Another finish and some progress

Here it is the start of another week and part of me isn't sure where the week went. It has been a busy week for me, so now to see what this week as in store. I think this week is going to be another week when my crafting will be those few minutes when I can find the time.

I think things are starting to get back to normal as more of the restrictions have been lifted, but we still have some restrictions and have to be careful.

Mini Bouquet Sampler - January - this week I decided that I wanted to see if I can get another project finished, so I picked up the January design that I have been working on.

This design didn't take me too long to finish once I was able to focus on it instead of just doing bits and not seeing much progress on it. I am now happy that the January design is done, and now I can move onto the February piece. I would like to get these caught up soon, but I do know that it is going to be a bit of time given the schedule for the next couple of weeks for me.

This piece was fun to work on and yes they are pineapples, and it was fun to stitch and now to see what the February piece looks like.

Ruskins Penguins - I decided it was time to see if I could add a few more stitches into this project and maybe get a bit more of it done. I still have lots of the border to complete, but I think now I will try and work on it a bit at a time.

What I may do with this project is to try and finish all the black on the design, and then I will just have the white to go, and that should take as long. The black is the main colour, so getting it complete would be good.

I haven't picked up this piece since February, so it felt good seeing that I was able to move it forward a bit.
The first penguin is now finished, and I have started to stitch the second penguin, and it is a lot of fun just working on this a bit at a time. I would like to see more of it done before the weather gets warm here, so this might get a bit more attention over the next little while.

Toques - I decided one of my goals this year is to try and make more toques that I can donate to charity. I haven't been working on this for very long, but I do have a couple of toques and a couple of headbands finished already. It always makes me feel good when I can see that I am able to get some of these projects done quickly. 

Other projects - I haven't had a lot of time to work on any other projects this past week, and not sure what this week has in store. I do know that I am going to be busy with quite a few work things, so will see what time I have left to do some other stuff.

Hope everyone has a good week and remember to try and find those few minutes each day to take time for yourself and do something that you love.  Hopefully next week I will have a bit of progress to show you on something.

Progress and a finish

Here it is the start of another week and now to see what I have been able to get done.  I know that this week has been a little crazy, but at least I have been able to make some progress on a few projects, and that makes me feel good.

Here in Ontario, a lot of the mask restrictions are starting to ease, and now it is our choice if we wear a mask or not when out and about in most places. In medical, long-term care facilities and on public transit, masks are still required.

A Year in Flowers - January - this has been a lot of fun to work on, and it has been something that I wanted to see if I could get it finished before the end of this week.

After not working on it for a while, I decided to sit and focus on it and see if I could get it done, and on Saturday I was able to get the January piece finished. I am loving how it turned out, and I am looking forward to working on the other 11 months and getting them done so that I will have all of them ready to hang up on our magnetic board before too long.

I hope that I can continue to move this project forward quickly, as these don't take too long to finish, and it feels great seeing that I was able to get it done without too much of an issue. This week I hope to start the February piece, but will see how things go.

Mini Bouquet Sampler - this piece didn't get a lot of attention this week, and part of that is because I was working on getting the other January piece done.

This week I have started to work on the stems and then also on the pineapples that are a key part of this piece. I hope that I will be able to get more of this piece done, as I would like to see that I have both of the January projects done before the end of March.

I am not sure how much stitching time I will have this week, but I hope that I can continue to move this project forward and maybe even see that I have enough time to get it done. I know that I am loving how this is starting to turn out, and also I know that just sitting and focusing on this piece will help me get more of it done.

I know that the next two months have already been released, so I need to move forward on January so that I can start to get caught up on this overall project.

Pandemic - here is a piece that hasn't got a lot of attention so far this year, but I am very happy with the progress that I was able to make over the weekend on it.

I hadn't touched this piece since January, and all of a sudden, I wanted to pick it up and see how much of it I could get done. Part of me was concerned that there was going to be a problem with the fabric, so over the weekend I worked up the border to ensure that I have enough fabric to complete the entire project. What I did was work the outside border all the way to the top of the project to ensure that there was enough fabric available for the project.

I am happy to say that after stitching all the border, I have found that I have quite a bit of fabric at the top, so that means that everything is going to be ok with this project. After stitching up the border, I decided to focus on one area of the piece and also have made some good  progress on it. I think started working again on the lower section so that I can start to move it up.

Beach Haven Shawl - this week I continued to work on this project and as the rows are getting longer it means that it takes longer to complete each row. It is nice to see that I have at least been able to make some progress on it this week, and now to see what this coming week is like. I hope to be able to continue to add some more rows to this piece, and maybe if things go extremely well I might be able to change colours again.

Other projects - I haven't had a lot of time to work on other things and this week looks about the same, so will see what I get done. Weekends seem to be the time when I can sit and work on a project a little longer than I can during the week.

I hope everyone is continuing to take care of themselves and find that bit of time each day to relax and recharge your own batteries. I am not sure what this week has in store, but hopefully I will be able to find some time to move a couple of projects forward.

A week of starts

It is hard to believe that another week has come to an end, but at least I have some progress to show this week. The week started out with me figuring out the knitting project that I wanted to start, and it ended up with me also having two cross stitch starts as well. This has been a week when I decided that I wanted to start some things and maybe see how much I can get done over the next little while.

A Year in Flowers - January -- here is the first cross stitch project that I worked on and am happy with the progress that I have made. This is by Tempting Tangles, and it was originally a year-long SAL, but now it has been released as one pattern and I decided that I wanted to stitch it. The pattern shows it either stitched as a book or as a sampler, but I will be stitching each one separately so that I have put them one during the month and changing them up. I am trying to get a bunch of monthly smalls completed so that I can have them hung up and change them up each month.

This one is stitching up very quickly, and it makes me happy to see that I have been able to get this much progress on it already, and I only started this piece on Friday. It is always nice when you can see some quick progress on a piece, and hopefully it will be finished before too long.

Mini Bouquet Sampler - January - here is another project that I decided that I wanted to stitch, so I pulled out the floss that was needed for this project. Between both this project and A Year in Flowers, I didn't have all the floss, so it meant a quick trip to Michael's so that I could get the floss so that I could work on both of these projects.

I was able to get this much of the piece done before going to Michael's on Saturday, so now will see how quickly I can get this piece done as well. This is another sampler that was designed to be stitched either all together or as pincushions. I will be making them small pieces that I can hang up on our magnetic board and display them each month.

Beach Haven Shawl - after finished the shawl last week, I knew it was time to start another project, so here is the progress that I was able to get done this week on Beach Haven Shawl. I am loving how this shawl is knitting up, and I am using a rayon yarn made from bamboo called Truboo which I picked up at Michael's. I have already completed the first colour of this pattern and there are four sections, so will see how quickly I can gt the shawl knit up. I do have a goal of when I want it finished, so will see if I can get it done by then.

This shawl starts out with three stitches and by the time I finish the four sections I will have over 540 stitches on the needle. It does work up pretty quickly as I am already at 200 stitches on the needle and that is just around 80 rows complete out of the 154 rows. 

Other projects - I haven't been able to get much done on any of the other projects, but at least I can see that I made some progress on things this week.

I hope everyone continues to find those few minutes each day to take time for yourself and do something that you love doing. It doesn't matter if it is reading, watching TV, crafting or just relaxing, it is taking some time to recharge your own personal batteries, and it does help so much. Each of us needs to ensure that we take care of ourselves so that we have the energy to take care of others.

Hope everyone has a good week and if things go well I will have some progress to show you next week.


 

Two finishes

It's hard to believe that another week is over, and things are starting to look a little better here in Toronto. I know that it is still a way away before things are at a normal level, but at least now I am starting to feel a little better about things.

The weather is our normal crazy March weather, as yesterday we had a high of 16C here in Toronto, and now it is back to the normal temperatures of around 1C. At least the warm day yesterday melted quite a bit of the snow, so that is nice. 

Asymmetrical Lace Knit Shawl - this has been my focus piece for the last week as I wanted to get it finished. I wasn't sure when I started the week if I could be able to get all the rows done that remained, but then I figured it was going to be my goal for the week.

With a bit of hard work over the weekend, I was able to get all the lace section completed and then the job of casting off all the stitches. The casting off didn't take as long as I thought it was going to take, and now the shawl is finished. I am very happy with how it turned out, and now I just need to block it a little, and it will be ready to wear.

This shawl was pretty easy to work on as until you got to the lace section it was just garter stitch with increases. The lace section was a little more focused work, but again something that I could get done without too much of a problem.

Now that this project is off the needles, it is time to figure out which project is going to take its place. I think I know what it is going to be, but I will wait until later today or tomorrow to make that final decision.

I Love To Stitch In Blue - this is another one of those small cross stitch projects that I have been working on. I wanted to have some small projects to focus on for a bit, just to change things up a bit for myself.

I started this project last Sunday and then didn't work on it at all during the week, so figured I should try and move it forward again. I picked it up on Saturday to work on it, and I got it finished. It was a fun piece to stitch and again something small. This pattern was from The Gift of Stitching, Issue 3, April 2006.

Other projects - I didn't work on any of the other projects that I have on the go this week, as I was focused on getting the shawl done. I will see what this week has in store, as once again I have things that I want and need to get done. 

I hope everyone has a good week, and you continue to find those bits of time each day to take time for yourself. I realized this week how important it is to make sure that even those few minutes can make a difference on your energy level and how you handle everything.

Have a good week and hopefully next week I will have some progress on something to show you. Now I just need to figure out what the focus is going to be for this week.