Weekly Rec – I Can’t Resist New Patterns

I won’t live long enough to make everything I want to make. I don’t stitch fast enough and I keep getting distracted by other things like eating food, sleeping, and cleaning out the microwave. At the rate that I get things done, I have enough planned projects to keep me busy for the next 50 or 60 years.

I might get another 50 or 60 years on this earth. Maybe. If I’m very tough (only the tough can handle getting old), very lucky in traffic, and don’t meet up with any homicidal microbes, I could live that long. Maybe. I might even have enough wits and eyesight left at the bitter end to weave in my last yarn tail and wrap the final wool-y thing around my shoulders before scooting off to a condo in the sky. So if I stop looking at patterns right now, today, I have a razor-thin chance of finishing up everything I want to make.

But that won’t happen. I added four new things to my que just this month. I’ll probably add at least four more next month. Why? I can’t stop looking at patterns. I download them and read them like they were stories and if I like the story the pattern tells, I add it to the list of things I want to make.

Weekly Rec – Let’s Talk Coffee

Did you know that one of the names I considered for this blog was “Runs On Coffee”? It was. (Another was “Covered in Cat Hair”, btw.)

My current coffee stash*. I’m set. With this much coffee I can stitch and write for months!

Weekly Rec – Old Yarn Labels

I love yarn. I love old yarn. I love those labels on old yarn. 

This probably reveals too much about the depths on my obsession with the whole making-things-with-yarn hobby. Perhaps I should be keeping this particular passion to myself. It may make me look like a weirdo. But… I do love those old yarn labels. I had so much fun going through my stash and reading them all. Again.

And maybe there are a few fellow weirdos out there that will enjoy all the pictures of my old yarn labels! Maybe they will even share a few of their own. I can’t be the only one…. right?

Weekly Rec – Handi Tools are Pretty Handy

I love my Handi Tool. I didn’t always but I do now. I use it all the time. I know several ways to fix boo-boos in knitting but I prefer to use my Handi Tool. Its faster, easier, and requires very little brain power. Let me try and talk you into getting one.

Weekly Rec – Keeping Bugs Out of Your Stash

Bugs are everywhere. There are an estimated 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) bugs living in the world at any given time. Some of those bugs want to eat your yarn. You know what’s even more disturbing than that? They want to eat MY yarn.

I’m enduring a very wet, very rainy summer. In Texas, Rain + Heat = Insect Invasion. Fire ant mounds are everywhere. The mosquitoes are so bad that after they’ve sucked out all of your blood, they knock you down and steal your lunch money. So no one has to tell me that the Eaters of Yarn are out there multiplying their little buggy brains out. I already know that and I’m getting my defenses ready. You should too.

Weekly Rec – Online Stitch Libraries

A crafter can never have too much yarn, too many patterns, or too many websites on which to waste hours and hours thinking about yarn and patterns. Which is why we have online stitch libraries. These are collections of patterns, motifs really, that have been organized by helpful souls and available for free.

Weekly Rec – Mackerel Should Come with a Warning Label

Feline Overlord and I are six months into our regimen of regular Mackerel eating and its going great! Really, just great. She is doing so fantastic with her supplements of this amazingly stinky fish that I might not survive. 

Club Mackerel: Cat Super-Charger!

Remember this stuff?

For the Best in Historical Romance Look to Georgette

If you’re not burnt out on all things vintage I have an author for you that you might enjoy. Georgette Heyer published her first novel in 1921 and her last in 1975 (after her death) and she is credited as the founder of the Regency Romance. Her books are chock full of accurate historical details. More importantly, her books are fun.

Jenn’s Recs – Sherwin-Williams Chip It!™

Need help picking out colors?

The very best app for knitter’s and crocheters (and weavers and hand dyeres, and all other crafting types that would hang out here) is the Sherwin-Williams Chip It!™. Its free, its easy to use, and just because its marketed for interior decorating doesn’t mean we can’t snag it for our yarn-y purposes.