Three finishes, is that really possible?

Here it is the start of another week. The weather has been a little crazy this last week with rain, freezing rain, ice drizzle and even some snow. It has also meant that the temperature has been fluctuating quite a bit. Hopefully the weather will improve soon, and we will be able to see some of the snow melting.

Pandemic - here is the project that I have been trying to focus on, as one of my goals was to get it finished before too long.

This past week I decided that it was time to just push through and get it finished. It did take quite a bit of time this last week to finish up the top section and then get all the backstitch that I needed to do on the bottom row of 5 pages. I am happy seeing this piece completed and it wasn't until I took the piece off the scroll frame that I realized how large this piece really was.

I started Pandemic on August 20, 2020, and it was finished on February 21, 2026, so yes it did take quite a while to do but I also didn't work on it much some years. Last year and this year were when I put the focus in on it and I went from not having much of it done to having a finish. It is nice having this piece completed so now it is time to try and pick up another project and get it finished.

Argyle Sweater - this is another project that I wanted to see if I could get it finished up because there wasn't much more of it to do.  Just sitting and focusing on it would get it finished and while watching the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics I was able to finish it off. It feels so good seeing another ornament finished.

So, here is the second finish for this week. It has felt good getting some projects finished and hopefully this will continue as I would like to see some more things off the list.

Talisman Shawl - here is the knitting project that I have been working on. As you can probably guess by the title of the blog, I was able to spend some time this last week getting it finished.

This shawl does need some good blocking before I will be able to wear it but at least it is now off the needles and ready for some blocking. It was a nice project to work on and now I need to figure out another project that I can work on.

Hedgerow Shawl - this shawl didn't get a lot of attention this past week,so I need to sit down and focus on it for a while and see how it goes. I know that I should be able to see progress on it if I just sat down and worked on it for a little while.

The second clue was released this past week, and I haven't even finished the first clue, so I need to spend some time trying to get caught up. Maybe this week is the week that I will focus on it and move it forward a bit.

Other projects - I have been playing around with a couple of other things, but they haven't got far enough for pictures, and they might not even work out.

I have been able to make some good progress on some projects and yes, I got three finishes this last week. I won't be getting three more finishes this week, but I am going to try and make some progress on things. Hopefully you are finding some time each day to recharge your personal battery. If things go well, I hope to have some progress on something to show you next week.

Getting closer and some good progress

Here it is the start of another week and at least today is a holiday for us so that means another day where I might be able to make some progress on projects that I would like to get moved forward.

Pandemic - yes, this project came back out for another week as I wanted to see how much more of it, I could get completed. It has felt good seeing the difference I can make in a week when I can sit and focus on just sitting one piece. 

This piece is now not going away until it is completed as I have one section to finish stitching and then a bit of backstitch to complete at the very bottom of the piece. I am happy seeing that it is getting closer to a finish, and I know that I am going to be working hard this week to see how much of this I can get done. I have around 3,200 stitches left on it besides the backstitch so hopefully before long this piece will be finished.

Argyle Sweater - this little project got a bit of progress on it as I wanted to make sure that I picked up something else for a little while and get some progress in on it. I am now down to adding the last colour to the piece so that might be a finish before long as well.

I do have some other sweaters that I want to stitch so getting this done completed would be nice. I will see if I can find a bit of time to work on this piece during this week, but we will have to see how things go.

I am really enjoying having some small projects to work on and I am thinking that once Pandemic and Silver Anniversary are completed the smaller pieces might get some more attention for a little while.

Talisman Shawl - this shawl did get some attention this last week as I have been trying to work on getting it finished up as quickly as I can. I am now down to knitting the last two rows of the shawl and then the cast off so hopefully this will be a finish before the end of this coming week. The completion of this project will be based on how much time I have to actually pick it up and work on it. It would be nice t see this shawl finished up before long so hopefully I can find that bit of time needed to get the rest of it done.

Hedgerow Shawl (Mystery Knit Along) - the pattern for clue 1 of this shawl was released on Thursday and yes, I have started it, but it hasn't got a lot of attention but at least it has been started.  I do know that this shawl is going to challenge me a bit so I will be taking my time working on it so that I don't have to rip some rows because I made mistakes. As this is a mystery knit along, I won't be showing any pictures of my progress until the overall pattern has been released. 

Other projects - considering the number of projects that I have talked about here I haven't had a lot of time to work on anything else. I am going to be trying to at least continue to focus on getting these projects completed over the next little while. This week I know that Pandemic and the Talisman Shawl will get some attention and then after that I will see what grabs my attention.

I hope everyone has a good week and you find that bit of time where you can relax and recharge your own personal battery. If things go well, I should have some more progress to show you next Monday. Until, then have a good week and take time for yourself.
 

The Red Box - All Creatures Great and Small - a treasury of samplers volume II

This is my story about the order that I made on Jan 31^st, 2026, at 7 am.

The box is curated by Nicola Parkman of Hands Across the Seas, and it contains 14 sampler charts and 7 items that Nicola personally selected to do along with the patterns. I am looking forward to this box arriving after it leaves England and arrives here in Canada. This is the fourth box that Nicola has done but the first one that I finally decided to get, and I am looking forward to receiving it.

The experience of getting this box was a bit of a roller coaster because of course everyone was trying to get their box ordered as quickly as they could, so it meant that the system was rather slow. Also, because I was making a foreign purchase, I had an issue with my credit card but that was resolved quickly (needed to reply to text from bank asking if I was making this purchase). Once the credit card number was entered (after the text confirmation) it did take a while for the order to be processed but by 7:40 am I had received an email that my order had gone through.

Now the waiting really begins because it needs to be shipped and arrive at my door. Here is the timeline of how things went:

• Feb 3^rd – receive email that the order is now complete and receive the tracking number for the order.
• Feb 4^th – the box is received by Royal Mail and now the actual tracking begins
• Feb 5^th – the box leaves England so it is getting closer.
• Feb 6^th – the box arrives in Canada and now must go through customs so more waiting and of course it’s Friday, so more waiting is going to have to happen.
• Feb 6^th – checked the tracking and now the system says it will be delivered on Monday, Feb 9^th between 1:30 and 5:30 pm. I really do hate weekends but otherwise it might have been here on the 7^th.
• Feb 9th - the status changed to out for delivery at around 10:30 am and then the waiting began. Of course, it said it should be delivered by 5:30 pm so that was a long wait. Well, at 5:30 I still hadn't received the knock on the door so was getting a little worried. Well at 5:34 the knock came and I immediately ran to the door yelling, "I know who this is and he is holding a box for me."

So, the box has arrived and I have gone through all the contents but it is going to take me some time to actually looking at everything that I received and figure out which charts I want to stitch immediately and what patterns I will do a little later.

As this is a box that was a mystery I cannot show you anything that I received yet, but I can say that I am so happy with the contents of the box and am looking forward to figuring out which patterns I will stitch in which order.

Making progress and lots of focus

Here it is the start of another week, and we have had another week of very cold temperatures and wind chills, so it has made it a little harder to go out and enjoy things. Hopefully the temperature will improve this coming week so we will see how things go.

Pandemic - believe it or not here is the project that came out this week and instead of focusing on getting a lot more of the full crosses in I worked on getting quite a bit of the backstitch completed on this piece. You won't see the entire area that I worked on because I did scroll the piece down so that I could continue to get things done. 

It is nice seeing quite a bit of the backstitch completed and now I am going to be focusing on these last three pages that I need to finish up and then it is scroll to the bottom and add that remaining backstitch to the piece. There is still lots of stitching remaining on this piece but it feels good seeing that it is getting closer to a finish.

Argyle Sweater - this project got a bit of attention as well as week as I wanted to see if I could make some good progress on it.

I am going to see if I can continue to move this piece forward because it would be nice to get this piece finished soon but we will see how things go. If I can get more of this sweater would be nice so we will see what happens. I am thinking that being able to at least spend a bit of time working on this project over the next week would be good so we will see what happens. 

Talisman Shawl - here is the shawl that I have been continuing to work on as much as I can. It has been nice seeing that I have been able to continue to move it forward. I have finished the first ball of yarn and am now working on getting the second ball of yarn into this shawl and finished.

I am going to try and get more of this shawl completed before the middle of this week when I have another knitting project that will be getting my attention. Hopefully I will be able to get quite a bit of this done.  We will see how early this week goes as I know that I want to get more of this shawl done.

Hedgerow Mystery Knit Along - here is the project that I am going to be starting as soon as the pattern is released. I am going to be looking forward to seeing what this shawl is going to look like.

Over the last couple of weeks my biggest decision was to figure out the yarn that I wanted to use for this piece. We were told we needed three colours and the name of the design but that was it. It is always interesting to try and figure out your yarn colours.

I won't be able to show my progress on my shawl until the pattern is released in March, but I will let try and talk about any of the issues or challenges that I am having each week.

Other projects - this last week I haven't picked up any of my other projects, but I am happy with the overall progress I have made on things. 

If you are like me and enjoy the Olympics, I think I know where your attention is going to be for the next couple of weeks. I know that I have been enjoying what events that I can watch. The time difference is making a bit difficult to watch the events that are of interest to me. There have already been times when I turn on one of the events and all I get to see are the medals being awarded. We will see how things go over the next two weeks but at least I am getting to see some of the events so far.

I hope everyone has a good week and you are continuing to find that bit of time to do something you enjoy each day. If things go well this week, I hope to have some more progress to show you next week. I will be working on the Talisman Shawl as well as Pandemic so we will see how the week goes.




 

Making some good progress

Here it is the start of another week, and I am going to stay that it has been a crazy week given the snow that we received last weekend and just trying to dig ourselves out of this mess. We are also dealing with some really cold temperatures so that isn't us at all.

Hopefully things will start to warm up here and we will be able to enjoy some time without feeling like we are going to freeze every time we go outside even just for a few minutes. For me it's been time where I can find some time after getting the work that needs to get completed where I can curl up and work on a project to see how much of it, I can get completed.

Silver Anniversary - here is the project that I picked up this week as I wanted to see how much more of it, I could get done and I am happy with the progress that I was able to achieve. Hopefully I will continue to make some good progress on it each time I pick it up.

I am now at just over 80% completed and that was so rewarding to see that I was able to achieve that this week. What I have also been able to do is making sure that I could continue to move this piece forward and getting rows and columns completed this week was really nice.

This week I was able to complete three rows and three columns and that was great. It is showing me that just being able to focus on areas of this piece helped get it moved forward. I am not certain how much longer it is going to take me to finish this project, but I must admit that I am now seeing that before long this piece will be completed and that is what makes me happy.

Argyle Sweater - here is the project that gets bits of attention when I have those few minutes to pick up something and see what I can get done. It isn't a big piece so that helps as well and just seeing that I can get colours completed on this piece has been good. I have now finished two of the four colours, and I am looking forward to seeing how much more of this piece I can get completed.

Being able to continue to move this piece forward even a little bit at a time is great and we will see when it is completed. I am not pressuring me to finish this piece quickly because it is nice to just work on it when I have those few minutes where I just want to work on something.

I would like to see if spending a bit of time over the next week or so could help me get this ornament completed. There is no pressure or not deadline and that is what makes this project so much fun to work on.

Talisman Shawl - here is the knitting project that I have been working on as I would like to see how much of it I can get completed in the next little while. I do have reasons for wanting this project moved forward quickly so we will have to see how it goes.

I haven't figure out what size that I will be making with this yarn because there are three sizes and it will depend on how big the shawl is when I have finished up using the first ball of yarn. I haven't figured out if it is going to be the medium or large shawl but at least, I know that I have enough yarn to make a shawl that I am happy with. 

Hedgerow Mystery Knit Along - for those of you that have been falling me for a while you may have realized that I really enjoy working on knit patterns by Helen Stewart (link to pattern). So, in the last couple of weeks Helen let everyone know that there was going to be a Mystery Knit Along and it didn't take me long to purchase the pattern so that I could immediately start it when the pattern is released. All I know is the amount of yarn that I need as well as the shape of the project and rest of it will start to come alive on February 12th. If you are interested in joining me making this shawl, I have attached the link for the pattern and just a heads up the price of the pattern will go up on February 12th.  

I haven't figured out the yarn that I am going to be using yet for this piece but hopefully by the time I post next week you will see the colours that I picked but we aren't going to see any progress on this shawl until the final pattern is released by Helen Stewart in March of this year.

Other projects - well, I haven't been able to work on any of the other projects that I have on the go because I have been trying to focus on getting things completed. I am trying to stay focused on the projects that I currently am working on, but we will have to see how things go in the next little while.

I hope everyone has a good week and you are able to focus on your projects no matter what they are. Being able to focus on things that make us happy is extremely important. I know that I try each day to ensure that I spend a bit of time making sure that I do something that makes me happy and helps recharge my personal battery.

English Paper Piecing - update

I have been writing a monthly update regarding my English Paper Piecing for a while and some of you may have noticed that I am not getting as much completed monthly as I was when I first started doing the updates.

I have decided that I won't be doing a monthly update until I have some progress to show you. I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to at least make some motifs even when I didn't want to do it. The pressure to make motifs or join motifs to a project started making me not want to do any EPP and that is where we are right now. I have lots of projects that I could be working on but right now I need to allow myself to want to work on the projects instead of feeing pressured to work on something.

My English Paper Piecing projects aren't going away by any means, but I need to find the join again that I had earlier on. I will continue to have a project close by so that if the desire to work on it comes up, I will do that. So, my next update will be on the 1st of some month, but I am not saying when it is going to be only that it will happen.

If you are working on an EPP project, please share with me what you are working on as it makes me happy when I heard what other people are doing. 

Making progress

Here it is the start of another week and a start of digging out from a crazy snowstorm that we had yesterday. If you were impacted by this storm, I hope you are doing ok as I know some people lost power. We just got snow here and broke records for the most snow here in one day.

Pandemic - here is the project that got some attention this past week. It was time to pick up and work on Pandemic to see how much of it I could get completed and I must admit that I am very happy with the amount of progress that I was able to make on it.

I was able to finish the second page on this row and am well on the way to finishing the third page. It was so nice to spend some time working on this piece and seeing. This piece is getting closer to a finish, and it is now going away for a little bit as there are other projects that I would like to try and make some progress on. 

Argyle Sweater - here is the other project that I have been working on, but it didn't get much attention this past week.

I had wanted to try and get a little more done on this project, but I spent the time working on Pandemic instead. This project is something that I work on a little bit at a time and I am not in a hurry to get it done. 

Talisman Shawl - here is the knitting project that got started this past week and it has been nice to work on.  I am happy with the progress that I have made on this piece given it really didn't get a lot of attention. This coming week I hope to be able to give it a little more attention, but we will see how things go.

Other projects - I didn't spend time on any other project this past week as Pandemic was my focus. This coming week I am not certain if I will have any time to work on other projects so I will wait and see. I know that I have things that need my attention so we will see how it goes.

If you are dealing with the storm that happened on January 24th and 25th, I hope you are managing ok because it was a crazy storm.

This coming week I hope to make some progress on some projects and be able to show you want I was able to achieve next week. Have a good week and remember to take a bit of time for yourself each day.