A new start and some progress

Here it is the start of another week, and this week is going to be different given we have two days off work with it being Christmas. It is going to be nice, and we will see what I can get accomplished during that time.

Pandemic - will here is the cross stitch project that I worked on this past week. Yes, it remained out and I got some good progress on it which makes me happy. I am enjoying seeing how much of it I can get accomplished because I would like to see this project finished in 2026.

Now, this piece had one week as part of WIPGO for 2025 which was good and then it had a week because I have been trying to work on it during the third week of each month to move it forward even more. Well, as December has five weeks and I normally work on four projects each month, I decided that Pandemic is going to get an extra week worth of stitching on it. That means I get to work on this piece for one more week this month and that makes me very happy. We will see how many more stitches I can get completed as it makes me happy seeing how much I can get done.

Rainforest Canopy Shawl - here is the new knitting project that I started this week. It is making me happy seeing that I have been able to make some good progress on it. I only works on it for a couple of days, so how much I got done makes me happy. I hope to be able to get even more done this week on it given there shouldn't be as many work demands.

Other projects - I haven't been getting a lot of time to work on other projects so that means there isn't much to say. I am going to have to try and work on some English Paper Piecing in the next couple of weeks. 

I hope everyone is finding some time during this crazy time of year to take time to relax and recharge your personal batteries. It can be a bit of a challenge to find that time, but it is important to do that.

Hope everyone has a good week and if you celebrate Merry Christmas to you and your family. I hope to have some more progress on things next Monday.

 


 

A finish, and some progress

Here it is the start of another week. This last week seems to go extremely quickly, so now to see how this week goes. Of course, there are things that need to get completed for work and I also would like to see if I can spend some more time crafting.

Pandemic - here is the cross stitch project that got the attention this past week. I picked it up and the first goal I had was to get the border completed on the piece or at least make some good progress on it. Having that as a focus meant that I was able to pick up the piece and work on achieving that goal.

I wasn't certain if I could get all of the border completed by the end of the week but Sunday morning, I could say that the border was completed and now just the inside of the piece to complete and that felt good. There is still lots of stitches that need to be completed but at least I was able to move this piece forward and that make me very happy.

This piece is going to be remaining out for a bit longer as that was the final WIPGO call for the year and now I have the week that I have been working on Pandemic each month. I do hope to be able to continue to move this piece forward even more this week as I am now excited to see the entire piece finished.

Memories of Juneau - this was the knitting project that was going to get the attention until it was finished. I didn't have a lot more to do on this shawl, so it was just a matter of a couple of days before this piece was finished. It was a fun and simple project to work on, and I know that I will be using this pattern again for another shawl as it was fun to work on and something that I didn't need to have the pattern in front of me all the time. 

Of course, now that this shawl was completed, I needed to figure out something else to work on, so I picked up a project that I hadn't worked on for a while as I was waiting to start a new project until this week. There are a few projects that I have been put down for one reason or another so I knew that it wouldn't take me long to figure out a project that I could work on for a bit.

As I am writing this I am sitting and I know exactly what yarn and project that I am going to be working on this week. It is going to be a new start, and I will be using some yarn that was gifted to me. I cannot wait to get it started today so hopefully I can get my work done and then there will be a new start coming up.

Simply Curious Shawl - cotton version - here is a project that I started earlier this year and I put it down when it got hot out and I wasn't enjoying working on. The pattern is very simple to do but it was the yarn that I wasn't enjoying working on, so I put it in some time out and it did help.

I picked this piece up for a little while over the last few days and I was able to make a bit more progress on the shawl which did make me happy. I am still not enjoying the cotton yarn, so I am not going to be forcing myself to continue to work on this piece until it is done. I will work on this shawl a bit at a time, and it will get completed but not at the speed that a lot of my shawls get done.

Other projects - I haven't had a lot of extra time to work on things so that has meant that the crafting time I had was focused on these couple of projects. Being able to spend some time just working on a couple of projects has helped quite a bit as I am seeing that I am getting things moved forward and even finished.

This week I know that Pandemic is going to be getting some more attention and a new shawl will be started. Other than that, I am not certain what I will be working on as there are things that I need to wrap up for Christmas given that is next week.

I hope everyone has a good week and you find some time to do something that you enjoy doing. Also, remember if you aren't enjoying working on a project it's ok to put it in timeout for a little while and then pick it up again.

 

Moving projects forward a stitch at a time

Here it is the start of another week, and this last week seemed to go by very quickly. Now to see what this week is like as there are things that need my attention so need to focus on getting them done. 

The weather has been very cold here in the last week so being able to stay in and enjoy my crafting has been nice. Hopefully this week I will get some more crafting done.

Unleash the Butterflies - this is the project that I picked up and worked on for the last week. I once again picked the colour that had the most number of stitches left to go and worked on it for a while.

It was fun starting to see her face come to life and I hope to be able to get back to this piece in 2026. It feels odd saying that, but it isn't long before we will be writing 2026 on things. It has been nice seeing the progress that I made on this piece since picking it up this year. I hope that next year I can make more progress on it as I would like to see this one on my wall before too long.

It is now time for me to put this piece away and now to pick up my next WIPGO project and see how much of it I can get completed. We will see next week what that project is and how much progress I achieved.

Memories of Juneau - here is the knitting project that I have been working on this past week and the shawl has grown quite a bit. It has been a fun project to work on, and I am looking forward to seeing what it really looks like once it is off the needles.

This pattern is so easy to do which is nice as it means that I can sit and work on it without having to check a pattern to make sure that I am going it correctly. I am not certain how much longer the shawl is going to get because the ball of yarn is getting slower so we will see what it looks like in a couple more days. 

Now that this project is getting closer to being finished, I guess it is time for me to figure out what the next project is going to be and what yarn I am going to be using. It is always fun when I am sitting and thinking about what the next project will be because I have lots of patterns to choose from as well as lots of yarn. I guess that is going to be a project for this week.

Other projects - I have been working on a couple of other projects, but they haven't got enough progress on them to show a picture right now. I will take pictures when the projects are moved forward enough to have something to show.

At this time of year, it is very important that we all make that little bit of time each day where we can take some time for ourselves. It doesn't have to be a lot of time but even a few minutes can make a big difference.

Well, I hope to have some progress to show you next week on the projects that I will be working on this week. Have a good week.


 

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.