due to bad lighting ... future pictures will probably have to be taken outdoors with natural light to look like anything.

I began with 3 strands (the part labeled A), but it seemed too bulky and was hard to keep neat ... it just looked kind of sloppy. Then I tried just one strand, outlining the design in regular split stitch (part B), but that wasn't doing anything for me either. (It looks far neater in this picture than it looks in real life).

My next experiment was outlining the design in split stitch, then going back over that line with a tiny satin stitch (C). I liked that better, but decided it was a little too tiny, delicate and tedious. I'd been having an idea of doing a sort of couching over a piece of string of some type, to give nice raised edges to the designs. So I tried that next, over a piece of sock yarn (D).

That looked pretty awesome - although for the actual coat I'll use black yarn. This just happened to be something I had on hand to experiment with.

And if I decide to do that over most of the design, it may well take me the rest of my life. Ah well. It'll be worth it.

One thing I know for a fact I have to do is find some better lighting to work on this. One of the reasons even the single strand embroidery was getting sloppy is because I couldn't really see very well ... black floss on black material, indoors at night, with nothing but a regular table lamp for light - no freaking way that will work for this entire project. But I'm sure we can rig up some better lighting for me.

The other issue with the practice pieces is that I just drew some quick designs out freehand, with a white pencil which desperately needed sharpened. So the designs weren't neat or clear at all. But that's okay for just practice. When I go to transfer the real embroidery patterns to the coat, I'll be much more careful. Saturday when I was out I found some transfer paper in white and yellow, for dark colored fabric. When I go to transfer the actual patterns, I'll make sure I have clean, clear drawings, then trace them onto the coat with the transfer paper, and I'll be able to do a much better job embroidering them.

And I gotta tell you ... when I accomplish those two things (better lighting and a clean pattern to work from), this is going to go extremely well.

I can't wait to get it done and wear it!! But it's going to be a long time before that happens. I'm seriously wondering if I'll even be able to get it done by Pennsic in August, much less the first event in May. But I'll have to decide early, because once I start on the embroidery on the main coat, I won't be able to wear it till it's done ... I can't wear it around with half-done embroidery around the skirts. It'll be all or nothing.

I'm going to do the cuffs first, so I can attach them and be done with them. Next I'll do the buttons and loops, and I'll be embroidering something decorative up both sides of the facing, around the buttons and loops, and across the back of the neck. I don't know what yet, but that will be Phase 2.

When I finish those two sections, technically I could wear it as is, since that part of the embroidery will be done. The next phase will be moving on to the voluminous skirts - that part will take a very long time, and that's the part I won't be able to stop in the middle of to wear the coat. So I'll have to see how much time I still have when I finish the cuff and facings, and whether to start the skirts, or leave it alone until after this year's events. Knowing me I'll plow ahead and try to finish the whole thing before wearing it anywhere. Maybe, if I plan well, I can do the embroidery in phases which will allow me to still wear it when only part of it is done. Well ... it's something to consider, anyway.

The embroidery itself seems to go fairly quickly, despite it's tiny size, once started. But it's kind of deceptive ... each tiny motify may go fairly quickly, but when there are so many of them over such a large area, there's no way around it taking a very long time.

One of my biggest challenges right now is choosing the actual patterns I'll be using. I have a bunch of ideas, stuff I found in books or online. Now it's down to designing the actual patterns, modifying the patterns I've decided to use to fit the space I'm working in, and making clear copies in the proper size to trace onto the fabric. That, too, is going to take awhile.

Needless to say, the log cabin blanket didn't get finished this weekend. And I'm so close ... I'm on the fourth border, and have about 4 rows of that done. It's going to be hard to tear myself away from the pirate coat now to finish it, but it's so close, I can't abandon it now!

Unfortunately I may not get to work on either tonight ... since I fluffed off the whole weekend on my fiber obsession, I didn't get anything else done I should have. I have a tax appointment Thursday to prepare for (all my tax papers are stuffed randomly in a big tote bag ... I don't think the tax lady would be very happy with me if that's what I hand her), laundry to do, and a pig-sty of a house to clean up. I hate when mundania interferes with my creative endeavors.