Still not knitting

Too much fun in one evening can throw an entire weekend off balance. Case in point: Friday night after work I met up with two of my closest friends from high school, Chip and Annie (Chip is the one on the right). We had joy, we had fun, we (I) had too much beer. I spent half of the day yesterday recovering. Bwah! Not how I had planned on spending the day.

To make up for my slothfulness, and to prove to myself that I am not a drunk total slacker, I managed to crank up enough ambition to make this cute little top. The pattern is New Look #6677 (view E). It may not look like it, but I was freezing while Mr. Strange snapped this photo! It's not summer yet folks! The color looks kind of pale in the photo, but it's very delicate. Heck, I look very pale! Pretend it's 80 degrees out and I have a tan...

I spent over an hour at Jo-Ann's trying to find the right fabric and gave up while waiting at the cutting counter with a bolt of fabric that was just "feh". Thankfully, I remembered a co-worker telling me about a new shop in town, Z Fabrics. It's a teeny, tiny brand new store, with just a few artfully placed bolts, but I like the owner's style, and found the print fabric for the top there.

While I was making this, I had a very difficult time with the neckline and front facing: lots of curved piecing and clipped curves. I cursed so much that it's a wonder that the walls of my sewing room didn't turn blue! At one point, I thought "This is so STUPID! Why am I spending all of this time making this thing when I could buy one at Old Navy for $13.99? Later it occurred to me that I have spent far more time and money on hand knit socks and that it's all a matter of perspective. This took about 5 hours, start to finish. Some of my trouble may have had something to do with my state of fatigue and dehydration. Perhaps it wasn't all that bad. I think I'd like to make another one, maybe with ties added. See side view and more info here.

On another topic, do you have yarn or fabric in your stash that you just can't use because you like it too much? You look at it, smile, and then put it away. Every once in a while you considering using it to make something, but then worry that it won't look as good or that it's not the "right" use for the yarn/fabric. Well, the daisy print that I used for my banner graphic is one of those fabrics for me. I've had this for over a year and have been unable to use it for anything. Now that I get to look at it every time I view my blog, I don't feel like it's so sacred. Today I took a giant leap and actually cut some of it!!!

Behold, a belt!

It's reversible!

Want to make one of your own? Here's the free pattern!!

Speaking of sacred fabric and patterns. The fabric I bought last weekend for the Cabo Halter, and didn't use, was on it's way to become precious. Mostly because I bought so much more than I needed for the pattern and wanted to find a way to use it that wouldn't be wasteful. Thankfully, I found this pattern at Z fabrics: Prairie Girl by Favorite Things (www.favoritethings.net - for some reason I can't access the site). The top takes 2 yards, leaving me a half yard to use for something else.

As you may have guessed from all of this talk about sewing future projects, I have not knit a single stitch in over 2 weeks. I'm even trying to corrupt others! Unbelievable! I'll get back to it eventually, maybe even tonight. In the meantime, check out this blog I stumbled on (go on, I dare you) if anything just to look at her beautiful fabric.... {sigh}.