blog, i missed you!

i'm back! i have a computer at home again, and can upload photos. i'm like a new woman. actually, it was kind of nice not having the computer at home, especially on weekends. whole days went by where i didn't check my email...and it was good! but still, i'm glad to have what my husband deemed the "fourth member of our family" back.

so...what did i do while i was gone? well, not much. i feel like i go through this phase every january where i'm just really overwhelmed by my desire to make EVERYTHING, all at once. i start tons of projects, and none of them really stick. i just want to finish something, finish everything. it doesn't work so well. so i'm plugging along on my garter yoke cardigan, which i haven't even posted a picture of yet. it's looking really beautiful, and i'm past the waist shaping, so it should be done fairly soon. i'm also working on some smaller projects, plus some deadline baby shower knitting and sewing. hopefully at least some of this stuff will be ready to show off soon.


but first...i absolutely had to make something from this book. i got it with some christmas money, and i immediately fell in love with pretty much every project in the book. i found a blank canvas bag at the thrift store, so the patchwork pocket bag got to be my first project from the book. and it turned out really, really cute, if i do say so myself.

it was a total pain to use the seam ripper to remove the canvas straps (and i stabbed myself once, and bled all over the bag. nice!). but the rest was a piece of cake...definitely my kind of sewing project. i made it one lazy sunday evening, and then hand stitched the pocket onto the bag the next evening. i used a lot of fabric scraps that i had lying around, so the actual out-of-pocket costs for this project was the dollar for the bag. not bad! i will definitely be making more things from this book.

back soon with some knitting! though...i should warn you...something arrived in the mail today to further distract me from my many works in progress. i got one of these!

12 months = 1 year

wow, it's 2009. i meant to post this yesterday, but our laptop broke, bringing 2009 in with a bit of a heavy sigh and an unintended trip to best buy, who assure us we should have our computer back in 2-3 weeks. that's a long time! so no pictures here, either. but nevermind, i'm sure we'll survive. afterall, what is work for if not to play around on the internet.

anyway...at the beginning of 2008, i made a list of goals for myself--things i hoped to try out, accomplish, or improve upon in the coming year. here's the original list, and here's how i did!

1. i did take a spanish class, and was somewhat surprised to find that it was actually too easy for me. i took a conversational, speaking-focused class, and i realized that i haven't actually forgotten that much of my four years of high school spanish, at least the vocabulary.

2. i did bake bread in my new dutch oven. i also made stews, pot roast, and other yummy things. i love my dutch oven.

3. i just barely did read 30 books this year. nevermind that a couple were audio books, and a couple were graphic novels, but still. if i could rate it on goodreads, i counted it, and my final number was 30, with a 31st finished up yesterday, just a day too late.

4. i made jam three times this year. the first time was a complete, total failure. the second was technically better, but not great. the third time was a success. i think i've got this down now.

5. i got a book about preserving food, but didn't really progress much further than that.

6. i tried to grow some herbs...they all died. i blame the wimpy summer we had. and i am STILL on the waiting list for a community garden plot. it will be two years this spring that i've been waiting. maybe 2009 will be my lucky year.

7. my most exciting accomplishment...i got a REAL bed and a new, memory foam mattress. our mattress is no longer sitting on the floor. best money we spent all year.

8. i knit one sweater, and one little sweaterlet/shrug thingy.

9. major fail on this one. i barely broke out my sewing machine all year.

10. i creweled! and i loved it.

11. i also quilted. didn't love this quite as much, but at least i tried.

12. eat less sugar...hmm. i had mixed results with this one. i did really well at cutting out some of the sugar-loaded culprits in my diet for a while (hello, yogurt. you have a lot of sugar in you). but now i'm kind of back to where i was before. this is definitely something i want to work on again in 2009. oh sugar...why do you taste so good?

so...not 100% successful, but pretty good. i don't think i have too many goals for 2009, other than the sugar goal. i also want to learn to weave this year, and would like to use some of my stash that's been lingering for a while. other than that, i'm taking it easy on myself this year.

happy new year everyone!