A finish, a start and some progress

 Here it is the start of another week, and it looks like it could be a rather busy with for me. I guess I am just going to have to wait and see how things go. The warm weather is back at least for the start of the week, so it feels more like August then October.

Summer is Coming - this is the project that I have been working on for a while and working on each of the motifs was a lot of fun.

This past week I set myself a goal and it was to have it finished by the end of September. Once I set that goal, I was able to focus on the piece and yes, get it completed. It feels good having this project done and now I just have two more of the "Is Coming" series to complete but they are going to have to wait for a little while. I have other projects that I would like to work on first.

Jolly Squirrel - this is a piece that I found while watching some cross stitch videos and I immediately needed it. The piece is called Jolly Squirrel and it is by Pigeon Coop Designs. I started this piece yesterday and I don't think it is going to take me long to finish it if I can focus on it. The design is only 64x61 stitches so it will be around 4 inches in size once it is done.

This is one of those projects that I will see how quickly I can get it done and not put it down for days at a time. The piece difference with this project is I am using a paper pattern and I don't have it on my tablet. It does seem to go a little slower but given it isn't a big pattern I am just going to work on it like I did yesterday. 

Preemie blanket - I am continuing to work on the blanket a bit most days. I love being able to sit and knit for 30 minutes at a time and it does help me move a project forward. The good news with this project is this last week I got to the point where I could start decreasing. 

This blanket hopefully now will go a little faster given I am on the decrease rows, but I will just have to wait and see. I know that being able to get more of this blanket done this coming week would be nice so I will see how it goes. I am trying to use up this colour of yarn so after this project is finished, I will have to figure out what else I am going to make with this yarn.

Other projects - lately I haven't been working on multiple projects at a time. It has felt great being able to focus on projects and see progress on a couple of them instead of very little progress on lots of projects.

One thing that I haven't been working on lately is my English Paper piecing, so I am going to need to pick that up again and hopefully move at lease one of those projects forward.

I hope everyone is finding that little bit of time each day to recharge your personal batteries. I know how important it is to take that bit of time and relax. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you take that little bit of time to yourself.

This coming week I hope that I can continue to work on both my cross stitch and knitting but will see how the week goes. Hopefully next week I will be back and have a bit of progress to show you on at least a couple of projects.

English Paper Piecing - September progress

This last month I can honestly say that I didn't get much English Paper piecing done. Life got pretty busy which meant that having time to do stuff like this was impacted.

Table Runner - here is the project that got the attention this month. I was able to move it forward some and am hoping to be able to get more of the motifs added in October. 

I haven't picked this project up very much lately so hopefully I will be able to get at it so that I can continue to move it forward. It would be nice to see more of the motifs added to the piece so that I can get this project done.

Other projects - I haven't worked on any of the other projects in the last month. I hope that this coming month I can get to focusing on some of the different projects that I have on the go.  

One thing that I have been working on is figuring out the fabric that I would like to use for a throw that will be using my favourite colours (blue and teal). This project is a long way from getting done as I have just got the fabrics that I want to use.

So, this coming month I hope to be able to make some progress on some of my English Paper piecing projects. It would be nice to see at least one of the projects moved forward so I will just have to see how October goes and what I can get done. I hope to have at last some progress to show you at the end of the month when I post another update on my English Paper Piecing projects.

 

Some slow progress

Here it is the start of another week and it's hard to believe that this last week went by as fast as it did. I hope to be able to figure out where the week went but at least I know that I was able to move a couple of things forward.

Summer is Coming - this piece got some attention this past week as I was able to finish off another colour and move the project forward some.  It is nice when I can sit and work on a motif and get it finished and that is what I was doing this past week.

I currently have two colours of floss left to use in this project and hopefully they will go fast. The motif that I am working on is the biggest one in the design and there are lots of stitches in it. Hopefully, I will be able to get this motif finished off quickly and then get to working on the last two motifs that I still have to add to the piece. We will see what progress I can make on this project before next week.

Preemie blanket - this is the project that got the most attention this week as I continue to try and pick it up most days and get the 30 minutes of knitting done on it. I am getting closer to where I can start the decreasing on this project so that feels good. It has been nice to have a project that is simple to work on and I can see progress on it quickly. 

I would like to see if I can figure out how to make this blanket just a bit bigger as I do have quite a few balls of sports weight yarn and would like to see if I can use some of it up. Maybe what I am going to try and do is once again make a blanket that is the two balls of yarn, but they will be smaller balls.

This coming week I would like to start the decreasing on this blanket and will see how quickly I can get it completed.

Other projects - this past week I wasn't able to work on any of the other projects which is different for me. I know that I would like to make a bit more progress on my English Paper piecing before the end of the month so that means I need to work on it some this week.

I hope everyone had a good week and you were able to find some time to do something that you enjoy. It feels good when you can lose yourself in a project for hours, but I know for me that hasn't happened very often lately. 

If things go well, I will have some progress to show you next week on my projects. Have a good week and I will see what I can get accomplished during this coming week, so that I have something to show you next week. 
 

Making progress, a finish, and a start

Here it is the start of another week, and hopefully a week where I find a little more time to work on things that I would like to work on. There is lots of things on my list that need to get done this week.

Summer is Coming - here is a project that I started in July and then put it done while I worked on Jane Parson. I finally picked it up this week and started to work on moving it forward.

The pattern isn't very large, so I have now reached all the sides of it.  I am working this project so different then I did the other season one I did. This time I am just working on what I want to work on so that is why a lot of the motifs are only partly done. I will see how it goes this week when I work on it because it has been fun not working on one motif at a time.

Curling Mist Shawl - here is a project that got a little bit of attention this week. It has been a lot of fun working on this project as I have been able to try working on a stitch that I haven't done for a long time. 

The stitch that I am working with is a cable stitch without using a cable needle. I learned how to do this stitch years ago, but of course haven't used it in my knitting for a long time. It took a bit of time to get comfortable with it again but finally it is working out and I am not having any issues with it.

This pattern does work on relatively quickly especially when you are in the garter section of the design. I have just started the next garter section so hopefully I will be able to move this shawl forward again this week. This shawl is a light grey, and it is interesting to see the difference in colour depending on where I take the photo.

The Curling Mist Shawl is something that I am enjoying working on and given that there is a pattern in different sections of the shawl it makes it fun to work on as well.
 

Preemie blanket - here it the project that got attention at the very beginning of the week as I was very close to a finish. The good news is I was able to finish this project very quickly when I picked it up on Monday. Just seeing this blanket finished makes me happy.

After casting it off, I quickly sewed in the ends that needed to be done and then I took the finished picture of it. The final blanket measures 39"x39" so it is a nice size. It was a lot of fun to work on and it was something easy to work on while watching the various videos that I watch.

The Preemie blanket was my 30 minutes of knitting a day project and that helped me move it forward at a good speed.  Once I finished this blanket, I looked at the amount of yarn that I still had left and decided what I was going to do with it.

The original pattern makes a preemie blanket that is around 24" square and I thought that would be something that I could work on for a while and it would use up some more of this yarn that I have. I waited until Wednesday and then I picked up my needles and the yarn and yes, I have now started another preemie blanket. This one is going to be the actual size that the pattern makes. 

This blanket is once again in the 30 minutes of knitting a day category and so far, I have been able to make some good progress on it. Of course, the rows right now aren't very long so I can get through them pretty quickly. We will see how quickly this blanket can get done because it will end up with only 170 stitches on the needle instead of the 250 stitches which I did for the other version.

Other projects - I was able to pick up my English Paper piecing for a while this weekend and made a bit of progress on it. We will see by the end of the month how much attention these projects got.

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time each day to do something for yourself. It may be a bit of a challenge each day but even taking 10 minutes to sit and relax and do nothing feels good. Next week I hope to have some progress on a couple of items, but we will see which projects get the attention. Have a good week and hopefully I will be back again next Monday with some progress.

Some knitting progress

Here it is the start of another week and now to see what this week has in store. I know that there are things that I would like to achieve so it is going to be a busy week. I also know that I would like to find a bit more time to do some crafting this week so that I can see some more progress on things.

There is no cross stitch progress this week as I didn't pick up any of those projects for the last week. I did however put in some work on my knitting and have results to show for that.

Preemie blanket - here is the project that got most of my attention in the last week. I started the week with 190 stitches on the needle and I ended the week with 55 stitches on the needle. This has been my focus and I am very happy with the progress that I made on this blanket. It has been a bit of a challenge because of the size but at least I am now very close to the end of it.

The picture of me holding it up was taken last night as I wanted to see how large this really was. I will measure it once it is done. It has been fun working on this project, but I am going to be happy to see it completed. My goal is to try and spend some time on it today to see if I can get it done. I started this project on July 15th and would like to have it completed in less than two months. 

I still have quite a bit of this yarn left so I am going to see what I use it for as I have been enjoying working with this yarn for the most part. This current ball of yarn that I have been using wasn't as nice as the first one as this one was very tangled and there were knots in this ball.

Hopefully by next week I will have a finished blanket to show you with all the ends also sewn in. This is the first goal for this week as I would like to see this finished as it is getting rather large to work on.

Curling Mist Shawl - this past week I also started another shawl which has a bit of a pattern in it. You can't see much of the pattern yet but hopefully as I move up on it you will see the small cable sections that are part of the pattern.

This pattern was something that I wanted to try and do so we went, and I got some yarn for it and then quickly started it. It didn't get a lot of attention as I was working on the Preemie blanket but at least it got a start and now to see if I can give this project some more attention once the Preemie blanket is complete.

Other projects - this past week I didn't work on any other projects even though my EPP was calling me. Hopefully this week I will be able to get back to doing some cross stitch as well as some EPP.

I didn't craft every day last week, but I was able to spend some time most days working on my knitting. It also was a means of helping me recharge my person battery which I know I needed to do.

Now, I hope to have some progress to show you next week as it would be nice to get back to working on some of the other projects that I want to do. Have a great week and remember to make sure you take time for yourself each day no matter what you do.

A finish and some progress

Here it is the start of another week and hopefully a week where I might be able to make some progress on a few things. Of course, it will all depend on everything else that I am trying to accomplish, so I guess we will just have to wait and see how the week goes.

Jane Parson - here the project that got a lot of attention at the beginning of the week as I wanted to see if I could get it finished. This project was so different for me, but I did enjoy working on it and seeing it come to life. There were quite a few colours in this piece and one of the things that I enjoyed doing was working on one colour at a time and seeing how much of a difference that made on the entire piece.

I am happy to say that I was able to get Jane Parson finished before the end of August and am happy with how it turned out. Hopefully soon I will be able to figure out a frame or it and get it totally finished.

After completing Jane I haven't picked up my cross stitch at all for the rest of the week but given what else I was able to accomplish I am not disappointed. Now, what I need to do is figure out the next project that is going to be some attention so that I can start moving something else forward. I haven't decided if it is going to be a anew start or if I will be trying to move a project forward that I already had started. I guess that is the next decision that needs to be made.

Hopefully by the time I write my next blog I will have figured out a project that I want to work on and maybe even have some progress on it.

Preemie blanket - after finished Jane Parson the one thing that I was wanted to do was to sit and knit and see how much of the preemie blanket I could get done.  This blanket is going to be a good size when it is finished as I think the one side measures around 42" so it should be 42" square by the time it is done.

This week I decided that working on this blanket was going to be my focus and I am happy with how much of it I could get done. Of course, there were days when I only got the 30 minutes of knitting done and then other days when I could find a bit more time. The biggest accomplishment was being able to get this blanket back onto the straight needles that I prefer to work with.

Now what I need to try and do is focus on continuing to get the decreasing done so that I can get this blanket off the needles before too long. This week I hope to find some time where I can work on this piece and see how much more of it, I can get done. Being back on the straight needle means that I have got enough decreasing done but there is still a long way to go before I can say this project is finished.

Other projects - I haven't do a lot of other projects this last week and even my English Paper piecing didn't get a lot of attention. Hopefully this week I will be able to find some time to work on at least one of my projects to get it moved forward even a little bit.

This last week I made sure that each day I found that bit of time to recharge my personal battery and it felt good. Now as it is a holiday Monday here, I hope to spend some time today recharging my battery so that I have energy to help those around me.

Next week I hope to have more progress to show you and maybe I will have decided on a cross stitch project that I will spend some time working on. I do know that the preemie blanket will continue to get attention and other than that I guess I will just have to wait and see.

Hope everyone has a great week and I hope to have some progress on things to show you. Have a great week and I will post again next week.

English Paper Piecing - August progress

Here it is the start of another month and yes, I was able to spend some time last month working on my English Paper piecing projects. It doesn't look like I did quite as much as I hoped, but at least I was able to work on two projects and make some progress on both.

Table runner - this project did get quite a bit of attention as I wanted to see if I could figure out if I wanted to make it larger or not. By the end of the month, I was getting close to the width of the runner, so decided that I needed to make some more motifs for this project.

This table runner has been a lot of run to work on, and I am looking forward to seeing what it looks like once I have added the rest of the motifs. I have been trying to make this project my focus project, but of course some of the other projects are also getting a bit of attention.

Scrap throw - the scrap throw didn't get a lot of attention in August, but that didn't bother me at all. I have started to make the motifs that I will be using for the border, so that was the focus in August. Hopefully during September, I will be able to work on attaching more of the motifs to the scrap throw, as I would like to see the width of the throw before too long.

Other notes - in July and August I was also able to go to two quilt stores and of course, you know when you go to quilt stores you end up with fabric. In July there was a garage sale at Ultimate Sewing Centre, and they had what they called stir-fry containers and what was in them was scraps of fabric and other items. I ended up getting three of these stir-fry containers and just recently decided to sit down and iron all the fabric that was in the containers and see how much fabric I ended up with. It was a lot of fun going through all the fabrics, and I think I have enough fabric to make 772 1-inch motifs or a throw around 40" x 48".

The other quilt store I went to was in August, and it was also a lot of fun, and it was Country Concessions Quilt Shop, and I was lucky enough to go there during their birthday bash. Again, I couldn't leave that shop without adding a little bit more fabric to my pile, so I added a few more fat quarters to the pile that will be for my blue/teal throw that I hope to be able to get started before too long.

So yes, I have been having some fun going to quilt shops and looking at all the different fabrics. The other thing that I have found is that when I have been in these stores, I have been able to gain quite a bit of knowledge just by listening to conversations and sometimes asking questions. The best comment I heard was, "Don't be afraid to ask a question, because we were all new to quilting and English Paper piecing at one time."

Well, I think that is all the update for this month, and hopefully next month I will be able to show more progress on at least a couple of projects. I also have to try and avoid starting to make motifs for another throw. Have a great month and I will see what I have to show you at the end of September.