Progress, a finish and a start

Here it is the start of another week, and of course that means time to look and see what I have been able to accomplish in the last week. The weather here is still pretty wintry, so that means that there is time to sit and work on the crafts. 

We are still getting work done remotely, and it is nice when we can work during the day and get everything done and then have a bit of time to do something else.

Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl - here is the project that has got a lot of my attention this week. I wanted to get all the garter stitch increases done, so that was my focus this week. The stitch marker on the second picture is where I was last Monday morning. I wanted to see if I could at least get those rows done and maybe just start the lace section.

Now the lace section is very hard to see right now as it is all bunched up on the needle. I am just trying to avoid having to change to a circular needle to finish this project. I think I have about 50 rows to go, so that means that I am going to have lots of stitches on this needle, as I am still continuing to increase.

I am really enjoying working on this shawl, and I am looking forward to seeing the lace section once it is all done. I would like to have this shawl finished within the net couple of weeks, but time will tell. I am not sure what is on my agenda for this week, so will see how much knitting I am able to accomplish.

Treasures in the Attic - here is a small project that I decided to work on this week. I wanted something that I could pick up and see some good progress on, so I looked through a bunch of my patterns and found this one and of course I had to start it and by yesterday I was able to say that I had also finished it.

This pattern didn't give you a colour to stitch it in so of course after stitching with red I decided it was going to be red and off I went. It is a small design and love how it turned out. This pattern is from the Gift of Stitching, May 2007.

I Love To Stitch in Blue - after finished Treasures in the Attic, I decided it was time to see if I could make some progress on another small design, so I picked up this one. This is also going to be another small, so hopefully it doesn't take me long to get it stitched. 

I have all the Gift of Stitching magazines, so I will be trying to work through some small designs in those books. They are a lot of fun to work on, and it will mean that I will have a bunch of little things that I can put on the magnetic boards that we have hung up here at home. This project is from the April 2006 magazine.

Other projects - this past week I didn't get a lot of other projects worked on as I have been trying to get a little more organized, so I have been focusing on that. This week I am not sure what I will be working on other than the shawl. 

I hope everyone has a good week, and you remember to take a bit of time each day to do something for yourself. Have a good week and I will hopefully be back next week with some more progress.

 

Some slow progress

Here it is the start of another week, and I am looking out the window at snow on the ground again. The forecast today and tomorrow is for lots of rain, so now the concern is for flooding because the ground is frozen. 

It is a holiday Monday here in Ontario as it is Family Day, so that means a day of relaxing and just trying to get things done around home and hopefully not having to deal with any work issues.

I hope to be able to get the things done around home that we want to get done and then find a bit of time to sit and do some crafting, but will have to see how things go.

Ruskin's Penguins - this is the project that has come out to see how much progress I can get done on it over the next little while. I am going to be trying to continue to work on the outside border section as well as now start to complete the middle of the design.

The border of this piece is pretty easy once you get into it, so that is what I do when I just want to sit and fill in different sections. I still have most of the white around the border to fill in, but again now that a lot of the black is done the white is pretty easy to add into those sections. 

The middle of the design is coming along pretty nicely, and it is something that I decided to work on this week for a while. I still have to finish off the word penguin and then add another penguin, and then the filling in of the middle will start to happen with all the snowflakes around the piece.

I hope to continue to work on this piece, as I would like to have it finished before too long. 

Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl - this past week, I decided that I was going to try and focus on getting more knitting done. I started this shawl a while ago and just hadn't been making much progress, and then I decided to try and pick it up a bit each day to try and get a few stitches in. 

This last week I was able to work on it a little more than I had and now am happy with the progress that I have made on it. I still have quite a ways to go on the pattern, but at least I am now starting to see progress on it and that does make me happy.

This coming week I am going to see how much more knitting I can get done on it as it would be nice to see this section of the pattern done, and then I can start working on the lace section which is what I am looking forward to doing.

Other projects - I haven't been getting a lot of time to work on other projects, so will see what this week is like. I am trying to get more organized in regard to work, so that has been taking some of my time over the last couple of weeks.

I hope everyone continues to find a bit of time each day to do something for yourself. It is important that we remember that we need to make sure that we take care of ourselves so that we have the energy to take care of others.

This week I will see what I can get done on both Ruskin's Penguins and Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl. Hope everyone has a good week and I will see you next week.

 

Some progress and a frustration

Here it is the start of another week, and I am going to be trying to get a few more things off my desk before the end of this week. I know that work is going to be a little busier this week as I also have a course that I need to start taking.

We are hearing that things are going to start opening up soon, which will be nice, but of course there will still be concerns about the number of covid patients in the hospitals. I guess we just have to wait and see what will happen in the next little while.

Red February - here is the project that got most of my attention this past week. I am so happy to see how much of it I have been able to get done, and now I am getting to the point where I hope to have it finished before the end of the month.

Yesterday was a little upsetting/frustrating with this piece as I have been working on it and discovered that I wouldn't have enough fabric to do the entire design. The discovering came just as I finished the capital letters and I scrolled the fabric up to start the next set of letters. I am very happy that I decided to scroll up the fabric, otherwise I might not have figured out the problem until after I had done a lot of the next set of letters. I decided to count the number of rows that I would need to complete the entire piece and that is what I discovered that if I completed the entire piece I would have less than an inch of fabric at the top for finishing this piece into something.

It was time to make a decision as to what was going to have to go on the piece, was it another set of letters or was it going to be the squirrel. As you can see, I decided that another set of letters could be removed, and I would just stitch the squirrel which is the top of the pattern. Now I just need to finish stitching the squirrel, and then I will scroll it back down and stitch the month and the piece will be done. Until I take the fabric off the scroll frame, I am not sure if the piece of fabric was the wrong size or what happened. At least I discovered the problem when I could fix it and this piece will still make me happy when I look at it as I do know that I am loving stitching it.

Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl - this shawl continues to get little bits of attention, but it isn't going as fast as I would have liked. I do know that while I have been working on Red February, I haven't done a lot of knitting at all.

I hope to get back to working on this piece, as I would like to have this shawl completed before too long. I do know that once I get all the increases done, I think the pattern will go a little quicker because it won't be just plain garter stitch with an increase every second row. We will see how much of this I can get done this week, as it would be nice to see that I have got most of the increases done.

Other projects - of course I have been doing bits of other projects, but nothing that is enough to show. I have been trying to focus on just a couple of projects each week so that I can at least see some progress.

Not sure what this week has in store, as I have quite a few things that I need to do for work, and then I will see what I can get done. I will try and find a bit of time each day to take time for myself and get a bit of crafting in.

I hope everyone continues to find those bits of time for yourself, as it is important to recharge your own personal batteries. Have a good week and hopefully next week I will have a bit of progress to show on a couple of projects.
 

Some progress and a new start

Here it is the start of another week, and I was able to get a bit of progress on some of my projects last week. I am now going to see what this week has in store, as I do know that I have a bunch of other things that need my attention as well. 

We continue to have a lot of restrictions, but we are slowly starting to see that some restrictions here are being lifted, so now to see how the numbers of cases change. I hope that we are finally at the point where things are slowly starting to get to the point where we can do more things again. 

Turquoise - here is the project that I started off the week working on. I continue to try and get one colour completed at a time on this project, that it does make me happy to see how it changes with each colour added. 

I am going to try and see if I can continue to get more of this project done, but it is going to have to wait for a little while as I work on another project that I would like to get finished up quickly. 

If things go well, I should be picked this project up later this month to see if I can add more colours to it, but this will have to wait for a bit. I do know that if I could focus on this piece I would be able to get it done quickly, but part of me is enjoying having it as something that I can work on a bit at a time, so I'm not in a rush to have it finished.   Part of me enjoys having this project where I can add a few stitches or a colour to it and I can see the changes pretty quickly.

Red February - here is a project that was an unplanned start this week.  I was looking at Instagram on Wednesday and I saw a post about a project that was available at Sassy Jacks Stitchery as a free download for February. 

I have wanted to do a longer style sampler and this one has parts that I really loved, and it was inspired by Bristol bands and motifs. Of course, the pattern was in red because the Bristol samplers are normally in red. 

I did make one change to the pattern, and that was to chart my name on it instead of the person that adapted the design. I have been working on this since Wednesday and would really like to see if I can get it finished before the end of the month. Just above the year it does say February, but I didn't sit it yet so that if it doesn't get done this month, I can put in the month that it is finished.  

This project is just over 3 inches wide and will be just under 12 inches long. I am looking forward to seeing what the entire piece looks like when it is done, so this is going to be my focus project through February or until this is done. 

 

I also know that I have enjoyed stitching in red lately and of course the joke in my family is "I don't do red" because I had said I would never stitch something entirely in red, but that changed once I found out about Bristol Orphanage Samplers and what they were and the meaning behind them. I hope to continue to work on more red samplers in the future and already have a couple more planned starts.

Other projects - I am continuing to work on my Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl, but given I am still working on the increase section, there isn't much to show. I like having knitting projects that I can just pick up and work on, and it doesn't require a lot of focus. These projects work very good when I am watching a webinar that I don't need to take notes during, or I don't need to have my camera on for. 

I hope everyone has a good week, and you continue to find time each day to do something for yourself. It doesn't matter what it is, just remember that you need to recharge your own personal batteries so that you can help those around you. This week I am going to try and make some more progress on Red February and maybe see what else I can make a bit of progress on.

Over 14 years

November 27, 2007 – a date that started all of this 

It is very hard to believe that I have been writing this blog for over 14 years now. I love working on it each week and seeing how it has changed from when I first started it. When I started it I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep it going for very long, but I have and now to see how much longer I can keep it up.

I have been looking back at some of my older blog posts, and it has been fun thinking about some of the projects that I worked on. I also love thinking back to all the Creative Festival classes that I took and all the friends that I made through those classes. I am still friends with some instructors and other students to this day, and that makes me feel great. There are no more classes or even Creative Festival, so now it means taking either a specific class when you can find it or just seeing what you can find online.

At first, I was posting on a very irregular basis and then in 2010 I decided to try and post more often, and then it grew, and I have been posting most weeks since 2015. It makes me feel good, seeing that I have been able to maintain this blog for this length of time.

Do I have plans for this blog, yes, but it isn’t stopping it? Do I want to change some of what I post and how I post, yes, I do, but haven’t decided how I am going to do that yet? What I do know is this blog has been a record for me of my projects and some events in my life, and that is why I do it. I am happy to have been able to keep it going, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens to it over the next while.

If you have been around for all of it or some of it, I have to say thank you for sticking around. I am not sure what the road ahead is going to look like, but I do know that I hope to continue to post what I have been doing and keeping this blog going.