A finish and close to a finish

Here it is the start of another week and hopefully I will be able to get a few things achieved. The weather has gone back up to where it is hot and humid and it's difficult to do much. We are currently in the middle of a heat warning with temperatures being too hot for much.

Mini the Forgotten - here is the cross stitch piece that I have been working on this past week. To say that has been my focus all week is the truth as I have been trying to get it closer to a finish. This past week I decided to try and see how close I could get it to finished if not finished. Well, 591 stitches left to go and then this piece will be finished.

I am loving how this piece is turning out and must admit that I am going to be both happy and sad when it's finished. I will be happy to have a finish because of how long it has taken me to get it done. The sad, is because I have enjoyed working on this piece. The goal for this week is to get this piece finished so that I can then pick up another project that I haven't worked on for a couple of years.

I am looking forward to having this piece completed and if things go well, I should have a finish later today. I started this piece December 2019, and it will be finished July 2025.

Spindrift Shawl - of course, I was able to get a bit of knitting done early in the week and this shawl was what got a little bit of attention.

Looking at the pictures it looks like two different shawls but of course, it depends on the lighting each time I take a picture of this. The finished picture is closer to the colour of it. It feels good seeing another shawl finished other than the blocking which I will do when it isn't quite so humid out.

I have decided on the next shawl that will get my attention, but it needs to be a little less humid out before I can enjoy working on my knitting very much.

Other projects - I have done a little bit of knitting on the balcony project that I have on the go, but the weather has prevented much progress at all. Hopefully once it is a little cooler, I will be able to enjoy moving projects forward again. 

I hope everyone is staying cool if you are in the middle of a heat wave. Remember to stay hydrated as it is important to do that as well. 

This week I will be working on getting Mini the Forgotten completed and then I will see what else I can accomplish. I will be back next week with at least one finish and hopefully progress on some other projects.


 

Heading to a finish and some progress

Here it is the start of another week with things that do need my attention, so it is going to be an interesting week. The weather has been crazy again here as we just had another heat wave so it's been a little difficult to do a lot of things.

Mini Magic of Books - here is the project that I worked on last week as it was one of  my WIPGO calls for July, so that meant it needed to get 500 stitches in on it before I could put it down. Instead of doing just the 500 stitches I work on the project for a week so get more of it moved forward and that makes me happy.

This project is one of my larger projects, so it is taking some time to get it done but at least I am seeing progress on it even if it's just a bit at a time. When I picked it up, I decided to work on the darker colours as there are a lot of those stitches in this piece, so getting some of them done would help. 

It is now time to put this piece down as it's time to pull out the other WIPGO call for July and see how much progress I can make on it. I hope to have some good progress on this other call, so we will see what happens this next week.

Spindrift Shawl - this last week I was able to make some good progress on the shawl, and it felt really good. I was able to get all the plain section completed and have almost finished the eyelet section of the shawl. It does knit up quickly until you get near the end when you have over 300 stitches on your needle. This past week I did end up putting it on my circular needle so that I had room to work on it.

This week I hope to be able to spend a bit more time working on this shawl as I know that the end is getting closer so seeing it finished would be nice. Finishing this shawl means I am going to have to figure out another shawl pattern that I would like to make. 

Other projects - I didn't work on any other projects this past week and that is because of how hot and humid it was out. Hopefully this week the weather will be just a bit cooler so that I can work on moving some projects forward.

If you are dealing with the extreme hot weather, I hope you are staying cool and hydrated. This coming week I will be working on my second WIPGO call for my cross stitch project and working on getting my shawl finished.

Hope everyone continues to find that little bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy doing. If things go as planned, I should have some progress to how you next Monday. Have a good week and try and stay cool.

English Paper Piecing - June Progress

It is hard to believe that another month has come and gone. June was a busy month and hot so it meant that I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I hope to be able to get a bit more English Paper Piecing done in July because I haven't got a lot completed.

Kindle Cover - I decided in June that with some of the pieces that I already had joined together that I was going to try and make a cover for my Kindle. I didn't get a lot of work completed on it but at least I now have determined how big the cover is going to be.

If I can sit and work on this piece for a while I should be able to make some good progress on it. Now that I have the size determined I can now figure out how many more motifs need to be made.

I hope to be able to work on this project some more in July and maybe get it closer to being ready to be quilted. I don't think this will be hand quilted, but I would like to see how quickly I can get this piece finished up so that I can start using it.

Other projects - I did make a few more motifs for the border of the scrap quilt but that was all that got attention this month.

As the weather has warmed up quite a bit here in Ontario, it means that I will probably be spending more time sitting on the balcony so that means I may be able to get more progress on my EPP projects, but we will just have to wait and see what happens.

I will be back at the end of July to show you want I was able to accomplish and hopefully I will have something to show for the month.

 

Another page finish, some progress and a new start

Here it is the start of another week and hopefully a week that starts of cooler than last week. It is nice that we are getting into the summer weather, but I don't like it when we are dealing with a humidex of 119F. This isn't something that we normally deal with. It is now getting into the 95F humidex so that is something that we have had a deal with frequently.

Mini The Forgotten - here is the project that I have been focusing on and it has now been two weeks where I have been trying to make some good progress on this piece.  It makes me extremely happy to see to the progress that I have been able to make in the last week.

I know that I have been able to make a lot of progress on this piece in the last week, and I have now been able to finish another page, so that is good. I now have two pages to go before this piece is finished and the 2nd page is very narrow, so I will be working on the two of them at the same time. It does feel good being able to see that I am getting a lot closer to a finish and right now I have just over 3,800 stitches left to go, and we will see how things go.

I am putting this piece away for a week to make sure that I don't burn myself out before getting a finish. It would be great to spend the next two weeks working on this piece, but I also know that I need to take a break to ensure that I can then focus on moving this piece to the finish and then getting the next project ready to be another focus piece. 

Spindrift Shawl - here is a new project that I started this week as I needed another shawl project that could be my focus. I am happy with the progress that I have been able to make because I haven't been able working on it a lot and have already reached the 30% complete.

I hope that through the next week I can continue to get more of this shawl done because it has been a lot of fun to work on. It is a simple pattern which is great, and I hope to be able to continue to get the rest of this shawl completed. 

Other projects - I have been able to pick up and work on my EPP for a little while this past week which is great and now to see how things go. I know that being able to continue to work on projects makes me happy.

This week I will be pulling out a different cross stitch project to see if I can get some stitching done on it. It is one of the WIPGO calls for July, so I need to work on it for a while. If things go well, I should be able to make a bit more progress on this piece and then I can pull out Mini the Forgotten next week and work on it until it's completed.

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time each day to do something for yourself. It can make a big difference how you handle other things. Hopefully I will be back next week with some progress on a couple of projects. Have a good week and if you are in Canada, Happy Canada on July 1st.

 

Some good progress

Here it is another Monday morning, and I am going to say it is way too hot right now to try and function. Instead of warming up to a nice temperature it has gone way overboard, and it is extremely hot here. The weather is now making it difficult to function or do anything so that is making it hard. At least before the weather decided to get this hot, I was able to make some progress on a few things.

Mini the Forgotten - here is the project that got quite a bit of attention this last week. I was trying to focus on moving this project forward and closer to a finish and I must admit that I think that I was able to do that. Of course, some of the areas that needed work weren't too big so that did help quite a bit. The first thing that I had to do was complete a section that had some metallic thread in it so that was the first focus and then it was time to try and move the entire project forward some more.

It does feel good seeing how much I was able to get completed this last week because it means that I have moved this project closer to a finish and that is nice. I have three pages to finish now and hopefully that means before too long I will have this piece finished.

If the weather lets up a bit I am going to continue to work on this piece through this week as I would like to see how much more of it, I can get done. 

Simply Curious Shawl - I have been trying to work on this project a bit, but it is one of those projects that does take some time to do and given it is a heavier weight yarn it is also something that you don't want to work on when it's really hot out.

When the weather cools down a little bit I think I will try and add a few more rows to this piece as I would like to see it finished before too long. I know that being able to at least work on it a bit at a time would be good so we will see how that goes.

Gradient Shawl - I have decided that while it is hot out, I needed something that I would work on while sitting on the balcony, so I started another Gradient Shawl but this time I am using some variegated yarn that I had already. The nice thing about this project is I don't have to think about what row I am on because it is a simple project to pick up and work on.

I don't know how quickly I will get this done but at least I was able to get a start on it before it got extremely hot out and hopefully it will continue to grow once, I can make some more progress on it.

Other projects - I haven't worked on any other projects this past week as my main focus was on moving my cross stitch forward. Just being able to see that I have made some good progress is nice and hopefully before long I will have a finish.

I hope everyone is finding that bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy doing. If you are dealing with the extreme heat and humidity, I hope you are able to stay cool and remember to drink lots of water.

More preemie hats and more progress

Here it is the start of another week, and I have been able to get some crafting done which makes me happy. The weather is also improving, so that makes me feel so much better. I am not someone that enjoys the cold weather so when it is nice out and jackets aren't needed makes it so much nicer.

This last week being able to enjoy some time outside was something that we haven't been able to do much of so far this year. We have been able to spend some time sitting on the balcony and being able to do that after getting work done is so nice. Hopefully, now the warmer weather is here to stay for a few months.

Magic of Books - here is the cross stitch project that got the attention this past week. I decided that I was going to try and move it forward a bit more as it was the second WIPGO call for the month of June. When it's called, I need to add another 500 stitches in on the piece so that isn't bad. Well, it was also called in May, so I hadn't done those stitches, so this past week I picked it up and I was determined to get lots of stitching done on the piece.

Instead of working on the sections that involved a lot of colour changes I decided to work on the colours that had the largest number of stitches left to go, so that is what I did. I ended up getting just over 2,000 stitches completed and I only did three colours and most of those stitches were black. At least, I was able to move this project forward a bit more and I will see when it's called again and how much more progress I can make on it.

Preemie hats - yes, I have continued to work on getting more hats finished as it is almost time to drop this bunch off. This past week I didn't get a lot of hats made but at least I have been able to get some of them done so that is what makes me happy.

One of the preemie hats is small while the other ones are medium, so they have been nice to work on. I do have another hat on the needles right now so that won't take me long to finish it and then it will be added to the pile that will be donated before the end of this month.

Simply curious shawl - I finally picked up this project at the end of the week to see if I could at least make some more progress on it and I did. I am hoping to be able to continue to work on this shawl for a while as I would like to see how quickly I can get it finished.

This shawl is using double knitting weight yarn so it is a little heavier to hold but at least now some of the shawl is resting on my lap while I knit it so that does help some. I have reached just over 25% completed based on stitches so that is nice, and I would like to see how much more of it I can get done in the next week.

Of course, while I am sitting and working on this shawl I am thinking about what will be the next shawl that I start. I have lots of yarns to choose from so it will be what pattern am I going to do and what colour yarn will I pick.

Other projects - I haven't been working on a lot of other things as I have been trying to stay focused and get projects finished instead of bouncing all over this is what I did in the past.

This coming week I know that I will be picking up Mini the Forgotten to work on as I am going to be trying to see how much of it I can get done as it is getting closer to being finished. I know it won't be finished within a couple of weeks, but I would like to have it finished soon.

Being able to take a bit of time to focus on a project that makes me happy is nice and it does help me focus and recharge my personal battery. I hope you continue to find that bit of time to do the same as it does help.

If things go well, I should be able to have some progress on at least a couple of projects to show next week but time will tell. Hopefully everyone has a good week, and I will see you again next week.

Another week of progress and a finish

Here it is the start of another week and that last week flew by. The weather is finally starting to improve which means that being able to spend a bit of time outside has been nice. We had been dealing with some bad air quality due to the smoke from the fires in Northern Ontario and the western provinces. Hopefully, they will get the fire under control and people will be able to return home.

Sea Opal - here is the project that got a bit of attention this last week. It was nice to see that I was able to make a bit of progress on it even though it only got three days worth of attention.

It does feel good seeing that I was able to move this project forward again. There is a lot of colour change in this project so this last week I decided to try and work in one area where I could focus on just a few colours and maybe see some progress and I did. I knew that I wasn't going to have a lot of time to work on this project so instead of working on lots of colour changes it was better to work in the area that I picked. Now to see when I will pick up this project again as it was one of the WIPGO projects that was called for June. It is now going to be put away for a little while and this week I will pick up the other WIPGO project to see if I can make some progress on it as well.

Summer Keep - here is a project that finally got a bit of attention, and it made me happy. I started this project in 2005 at the Creative Festival, and I only got a little bit of the roof done and then it was put away. This past week I decided to see if I could at least add a few more stitches to the project and that is what I did. I am finally starting to see what the piece will look like once it is done but there is still quite a bit of stitching left to go. I use this project when I only have a few minutes of stitching time so I can sometimes get a thread or two added but at least I am moving this project forward which is what I have wanted to do.

This pattern was designed by Jennifer Aiken-Smith of Dragon Dreams, and it does have a companion piece called Winter Keep by Teresa Wentzeler which I will work on after this piece is finished. Hopefully I will be able to finally get these two pieces finished instead of them sitting and not getting any progress on them.

Pebble Beach Shawl - here is the knitting project that got a lot of attention this past week as I was trying to get a finish on it. This pattern was enjoyable to work on and something that I think I might make again with a different colour yarn.

This past week I worked on making sure that I could get this piece finished as I knew it wouldn't take me long if I could focus on it instead of bouncing all over the place. The only part of the design that took a while to complete was the cast off because it was a Picot bind off so that did take a bit of time, but I am happy with how the shawl turned out. It now just needs to be blocked and then it will be ready to wear. Of course, after finishing that shawl it was time to start something new and that didn't take long to happen.

Simply Curious Shawl - here is the next shawl project that I started on Friday. This pattern calls for dk (double knitting) weight yarn, so it doesn't take long to see some good progress on it. I am having a good time working on this shawl and am looking forward to seeing how quickly I can get it finished because of course I have a new more shawl patterns waiting to be started.

I am happy with the progress that I was able to make on this shawl and will see how much of it I can get done this week.

Other projects - I was able to work on the preemie blanket a little bit this week so that was the only other project that got any attention. There are other projects that I would also like to work on, but I am trying my best to have a focus instead of bouncing between too many projects.

This coming week I know that I would like to get some cross stitch worked on as well as some progress on my shawl. We will see how this week goes as I know that there are some work things that need my attention first. I hope to be able to find that bit of time each day to recharge my personal battery and working on one of my projects does help with that.

If things go well. I hope to have some progress to show you need week. Until then, have a good week and remember to find that time to do something you enjoy each day.