A finish, a new start and some progress

Here it is the start of another week, and I must admit that this past week has been a little crazy as I have been trying to get a lot of things done. Being able to see that I have been able to move projects forward has been nice so now to see what I was able to accomplish.

Work also required some of my time so that means that I wasn't able to just hide and work on my crafting but that was ok because I did see some good progress on a bunch of things before the end of the week. Being able to balance both work and crafting has felt great so now to see what the next couple of weeks is going to be like as I am starting to see a bunch of things on my calendar.

Silver Anniversary - this week I was able to add some more stitches to this piece, and it makes me feel good seeing that I have been able to move this project forward. Of course, I would have liked to get more of it done but we will see what I can get done next week.

This piece has been fun to work on and I have slowly been able to move it forward a bit at a time. Something that I was able to achieve this week was reaching the top right corner of the piece. It was nice to be able to achieve that and now to see if I can continue to work on this piece over the next few months. I have reached the 60% completed on this piece and that makes me happy because it shows that working on it one week a month has meant that I have been able to get a lot of it finished.

Little Meg Shawl - large version - here is the knitting project that I started my week working on because I was at the point that I just needed to work on the cast off to get this piece off the needles. Given there were over 570 stitches on this piece the cast off wasn't going to be something that I could do quickly, so I just decided to work on it for a couple of days and by then I was able to say that I got it finished. 

I am so happy with how this piece turned out and I know that I need to get it blocked to see what it really looks like. It was nice getting this piece off the needles because you know what happens when one project is finished.

Something that I was doing while finished off this project was figuring out which shawl was going to be the next one of my needles. The next project was something that I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out but I have been having fun working on it and am looking forward to seeing it off the needles before too long.

Memories of Juneau - this pattern did call for a five bundle of yarn, but I decided that I was just going to work on it using one skein of yarn. The run part of this project is the pattern is Memories of Juneau which is in Alaska and the yarn that I am using was dyed in Newfoundland so that is both sides of the continent and that made it a little more run to work on.

This project reminds me of the Ex-boyfriend shawl, and the only difference is you can add eyelet rows whenever you want to add them. I have decided to add them every ten increases (every 20 rows) so that makes it a lot of fun to work on. 

I have been able to make some good progress on this shawl given I only started it on Wednesday, and I haven't worked on it each day. I am currently at 90 stitches on the needle, and I am not certain how many stitches I will get completed before it's time to cast off this project.

Other projects - I have been trying my best to just focus on getting projects finished or at least focused on and that has made me feel so much better. I know that there are a bunch of things that I would like to accomplish over the next couple of weeks so that means that I need to work on getting things accomplished.

I hope everyone has had a good week and you have been able to spend a bit of time each day doing something that makes you happy. There have been days for me that I haven't had a lot of time to accomplish anything, but I do make sure that I at least take a few minutes to do something that makes me happy.

This coming week I hope to be able to continue to move some of my projects forward and we will see what I have to show you next week. I do know that I will have a different cross stitch project to work on and then I will see much more of the Memories of Juneau I am able to get done.
 

English Paper Piecing - November progress

It is hard to believe that another month has come and gone. I know that I didn't spend much time on my English Paper Piecing but I at least made some progress so that is better than nothing.

Scrap throw - this month I was able to get a few more motifs made for the scrap throw and hopefully I will be able to start joining motifs together soon. I would like to get back to joining motifs again because that always makes me happy. I know for the scrap throw I have lots of motifs that need to be joined together so it means just sitting and working on them again. It would be nice to see how things go over the next few months.

Other projects - I haven't worked on any of the other projects this month, so I need to figure out just how to get back to seeing some good progress on my EPP again. 

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can get back to making progress on my different projects, please let me know. I have projects that I would like to get finished and then they will be off the list.

Hope everyone has a good month of December and I know it is a busy month of the year so we will see what I can get accomplished and I will show you what I get accomplished at the end of the month.

 

Made some more progress this week and a finish

It is hard to believe that another week has come and gone. I am sitting here and thinking what did I get done this week, but I know that there are quite a few things that I was able to accomplish which is good. I think a lot of us deal with those weeks that we aren't sure where the days went, but when we can sit back and think through everything, we can see what happened during the week.

Pandemic - here is the cross stitch project that got another week of attention and I am so very happy that it did. Besides adding quite a few stitches to the piece this last week, I was able to also say that I have completed two more pages on the pattern, so now we are sitting with just 5 more pages to go. It feels so good to be able to say that I have now less than 17,000 stitches to go on this piece and I hope to be able to continue to move it forward to get more of it completed before the end of this year. I might not get pages finished but I will be working on at least getting this piece a lot closer to a finish.

Something else that I have started to do this past couple of days is to try and work on adding some of the backstitch to the piece at the same time I am working on adding the full crosses to the piece. It means that I should be able to see a bit more detail added to the project when I am just stitching and moving the overall project forward. I know that there is still quite a bit of backstitch to go after I finish the piece because I haven't been doing a lot of it while I have working on the piece.

This piece is now going to go away for a couple of weeks as I would like to see if I can move a couple of other pieces forward a bit before the end of the year. There are still about 6 weeks left in the year so now to figure out what I will be working on during these weeks. I think I have it scheduled out but we will see what happens.

Little Meg Shawl - large version - here is the knitting project that has been getting quite a bit of attention this past week as I have been trying to get the shawl closer to a finish. As I said last week the rows do take quite a while to get completed so that means having to pick up this piece when I have some time to get even a row or two finished.

This week I tried to pick up the shawl every day and work on it as I wanted to see how close to the cast off edge I could get to before the end of the week. Well, with some hard work and determination I was able to get the shawl to the cast off edge yesterday. Now what I need to do is spend some time working on the cast off as it will be taking some time given there are 573 stitches on the needle.

It does feel good seeing that I have been able to get the shawl to the point that I should have it off the needles within the next couple of days. Once it is off the needles it will mean sewing in the ends and then blocking it so that it will be ready to wear before too long.

Now that this project will be finished soon it is time to figure out what the next project is going to be. I hope to be able to get that figured out quickly so that I can get the ball of yarn wand so that it is ready for when the needle becomes available. I will also need to figure out the yarn that I want to use for this next project and then I will be ready to go as soon as I can.

Toque - this week I decided that I needed to get this toque off the needles and finished so I finally did it yesterday. Maybe knowing that I wanted to show a finished item today helped me get it finished. It didn't take me long to get it done and now I have enough yarn left from making this toque to make another one so I am going to be looking to see what happen I will use this time.

Toques are a great project when you just want to have something smaller to work on especially when you only have a few minutes to pick up and work on something. I am going to be trying to have a toque on the needles through the winter because it will help me have something to donate next year as well as ensure that I am making progress on using some of the worsted weight yarn that I have acquired over the last few years.

Other projects - this past week I was able to get a few more motifs made for my Scrap throw but other than that I have been focusing on getting progress on both Pandemic and Little Meg Shawl. It has been nice trying to focus on the various projects because I now see progress on things instead of bouncing all over and not seeing much progress on anything.

I hope everyone has a good week and you are able to find those bits of time each day to do something that you enjoy. This week I will be trying to finish up the Little Meg Shawl and picking up a different cross stitch project to move it forward. Next week, I hope to be able to show you some progress on at least a couple of projects.


 

Made some progress in the last week

Here it is the start of another week and hopefully I will be able to spend some more time trying to move a couple of projects forward. The weather here has been cold and areas around us have been getting snow.

Pandemic - here is the project that came out this last week to get some attention. My first goal for this past week was to get a page finish, and I was able to achieve so we are getting closer to having this row of pages completed. There are still 2 pages to go, one is full size, and the other is only a partial page so we will see how quickly we can get these two pages completed.

Yesterday when I was working on it, I reached the 75% completed mark and that makes me feel very good however there is still over 19,000 stitches left to go so we will see how things go. I will be working on Pandemic again this week so hopefully I can get closer to having the last two pages of this row completed and then it will mean I just have the top row of pages to do. I am so looking forward to getting this project finished but I do know it is still a going to take a while to get it done.

Little Meg Shawl - large version - here is the knitting project that has been getting my attention over the last week. The rows are continuing to get longer, and it takes longer to even see any progress on this shawl. There are still almost 30 rows to go on this piece so hopefully I can focus on moving it forward again this week so that I can finally see it finished.

I am finding that this project has been taking me a while to get completed and not certain why that is. I know it did sit for a while without a lot of attention and that probably hasn't helped. Now to see if I can at least get this shawl finished so that I can start something new and hopefully it won't take as long to finish as this shawl.

This week I hope to be able to make more progress on this shawl, and I am going to try and get at least two rows completed a day because that helps me move it along. The ball of yarn is slowly getting smaller, but it still is rather large. This yarn was over 200 grams so instead of using two balls this was just one ball of yarn and maybe that is also what seems to be making this project feel like it isn't getting very far.

Toque - well this project didn't get a lot of attention this past week but at least I was able to finish knitting the rows and the decrease. All that is left to do on this project is to get it off the needles and sew it up. Hopefully early this week I can get this toque finished up and then I will see what toque I will work on next.

I am in no rush to get the toques made so they will be going to charity once I find a place that would like to have them. There is one yarn shop that collects items but they only do it in October, so I have lots of time to make some more items to have them ready for next year.

Other projects - I haven't work on any other projects in the last week as I have been trying to focus on both the shawl to get it finished and Pandemic to get it closer to a finish.

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time to do something that you enjoy doing each day. Make sure that you take some time to recharge your personal battery because if you don't, it will be hard to be there for those around you.

Have a good week and I hope to have some more progress to share with you next week.

More progress on projects

Here it is the start of another week and looking out the window, I would say it was either late December or January not early November. I think someone is playing a very mean joke on us we had our first snowfall yesterday and not certain how much we got but I head somewhere between 2 and 4 inches (5 and 10 cm). For November and us that is a lot of snow and it's the most snowfall ever for the 9th of November.

Unleash the Butterflies - here is the project that got some attention over the last week. It was nice to see that I could move this project again and I am slowing starting to see the piece come to life.

This past week I decided that I would work on the colour that had the most number of stitches left to go so that was black. When I started the week, I had 8,742 black stitches to go on this entire piece and at the end of the week I now have 6,830 black stitches remaining. I was able to move black from the highest number of stitches remaining to 4th highest number of stitches left. It feels good being able to move this piece forward like I have been able to do.

Next time I pick up Unleash the Butterflies I may pick up the new colour with the highest number of stitches left and see how that goes. Seeing this piece start to come to like makes me very happy. It is now going to be going away until December, but we will see what I can get done then on it.

Little Meg Shawl - large version - this week I was able to make a bit more progress on this shawl. It takes quite a while to get a row done so that means that I don't get lots of rows completed each time I pick this project up. I am trying to get it finished before too long, so I have decided that I am going to try and get at least a couple of rows done each time I work on it.

A couple of rows doesn't seem like a lot of progress but this week I have started to see some the shawl continue to grow which is good. Being able to spend some time working on this shawl a bit at a time is starting to pay off. For a while I was having a challenge picking up this piece but now, I am starting to see progress on it again.

Of course, as I am working on this project, I am also trying to figure out what the next project is going to be. I haven't decided the next project yet as I want to ensure that I can get this one completed before I really focus on figuring out the next project. The next shawl that I work on isn't going to be as large as this one so that I can see progress on it a little faster. 

Toque - here is the other knitting project that I have been working on a bit at a time. It feels good seeing that I have been able to make more progress on this as well. I had hoped to get more of this done this past week but there is no schedule for when this needs to get done which is good. Hopefully this week it will get a little bit of attention as I would like to see if I can get this one off the needles and another toque cast on. 

Knitting toques or mittens is a great way to use up the odd balls of yarn that you have. I am someone that does have quite a few odd balls of yarn so working on toques is helping me use some of these balls up. I am not certain how many toques I will knit over the winter months but at least I will have some to donate by the end of the winter which is good.

Other projects - I haven't worked on any other projects this past month and part of that is I have been trying to focus on keeping the number of projects on the go down so I don't feel overwhelmed. This coming week I might try and work on my English Paper Piecing a little bit, but we will see how things go.

I hope everyone continues to find that little bit of time to do something that you enjoy doing. Being able to continue to get little bit of progress on something each days makes me happy. I might not have lots of time to do anything but even those few minutes moves something forward.

This coming week I hope to be able to make some more progress on things and there is going to be a different cross stitch project that will get some attention. I am looking forward to this next project so we will see how much time I have to work on it. 

Hope everyone has a good week and I hope to have some more progress to show you next week.

 

Moving projects forward again

It is hard to believe that another week has come and gone. I know that we have been busy so that might be one of the reasons why this week seems to have gone by so quickly. Hopefully this coming week I will be able to find some time to do some more crafting as I know that looking at the planner, the beginning of the week has quite a few things that need my attention. We will see how things go and hopefully there will be some more progress to show next week. 

Of course, I am going to be trying to at least move my projects forward a bit again this week so we will see what happens. I do know that seeing even bits of progress on the projects makes me feel good, so that is once again the goal for this coming week.

Silver Anniversary - here is the project that got the attention this week. I wanted to see if I could continue to move it forward and I think I was able to accomplish that. I decided to try and work on filling in a section, and I made some progress on it.

My goal this past week was to try and at least get the diamonds completed in one section of the piece and I got that accomplished and then it was to start filling in all the little triangles that needed to be completed. I got all of the diamonds completed and some of the triangles done but there is still a ways to go before this section is totally filled in. I figured trying to focus on a section instead of bouncing all over like I have been doing might be a good idea.

This project will now go away until closer to the end of November when I will pull it out again. Giving this project one week a month has meant that I have been able to see some good progress on it without getting tired of working on it.

Toque - this week I made a bit of progress on the toque that I have been working on. I need to get this to 10 inches before I do the decrease so that means that I still have a bit more knitting to go. It has been nice to have a project that doesn't have lot of stitches on the needle.

We will see how much of this project I can get accomplished this coming week. I would like to be able to get this project completed as there is still a lot of worsted weight yarn that needs some attention. Being able to spend some time working on toques has been nice as they are something that is very easy to piece up and work on.

I am going to look at the different toque patterns that I have so that I don't end up working on the same pattern all the time. Hopefully by the time I have done these hats I will have a variety of styles.

Little Meg Shawl - large version - here is the other knitting project that I have been working on. It doesn't look like I did a lot but there were quite a few rows added to this project. I am now at almost 400 stitches on the needle so that means it takes quite a bit of time to even get a couple of rows completed. 

I know that this shawl is going to take a bit longer to complete as I need to reach around 580 stitches on the needle before it is completed. I am enjoying working on the shawl, but it does take quite a while to do so not a shawl that I am going to be making again for a while.

I am of course thinking about the next shawl project that I would like to do so that means figuring out the yarn and the pattern that will be the next one. The next project will be a bit of time before it gets started but at least figuring out the next one would be nice.

Other projects - I did pick up and work on a crocheted afghan that I have been working on a while. I didn't take a picture of it as I only got a bit of a round completed. Maybe this week I will see if I can spend a bit more time working on it. I don't crochet as much any longer as it has bothered my wrists.

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy doing. For me, I know that even spending 15 minutes doing something that I enjoy helps a lot. Now to see what I can get accomplished this week as I know that I have quite a few things on my plate that I need to get done. Have a good week and hope to have some progress to show you next week.

 

English Paper Piecing - October Progress

Here it is the first of the month, so it is time for me to show what I worked on over the last month with regards to my English Paper Piecing. This month I decided to try and focus on at least moving a project forward a bit and I think I was able to do that.

I hope the progress that I made in October is a sign that I am finally getting back to working on my English Paper Piecing a bit more than I have been doing. I guess we are going to have to wait and see what happens.

Kindle Cover - this project didn't get a lot of attention other than I was sewing motifs together and sometimes that meant not adding another motif but just getting more of the joins sewn together. It is nice to see that this project is moving forward even if it isn't moving forward as quickly as I had hoped. There are times when you can't see a lot of progress in a picture however you know you have moved something forward.

Scrap Throw - here is the project that got the most attention in the last month. I decided it was time to focus on getting some more of the motifs completed and that is what I did. Being able to spend some time just sitting and working on a few motifs at a time helped a lot. Now to see if I can continue to move this project forward because I will soon be out of motifs to make. The next time I pick up this project I think it will be to look at the actual throw and see if I can start to add the various motifs onto it so that I can see that I am finally moving it forward.

Other projects - I didn't even think about any of the other EPP projects that I have on the go as I was trying to ensure that I could see some progress on at least one of them and I did that. 

I hope to have some progress on at least one of the projects again at the end of November as I am thinking that even moving something forward a bit at a time is a good idea and that is what I am going to be trying to achieve moving forward.