At Her Leisure

This year was disrupted by an unexpected job change and relocation back to the area that I grew up in. Up until June I was working on needlework as usual, and I started a cross-stitched picture in July, but it didn’t move very quickly as we got the house ready to sell, moved to DFW, and started dealing with all the issues that you’re bound to find moving into a new house. I didn’t end up making my new favorite thing this year, but I enjoyed most of what I made.

It was still a sparse year for events. There was an outing in Phoenix, a whirlwind trip to San Jose, and Costume College. I had intended to go to two DFWCG events, but I had a houseguest for the Georgian picnic and the Christmas event was canceled due to rain. Here’s hoping next year I can start attending their events.

( This year’s projects behind the cut )

One of my goals for this year was to work from my stash. I was very successful. I bought the buckram and flannel for my 17th century petticoat, the marine vinyl for my husband’s welder cover, the “Cardinal Joy” cross-stitch kit, and the fabrics for my son’s Hallowe’en costume. My mother-in-law bought the fabrics for her blouse. Everything else came from the stash. Since I didn’t do a lot of sewing, my fabric stash didn’t decrease very much, but at least I didn’t add anything to it. I did decrease my yarn stash a little more significantly, though I’m trying not to even have a yarn stash. It’s mostly leftovers from projects where I had too much and some things that I bought in 2021 with specific projects in mind and just got a little too optimistic about what I could finish in a year.

I finished the main patterned section of the waistcoat and started the top border. I just have 35 rows left to finish all the knitting for this lengthy project. Maybe the knitting will be done by the end of the year. The making up won’t be, but that’s negligible compared to the knitting.

I finished the project today.

Now I get to go back to the 17th century waistcoat. 151 rows left. It feels so close, but that's still something like 50 hours of work so it'll be a bit. I've really enjoyed the cross-stitching, but I'm ready to pick up one of my knitting UFO's again. (Not sure if it really counts as a UFO when I was just taking a short break for seasonal Christmas needlework.) I'll at least spend the next two weeks on the waistcoat, and then we'll see if I want to take another little break from it.

Boring though they may be, it's time for weekly cross-stitching updates.

Week 1:



I knit a few rows of my waistcoat this week, but the vast majority of my needlework time was cross-stitching. I've got a couple of weeks that I expect I'll be working on my waistcoat, but mostly it will be cross-stitching until the new year.

I'm a little torn because I want to see progress on my waistcoat, but I also have these Christmas pictures in the stash. I know I don't want to work on them any other time of year. First world problems - which hobby shall I indulge tonight?

I have passed the one-third point on the back of my waistcoat. Only 218 rows to go. Of course, at almost half an hour per row, there's still a lot of knitting time left.

I have been working on my waistcoat again this week. Today I finished the border and started the main patterned section of the back of the body. That means I’m more than a fifth of the way through the piece. It’s rather exciting to have fewer than 300 rows left.

I finished knitting the fourth piece of my 17th century waistcoat last night and modified the pattern for the back to match the front.

This afternoon we got Hallowe'en costume materials so I finished the waistcoat piece just in time to start those. The costumes don't seem like they'll be too intensive this year, but there is a knit cap so I'll start that shortly. It will make good car knitting.

I reached the armscye of the second front of the Helen sweater on Friday and of the 17th century waistcoat on Saturday. I joined in the third ball of pink yarn just a few rows before the armscye.

I joined in the third ball of blue yarn on the waistcoat yesterday. It was row 106 of the second side of the body. I'm thinking I'll need one more ball of blue yarn. I expect the second pink ball will run out on this piece too, but it's got a fair bit to go so maybe near the end of the piece. Overall, I think this is going to end up using four balls of blue yarn and three balls of pink. I've still got about 600 rows to go so we'll see how it ends up.

I finished the third piece of my 17th century knitted waistcoat yesterday.



Two pieces to go.

It may not be wise to leave the largest piece for the last, but it makes more sense to make the mirror of the piece I just finished before making a different piece. The current estimate is that this project will be finished next summer.