Sewing Vortex

January can be a cold and bleak time for many. The rush of holiday activities is over, yet the weather is still deary and frigid. By this time, I'm pretty much tired of people and just want to snuggle up in a warm sweater with a hot beverage.  Paro Cardigan , new TODAY from Itch to Stitch ticks all my "warm sweater" boxes. ✔ Long, but with a defined waist ✔ Front and back feminine pleats ✔ Roomy enough to wear over blouses and tee shirts ✔  Optional front closure where you can show off those over-sized buttons in your stash Paro Cardigan is the same precise pattern you expect to see from Itch To Stitch Designs. Every notch matches and the step-by-step instructions are simple to follow. There are Lengthen & Shorten lines on all the major pattern pieces making it really easy to customize the proportions to your own figure. I removed just a couple inches from the sleeve and bottom pieces, plus a small swayback wedge, to adjus...

It's the time of year to review how well I did on my 2016 stash busting goals and set some new sights for the upcoming year. 2016 Review Well, this is pretty easy. I didn't write down my 2016 goals anywhere that I can find. They are probably buried in the Stashbusting Group Feed. I searched a bit, but couldn't find anything concrete. I know, at the very least, I wanted to end up with less stash than I started. I toyed with using Evernote to track totals in January, but it was a failure. The pictures are nice and all, but tracking numbers was impossible. In February, I added everything to Excel and I love it. A new page for every month with automatic totals at the bottom. Worked perfectly for me. I uploaded a blanked out copy to the Stashbusing Group's Files HERE if you think it might work for you too. What The Numbers Say The numbers say I did not achieve my goal. I grew my stash by 11.36 yards in 2016. Yards at the start of 2016: 294.02  Yar...