Some progress and a finish

Unleash the Butterflies - Oct 12

Here it is the start of another week and an update of what crafting I have been up to in the past week.  Of course, things have kept me busy, so I haven't had as much time to craft, but at least I was able to find some time to make some progress on a couple of projects.

Unleash the Butterflies - it was time again for this project to come out and get some attention this week.  I picked this piece up and focused on working on a couple of colours instead of one little section.  It made me feel a little better, seeing some progress on the overall piece instead of just one or two little areas. 

Unleash the Butterflies - Oct 27

I continue to use the Pattern Keeper (android app) to help me mark off my stitches on this full-coverage piece.  The app also helps me locate those single stitches of a colour that so often were missed when I was using the paper copy of the pattern.

The app also lets me see how many stitches I was able to get done and the percentage of the pattern that is complete.  So Unleash the Butterflies is 12% complete, so yes, there is still a long way to go on this project, but I love seeing some progress even if it was only .5%.

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - Oct 20

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - I said that I wanted to try and focus on getting this cowl done quickly and after spending some evenings working on the pattern, I was able to get it done this week.  I still need to block it, but the stitching is now done on this cowl.

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - Oct 25

The pattern was very simple, and it worked up quickly when you could sit and focus on it and not bounce around, trying to get a few other things accomplished.  I know that having a couple of evenings after dinner to sit and knit was great, and it means that I got this project finished and now will be able to start another project soon.

I have yarn to make another one of these cowls, so I think that will be cast on soon so that I can start working on it.  The next cowl that I make will probably with the bigger version of this pattern but will see once I start casting on the stitches.


I continue to work on a bunch of other projects, but nothing has advanced far enough for pictures.  I hope that before too long, I will have some pictures to show some of the other projects that I have been working on.

It is now time for me to get some work done that is sitting here waiting to be done.  I hope everyone has a great week, and you find some time to do the things that you love each day, even if it is just 20 minutes. 

Projects moved forward

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 14

 Here it is Monday morning, and yes, there was a bit of progress on a couple of projects this week.  With it being a shorter week for getting things done, there isn't as much to show.

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 16

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - the one project that I wanted to get finished up this past week was the October section of the Linen and Threads Mystery SAL.  I only need the squirrel to finish, so I sat down one evening, and that was my focus so that I knew that this project was completed for the month.

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 16

The center of the piece is now finished, and November and December will be working on the border once it is released.  I am looking forward to seeing what the border looks like as I have enjoyed all the various sections that we have had on this piece.  The biggest challenge each month is figuring out which colour is going into what part of the design.   Once that decision is made, the actual stitching of the section is a lot of fun.

Cowl - Oct 14

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - here is a project that got the attention this week, and part of that is because we were busy, so being able to pick up something and work on it for a few minutes at a time worked great.

I have to continue to knit this until it is 9.75 inches long, so I haven't measured it yet, so not sure how much more I have to knit, but I know it is more than a couple of inches.  I love this cowl as it does work up quickly, even if you are only working on a few minutes at a time.

Cowl - Oct 20

This week I am not sure what I will be working on as I have a few things that need my attention.  I hope to see a bit more of the cowl worked on, and maybe I will even work on the shawl for a bit.

I hope everyone has a great week, and you find a bit of time each day to do something that you love.  Until next week hope you all have a good week and remember, as Jan always says, "Find your joy."

Moving things forward

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 2

Here it is the start of another week.  Of course, it is Tuesday, and there was no blog yesterday as it was a holiday here in Canada, so I took the day to relax.

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - I was able to pick up this project and get some more of the October section completed.  I only need to finish off the second squirrel, and this project will be finished another month.  I am looking forward to working on the border next and will see what that looks like.  This project continues to be something that I enjoy working on.  I enjoy seeing each section and now, with only two months to go on it, I know that we will be getting the border, so that will take some time to get done.

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 14

This project is the one that I look forward to seeing what the next section will be at the beginning of each month.  I understand that there will be a 2020 Mystery SAL as well, so now we are all waiting to see what the size is going to be so that we can start to get things organized for a January 1st start.

I hope to finish the October section this week and then this project will be put away again until October 31st when the November section is released.

Unleash the Butterflies - July 30

Unleash the Butterflies - this week, I decided that it was time to pick up a project that hasn't had a lot of attention for the last few months. I kept looking at this project and thinking about working on it but never did until this past weekend.  I only worked on getting a couple of colours added to a section of the design, but at least I have moved the project forward a little more.

Unleash the Butterflies - Oct 12

Another reason for working on this project is I found an Android app that will assist with working on full coverage cross-stitch projects, and it is called "Pattern Keeper."  This app makes it easy to each for a symbol on your pdf pattern and then mark them off as you stitch them.  This makes working on full coverage projects so much easier and even a little faster.   This app has only been available for the last couple of months, and it is still in Beta testing, so sure there may be a few little challenges that we deal with, but the developer is a stitcher and is working quickly to resolve any issues that we discover.

I hope to continue to work on Unleash the Butterflies more this month as I would like to see if I can get a bit more of it done.

Everyday Shawl - Oct 6

Everyday Shawl - I continue to work on this shawl a bit most days.  This past week I didn't get as much time to knit, but at least now the shawl measures 17 inches.  I still have a long way to go until the shawl is finished, but I love how it is turning out.

Everyday Shawl - Oct 14

The section of the shawl that I am working on needs to be 30.5 inches before I start adding in some buttonholes, so until then, I have an area of the shawl that is simple and quick to work on.  I will see how much knitting I will get done this week, as I think that this shawl might be a project that I try and focus on for a while.

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - Here is another project that got started in the last week when I wanted something that I didn't need to focus on too much.  The Simple Yet Effective Cowl is a free pattern on Ravelry, and it works up quickly.  When I started this project, I wanted something that I could work on a bit at a time and didn't have a finish a row.  This cowl is knit on a circular needle, so that means that I can work on it a bit at a time and not worry about ensuring I have enough time to complete a row.

Simple Yet Effective Cowl - Oct 14

I am now going to try and get some work done that is sitting here.  I hope everyone has a good week, and you find a bit of time each day to do something that you love doing. We will see what projects get worked on this week and until next week have a great week.

A bit of progress and Fair results

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - Oct 2

Here it is the beginning of another week, and I have a little bit of stuff to show for the past week.  I didn't get as much done as I had hoped but also didn't have as much time as I thought to work on the various projects.

Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'19 - this project got one evening of work, which was great.  I have at least started this piece, so now to finish working on the October section so that I can have it waiting for the November release, which is going to be the start of the border.

I hope to be able to get the rest of this piece done this week, but again, I will have to see how much time I have to sit and work on things.

Everyday Shawl - Sept 29

Everyday Shawl - Oct 6

Everyday Shawl - I had planned on working on this project each day, but I didn't get that done in the last week, so now to work on trying to get back to getting at least 20 minutes of knitting done each day.  I only got 2.5 inches knit this week, so I will see how much I can do this coming week.  The 20 minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but we were busy this past week, so when I had the 20 minutes, I was working on another project that had a deadline.

The shawl now measures around 13.5 inches, which is nice but still has quite a bit of knitting to go on this shawl.  I hope this week I can get some knitting in and see that I can make some good progress on the overall shawl.

TASK tags - Oct 5

TASK tags - here is a project that I was able to get done this week.  We are going to be helping at a booth at a conference and decided that we needed the website as part of our tags.   There are four of us at the booth, so I sat and designed and stitched the four tags for us, and then we have a centrepiece for the table, so it is also getting its own tag.  These were some very quick stitches which helped so now to get back to working on some of the other projects that I would like to achieve.   It is a lot of fun when you can work on something that appears quickly.  It will be interesting to see the reaction of the other guys at the booth as they don't know that I have done this yet.

Mystery SAL'18

Markham Fair - I can finally show that I have been working on over the last couple of weeks.  The big project that I was working on was getting three projects finished up so that I could enter them into the Markham Fair.  The two pieces that I am very happy with are Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'18 and Swans.  Both of these pieces were entered and in different categories.  Linen and Threads Mystery SAL'18 won the 1st place ribbon for the 11-18 count Aida category and Swans done the 2nd place ribbon for cross-stitch on other material.

I did enter Needleworker in the category of a piece of cross-stitch not framed as it was made into a bell-pull, and it didn't place.

Swans

Markham Fair is an interesting fair to enter pieces in as they hire people to judge the pieces, and after talking to the committee this year is interesting to hear about the judging.  It does make me happy to know that the ribbons I won were based on the work that was done on the pieces.  At Markham, they don't award all four ribbons if the work isn't up to a particular standard in a category, and only ribbons that are earned are awarded.  We saw that in some categories, there were only one or two ribbons awarded, and some of them weren't even a 1st place.


I am now going to get some work done as I have a bunch of things that need my attention.  I hope to find some time this week to get a bit of crafting done, but I will have to wait and see how things go.

I hope everyone has a great week, and you find some time to do the things that you love doing.