DOS Roundup - 12/9

Yesterday I hosted another DOS at my house. It was rather low key - just Donna and Sam besides myself - but the wintry day seemed right for a relaxed, subdued sewing (and crafting, for Sam) session. Here's the roundup:

Projects worked: 9
New projects started: 7
Projects finished: 5
Snacks: cupcakes from Trophy, crackers and yummy cheese spread, chips and salsa

Sam - Christmas cards
Each year Sam makes the most beautiful Christmas cards, and I always look forward to seeing them in the mail. This year I don't need to wait! She had bought a set of coordinated pre-cut cardboard ornaments, stickers designed to decorate the shapes, and coordinating paper. The most awesome thing about watching Sam work with something like this is her adaptability. When something isn't quite the way she had envisioned, a snip here and a tweak there and she ends up with something beautiful anyway. She made it though 30 of 40 cards before packing it in.
(I'll make a special mention of the absolutely enormous tool she brought along that first punched holes for and then inserted rivets. It looked like a kind of double-layered hole punch on steroids.)

Donna - Assorted knitting
Donna took the afternoon to shepherd several of her knitting projects along, bringing them to that point where the next step for all of them is either super un-fun or extra hard. However, she cut and attached a fringe for a cool moss stitch scarf she'd started (and finished shortly with the huge needles she was using) at a previous DOS. She finished up the cowl details on a sweater, with the next task being to do the assembly and seaming. She started a new scarf project containing soft wispy blue yarn with pretty blue ribbon that she'd noticed at Hilltop Yarns, but the yarns kept catching on the size 17 (!) circular needles she'd picked up, so she set it aside until she gets the right needle set.

Me - Assorted sewing
This DOS I was determined to finished those household repair projects that tend to pile up around the sewing machine and get pushed aside until they are completely out of style or don't fit. However, yesterday I made it through the current pile: repaired a shoulder rip in Jeff's shirt, repaired a ripped skirt slit, replaced a broken hook-and-eye hook, and added a missing hook-and-eye to a completed project. I also took the opportunity to complete a project that had been hanging around (and around and around), which was a new set of armchair covers for my parents' two living room armchairs. It was kind of a trick to get the shaping right even with one of the existing covers used for a pattern, and fortunately at the last minute I remembered to reverse two of them so they didn't all four end up as left arms.

All in all, a successful day for clearing out that pending work, making more room for projects ahead.