Why Housework Should be Avoided at All Costs

This is the outcome when your beautiful cashmere and silk shawl meets the power nozzle of the vacuum cleaner. Luckily only a small part of the yarn was sucked into the vacuum and I was able to extract it, but the needle is a goner. Which is a shame because I love these Lace Addi's and they ain't cheap.

I have been sewing a dress to wear to the upcoming Art Gala at our High School. I always remember why I love knitting so much and sewing not so much when I am in the middle of a sewing project. I love the portability of knitting, the wonderful fibers slipping through your fingers, the joy of watching the garment grow before your eyes.

Sewing is a much more solitary task (at least at my house where my sewing room is in the basement and all the action takes place upstairs) and wraught with landmines of mistakes that can't be just be pulled out and reknit. It you mess up your sewing it involves another trip to the very distant fabric store and the waste of all the time and effort you have already invested. It just seems so much more anxiety inducing.

And then there is the whole fit issue. Knitting is sooo much more forgiving of a curvy figure than the sewing. So I am sewing this lovely dress in a very un-forgiving fabric with the almost certain belief I will not be thin enough to show it to it's best advantage. So that's kind of looming over everything as well as next Thursday's deadline.The vision of what you will look like and the reality are often very jarring. Maybe this is why I have been sewing so many drapes, slipcovers and bags over the last few years and not so many garments for myself.

Oh and just to make sure the time crunch is absolute. I decided I would need a lace stole to wear with this new dress to this fancy Art Gala, and of course only the new yarn I just bought would look right with the dark brown fabric I choose, not one of the other 6 shawls I have already knit. So there is that little added weight on my shoulders.

I am counting my blessings that the vacuum only ate my needle and not the actual knitting, then I might have thrown in the towel and called "Uncle."

But who can resist the allure of a cashmere stole?  (This is one I finished for a good friend a while ago.) Mine will be in Jade Sapphire Silk Cashmere color Wasabi. It is about half done and I wish I could just work on it to the exclusion of all the other obligations in my life. Wish me luck.