Projects on the Burner

One of the wonderful, and crazy, things about being retired is that my list of 'to-do's' is growing by leaps and bounds.  In the stuff I am having shipped from North Carolina are two big bins of needlework which I now have the time to work on.  Hopefully, I will finish up some of those partially completed pieces that have been languishing for ages.

Not content with that, I have also lined up a couple of 'new' projects.  The first one is weaving on this loom. 

I saw this loom at the quilt show in April and bought one.  I want to make some woven rugs out of old sheets and jeans.  I have been buying old sheets at yard sales and Goodwill for the vintage fabric for quilts, but I will probably use some of them for rugs.  This is something I will probably work on while watching TV in the evenings.

Another project I to do is one that I have wanted to do for decades.  I saw this pattern years and years ago and was probably one of the reasons I learned to knit.

Photo by Vogue Knitting

This is the Map of the World Afghan.  It is knit in four panels and sewn together, which I really don't like.  I had thought I might try knitting all the way across but I have a couple of road blocks for that plan.  The first is that there are 'points' along the long edges of the afghan.  If I wanted to do it all in one go, then I would have to knit all the points and have then on needles to add as I go along.  Doable, but fussy.  The second, and most important one, is the weight.  A friend pointed this out to me.  Being in worsted weight yarn, the 324 stitches across would get bulky and heavy to knit in one go.  But I HATE seaming.  So I might try to do it in two panels rather than four panels in order to only have one seam to sew.  

The original is knitted in a tweedy yarn.  I went with the "Michael's option" (cheaper) and the amount of yarn needed fills this bin. 

Somewhere in there is my 40 inch circular needle (or somewhere else in the house!).  This is another project which will wait until the weather turns cooler and will be worked on in the evenings.