Progress, a finish and a start

Here it is the start of another week, and it is going to be a busy week for us as we are working at a Security Conference on Wednesday and Thursday. This means that we are going to be trying to get all our work done quickly this week.

This past week has also been different so I haven't been able to spend quite as much time working on my crafting, but I at least was able to make some progress on the projects that I did work on so that makes me feel good. I will see what I can get done this week given how busy I am going to be.

Silver Anniversary - this past week was the week where I pulled out and worked on this project. Given how busy we were I am happy with the progress that I was able to make on it. It was nice having a project that was easy to pick up and stitch on because I could focus on getting either one of the diamonds stitches or some of the fill in completed so that was nice. 

It is always interesting when I am working on a piece that I don't feel like I have made much progress until I can look at it here when I am writing this. I can see how much I was able to accomplished, even when I was just putting in a few stitches at a time when I could pick this project up.

I am working hard to make sure that I can get this project completed in time for our 25th anniversary and right now I think I should be able to get it done in time and even have time to get it framed.

This project is now going away until closer to the end of October but that is fine with me. I might get a few stitches on this piece before then, but I will show a picture of it when I can focus on it again. It is time for another project to come back out and get some love and attention.

Elfish Shawl - this was the knitting project that I was working on, and it was a nice piece to have to pick up and focus on. At the beginning of the week, I figured it wouldn't be taking me long to get this shawl finished as it did work up quickly which was nice.

The pattern is easy so that meant that I knew where I was each time I picked up this project to move it forward. The good new is I was able to get this piece finished and it is now sitting waiting to be blocked. I finished casting off the piece and immediately sewed in the ends so that I could say it was finished.

Of course, when one knitting project is finished it is time to figure out what the next project was going to be, and it didn't take me long to get a new one started.

Little Meg Shawl - large - this is the project that I got started this weekend and so far, I have been enjoying working on it most of the time. Of course, I have had to pull back a couple of rows due to counting errors but hopefully things will go smoother this week and I will see how much of this shawl I can get completed.

Other projects - I haven't focused on any other projects this past week as I didn't have the time or energy to do that. I have a feeling that this week is going to be about the same as last week so I will just be happy to see what I can get accomplished. It might now be as much as I normally do but I will try and at least make progress on something.

I hope everyone has a good week and you find even those few minutes each day to take time for yourself. It is so important to make sure that we are taking those few minutes to recharge our personal batteries so that we can be there for others around us. Hopefully I will have a bit of progress to show you next week, but we will see what happens.

 

Making some progress on my projects

August 31, 2025

Here it is the start of another week and yes, I can say that I have made some progress on things. The weather has been a bit of a roller coaster this past week, but it has been a good week for me to sit and try and get some crafting done.

Pandemic - here is the piece that was the stitching focus for the last week, and I am very happy with how much progress I was able to make on it.

September 15, 2025

What is amazing is I had another page finish so that means I now have 8 pages left to stitch. (Last week I thought I had less pages to go). This week I was trying to focus on working the design from left to right so to see if I could get close to another page finish and hopefully before long, I will have the centre page finished from this row.

September 21, 2025

I don't normally show three pictures of one piece, but I wanted to show the difference between when I picked it up on September 1st and now when it has been stitched for almost three weeks. This piece is going to be put down for at least a week as I will be working on Silver Anniversary to try and move it forward some.

Elfish Shawl - this is the shawl that I started last week, and I have been loving working on it. The pattern is nice and easy, and it does seem to work up pretty quickly which has been nice. I started this shawl on the 14th of the month and have been able to reach the 70% completed mark so that is nice. I hope to be able to spend some more time this week working on the shawl and we will see when it is completed.

Of course, now that I am getting closer to a finish it means that it is time for me to start thinking about the next shawl that I am going to knit. I have a few ideas, but I haven't decided on the one that will get onto the needles first.

Other projects - this past week I was able to find a little bit of time to work on my EPP which was good and hopefully I can find some more time this week to make some progress on it.

I have been trying hard to keep a focus on only a couple of projects at a time and it has been helping me see more progress on things. Of course, there is still a pile of things that want my attention, but I am trying to keep a focus at least as much as possible.

I hope everyone is finding that little bit of time each day to do something you enjoy doing. It can be anything you want it to be but making sure you take some time to relax and recharge that is what is most important. Hope everyone has a good week and we will see what I can get accomplished this week and I will show you what happens next week.

Treadle Sewing Machine

For some of us that are in our later years we have grown up knowing someone that owned a treadle sewing machine and especially a Singer Treadle Sewing Machine.  I know that one of my great aunties have one of those machines and I grew up saying that it would be amazing to have such a machine even if I never used it.

I said this wish probably around 40 years ago when I first thought about having a space where I could put such a machine but when I looked at the prices of acquiring one of these machines it felt like I would never get a chance to acquire such a machine. The next time I saw a Singer Treadle Sewing Machine was when I went to visit my in-laws and my mother-in-law had one which I always loved and hoped that one day it would be given to my husband but it didn’t so that was fine because we knew it wasn’t meant to be.

Imagine going outside of your apartment building and finding a treadle sewing machine just sitting there waiting to find a new home and that is what happened to my husband. He had also said that he would love a treadle sewing machine even if it was never used but something that we could enjoy. I received a message that said, “Would you like a treadle sewing machine?” and of course my reaction was how much and why are you asking. I did reply “You know I would love one, but don’t have room right now for one.” Well for the price it was something that we quickly figured out how to manage and it was quickly put into our car so that we could take it down to the parking garage and then manage getting it into our unit.

So yes, you may think that a dream isn’t possible, but I can honestly admit that there are going to be times when those dreams come true and you aren’t certain why or how it happened, but you just have to accept that the timing was right. I know that we have looked at antique markets are sewing machines but never found one that was what we wanted. I guess today we were meant to find this sewing machine just sitting there looking for a new home and it now has one and it’s our home.

A week of different projects

Here it is the start of another week, and this last week was a little different for me. I didn't focus on getting one cross stitch project completed instead I worked on two different projects. 

Pandemic - of course this piece was the one that was part of the focus for this last week, and I was able to get a page finish which made me very happy. I now have 7 more pages to do on this piece so we will see how it goes.

It has felt really good being able to continue to work on this piece and see more of it done. I am going to focus on this piece for another week and hopefully I will see more progress on it again. It feels so good being able to move this piece closer to a finish, but I do know that it is still going to be a while before this piece is finished.

Summer Keep - here is a project that got pulled out this week and got a bit more attention. This is the project that I work on when I have a few minutes, so it doesn't get a lot of progress but at least it gets moved forward a bit at a time.

At least this year I have been able to see quite a bit of progress on this piece and hopefully it will be finished before long as when I look at the piece now it doesn't look like there is a lot more to go on it. Hopefully over the next couple of months I will be able to get this small piece finished and be able to start working on Winter Keep which is the companion to this project.

It has been fun working on this piece again as I hadn't worked on it since June so seeing a bit more progress on it makes me feel good. It also brings back memories of when this was started which was in 2005 at the Creative Needlework and Sewing Festival. 

Forage Shawl - here is the knitting project that has been my focus piece since I started it on September 1st. It was a lot of fun to work on as it used 7 mini balls of yarn to make the shawl. 

At first, I wasn't sure if I was going to like how it would turn out because I don't normally do things like this but after working on it for a little while I started to enjoy how it was turning out and before long it seemed to move forward very quickly. I think for me having the mini balls of yarn made this project fun to work on as I thought of each section of the shawl a mini finish so that helped move the piece forward quickly.

I have now finished knitting the shawl and all that is left to do is sew in all the ends and then block the shawl and it will be ready to wear. I am looking forward to having this shawl finished as it is going to be a fun shawl to wear.

Ex-boyfriend Shawl - here is a shawl that I have been working on but there haven't been any pictures taken of it until now when it is finished. This shawl has been a project that has been living in the car as something that I work on a little bit at a time when we are out for a drive or away on a trip.

I am not certain how long it has taken me to knit this shawl because sometimes it gets a couple of rows completed and other times when we are out, I can add quite a few rows to it, so it has been fun to make. This past week I was able to spend a bit of time on it and by the end of the week I was able to finally cast it off so now the ends need to be sewn in, and this shawl also needs to be blocked.

Other projects - I did start a new shawl yesterday but there isn't much to show yet. Other than the start of the shawl, I haven't worked on any other projects so that is good because having four projects worked on in a week is quite a bit. 

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy doing. It does help to recharge your personal battery so that you are available to help others. If things go well, I hope to have some progress to show you next week, but we will have to wait and see how things go.

 

A busy week but some progress

It is hard to believe that another week has come and gone. I am not certain where this week has gone other than I was able to make progress on some things for work as well as some progress on my crafting. 

The weather has cooled down some so that meant that it has been a little easier to focus on getting things done. I hope to be able to continue to get more things achieved over the next little while, but we will see how things go.

Pandemic - here is the project that was called for WIPGO this month. It was called for both of the numbers, so that means it is going to be getting quite a bit of attention which does make me happy as I am trying to focus on this project to get it closer to a finish before the end of this year.

This past week I decided to try and focus on a smaller section of the piece just so that I could see some progress and I was able to do just what. I have been working on the left side of the piece and am now working on moving it closer to another page finish. We will see if I can get that page finished so will I end up bouncing around in the other areas of this piece.

It does feel great being able to at least make sure that I have been able to continue to move this project forward and if there aren't anymore page finishes this year, I am ok with that because just moving the entire piece forward makes me feel a lot better.

Forage Shawl - here is the knitting piece that I started on Monday after finishing the past project. It has been a lot of fun to work on as each section is using a different colour of yarn. This pattern calls for 7 different skeins of yarn and the entire piece is 11 sections so some of the yarn is used once, twice or even three times and it has been a lot of fun to work on.

I currently have two and a half sections to go before this shawl is completed and I have loved working on it. I will have to sew in a bunch of ends before I can block this piece but at least seeing more of the knitting done would be great. I do hope to have this shawl finished before the end of next weekend and I think it is possible if I can just sit and focus on the knitting.

Other projects - I haven't worked on any other projects this week as I have been trying to focus on getting progress on these two projects. I will see what happens next week as I am thinking that some of the other projects that have been sitting around waiting for some attention might appear this coming week. I may even have a new start if I can get the Forage Shawl completed but we will have to see how things go.

I hope everyone has a good week and you are able to find that bit of time each day to do something for yourself. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you take that bit of time where you can focus on taking that time to recharge your personal battery.

This coming week we will see what I can focus on and hopefully next week I can have some progress on at least a couple of projects to show you. It would be great to see that things have been moved forward or finished and maybe a new project has been started.

 

English Paper Piecing - August progress

Here it is the end of another month, and the good news is I was able to spend a little bit of time working on my EPP and got a few more motifs finished. I admit that my English Paper Piecing hasn't been getting a lot of attention but hopefully now I will be able to figure out how to move the various projects forward so that I can see some finishes.

Kindle Case - this past month I was able to get a few more motifs ready to join onto the kindle case so hopefully that project will get some more attention before long. 

Other projects - I haven't worked on moving any other of my English Paper Piecing projects forward and I know that the list is rather long, so I need to figure out a plan of how to get these different projects moved from in progress to finished.

This coming month I hope to be able to at least figure out a plan on how to move a bunch of these projects forward. I may not get though getting any of the projects finished but at least figuring out ow to move some of them forward and closer to a finish would be great. Hopefully at the end of September, I will have some more progress to show you and maybe a project might be closer to a finish.

Progress and a finish

Here it is the start of another week so that means it is time to see what I was able to work on in the last week. The weather has been cooler so that has meant more time to be able to focus on getting things achieved.

It has felt good having the cooler weather because it has made getting work done a little easier as I have been able to focus on things. It also meant that I was able to pick up my projects and make some good progress on them as well.

Silver Anniversary - here is the project that I pulled out to work on this past week. I have been trying to get this project out at least one week a month most months since I started it. It has felt good because I have been able to continue to get more progress completed on it. I hope to be able to continue to give it a week a month as I think doing that will help me get it finished before our Silver Anniversary.

This past week I decided to try and get to the top edge of the piece so that I could figure out the actual size and I was able to do that. Being able to focus on moving the piece forward was good and I made sure to work on trying to get the left edge of the piece completed so now the first two columns are totally completed. I will see what area I work on next time I pick it up, but it might be the top section so that I can move the entire piece towards the right.

Now that this piece been given it's one week for August, it is time to put it away and pull out my first WIPGO project and see how I can do on that. For September I will be only pulling out one WIPGO project as it was called twice so this project should get quite a bit of attention or at least I hope it moves forward quite well.

Floating Shawl - this was my knitting project as I was trying to move it forward and maybe even get it finished in this last week. When I originally picked up this piece, I figured it would take me between three and four weeks to get it finished given the size of it.

The good news is it didn't take me even three weeks to get this shawl off the needles and waiting to be blocked. It took me 19 days to complete this shawl, and I am extremely happy with how it turned out. Being able to see the size of the shawl was nice and I know that once it is blocked it is going to look so much nicer.

Now that we have the cooler weather, I am going to be blocking a few shawls so that I can start wearing them and I can't wait to do just that.

Other projects - well I haven't spent a lot of time working on other projects as I have been trying to focus on moving these projects forward. 

Of course, my EPP did get a little bit of attention, but I will write that post shortly. Just being able to focus on getting a couple of projects moved forward each week makes me feel so much better because it shows I can get things done when I focus on them.

I hope everyone has had a good week and you are finding time to do things you enjoy. This coming week I will see what progress as I can make on my projects as it looks like it is time to figure out the next knitting project that I would like to do.