Riles

Riley has been taking ski lessons weekly over the winter through her school. I went up skiing with her a couple of weeks ago and her ski instructor calls her "Riles". I think it's a great nickname, but unfortunately Riley has banned me from using it anywhere but on the slopes. Sigh.

DOCS roundup - 2/9

We had rather a full house at our most recent DOCS as the whole regular crew was able to make it. If I had to characterize the session in one word, I would say "tenacious"--digging in and getting the work done!

Projects worked: 5
New projects started: 4
Projects finished: 2 (well, 1 almost)
Snacks: Two sets of cheese and crackers, yummy treats from Sam, mixed nuts

Donna - Knitting to the end
Donna spend the time making up (finishing) a sweater she'd been working on over the winter. She wore it to our house last weekend, commenting that she'd finished it just in time to be able to wear it once or twice and then pack it away until next winter. Anyway, goregous deep red cowl neck with shaped waist.

Heather - Sorting for the good stuff
Rather than bringing along her scrapbooking closet, Heather brought a relatively small-sized packet of her son's kindergarten work for sorting (read: huge). She proceeded to make those of us with several over-brimming schoolwork boxes taking up valuable garage space by sorting Matt's work neatly into four piles: one to keep, two piles to ship off to grandparents, and the fourth in the (gasp--brave!) garbage. My hero!

Sam - Careful calculations
Early on, Sam was deep into some serious number crunching to determine needle size and stitch count to bend the official project specs to her creative will (and the specific yarn she wanted to use). Also early on she'd considered making a wrap but figured with the amount of yarn she had on hand it would turn out looking more like a shrug. At the end of the day, she'd had cast on a sweater and knit a round or two on it.

Chelsea - Cut, pin, cut
Earlier in the winter, Chelsea made this fabulous (truly fabulous, and beautifully fit) deep purple winter coat with a mixed-color paisley lining. Unfortunately the lining had given way at the seams in a way that was not reparable, so Chelsea picked out some really pretty new lining fabric and spent the DOCS cutting the pieces (though she says she has yet to assemble).

Me - Cut, pin, re-pin, cut, re-pin, re-cut
Having now three different shirt options in the offing, I put it before the group which one to start on and opted for one I hadn't mentioned in my earlier post, Simplicity 3786 (the view shown on the model). The fabric I picked is very gauzy, light-weight, semi-see-thru (with the thought of wearing a cami underneath). It's my first experience with this type of fabric, and geez did I find it hard to cut. It wants to slip, slide, and float away when confronted with scissors. Anyway, by the end of the day I did indeed have it cut.

In search of shirts

Thanks to my dedicated labors to clear out my house (with the help of a professional organizer, Amy from Empty Your Nest), my closet and dresser drawers are now nearly empty. Turns out that once I removed all of the stuff I never wear, doesn't fit, doesn't look good and never did, etc., what I mostly own is a bunch of skirts, some sedate sweaters, and hoards of exercise t-shirts with various Microsoft logos on them.

So, in the interests of restocking with some unique, fun, and hopefully suitable new shirts, I met with with Chelsea and another friend yesterday at JoAnn's Fabrics, determined to find some good shirt patterns to try out. I gravitated, of course, towards sedate-sweater types, but in the interests of branching out at least a little bit and trying something new, I ended up with these:

Simplicity 3956 (Second-from-the left illustration, also shown in the top-left photo)

Butterick B5084 (Either view B, shown with stripes in the middle, or A shown in the photo)

I've added them to the long line of waiting projects (sigh), but I may tackle them next. Wish me luck!