Spring Making

 I have a feeling Blogger has changed a few times since I last updated:  truthfully I am not sure if this is even going to work.  However, I will give it a try.  I am feeling the need to document my makes again. It is probably because I still feel so isolated:  moving to a new place during a pandemic is not fun.   Youtube is good for a quick update every so often, but I so often debate whether I am going to continue making videos or not.  So anyway, for now, I am going to try to put my makes back on here as well.

April:  not the nicest month where I currently live.  Still no signs of Spring coming except for the huge flock of Canada Geese that have settled on the nearby pond.  We even had a blizzard on Saturday night.

To look at the bright side it gives me lots of time to craft.  

I set myself a couple of crochet challenges for this year:  one pair of socks and one cowl per month; plus four sweaters.  One sweater is complete; another on the hooks, and I have been keeping up with the socks and cowls.  This month I chose some cheerful yellow-peach yarn.  I purchased this at my last local yarn store from the clearance bin.  I wish I had bought more:  I love the gradiant colour changes,  and because the skein was divided by a strip of blue yarn it was easy to match each sock.

I finished a shrug for my birthday. Still not sure if I am a shrug person, but it was good to try something different.  

 The pattern is from this book:

I used Premiere Cotton Fair, a thicker yarn than what the designer called for, so it came out just a tad bigger.  I have started another one with a fingering weight yarn and will see how I like that size.

I had problems with the starting chain, both on the finished one and the one I am working on now.  I keep skipping stitches inadvertently and don't notice until the end.  Unfortunately that means I have to rip out all the way back and start over.  With a fingering weight yarn I find it very fiddly, so I plan to dig out every stitch marker I have and put them into the appropriate chain before I start the second row.  After that it is a breeze:  for my first shrug I worked one repeat per day for a nice, stress-free project.

I made great progress on my Celtic Spring cross stitch piece by Lavender and Lace over Lent this year.  When I first started cross stitching I would see ads in stitching magazines for these Celtic Ladies.  I thought if I ever got to the point where I could stitch one of them I would be a real, honest and true stitcher!  Really these are not difficult to stitch at all, but oh my, those borders have almost done me in!  Next time I will do the borders first to get them out of the way.  I have found multiple needles threaded in the colours I need is helping.

My goal is to have her completely stitched and the beading started by the end of April.  If I break the stitching up into little chunks I think I can make it.  

After the discipline of not starting anything new over Lent I was more than ready for a new start.  It also being my birthday I had grand plans of starting just about everything!  I wanted something small and quick at first:  I chose the April stockings by Blackbird Designs.  I actually had no intention of stitching all three this year, but I was having so much fun I just kept going.

All are stitched on 32 count Antique White Lugana with my own over-dyed threads.  I found the little butterfly beads in my stash and thought they would make a fun, Spring-time accent.  I also used beads in place of stitches on the umbrella stocking, though it is a bit hard to see here.

My other new start is more of a journey project.  I thought I would start this Dimensions Gold kit - "Wreath Of All Seasons" - and see how much of each seasonal part I could stitch in the three months of that corresponding season.  I made a very small start on the Spring section and think I will try to stitch on it one week per month.  I am definitely a seasonal stitcher so I thought it might be a fun way to make some progress on this gorgeous kit.

There we have it for now.  I think this took two hours to write up, so now I definitely remember the drawbacks to blogging!  

Patio Wraps, a French finish

Here we are at the start of summer:  I don't know about you, but I was wondering if it was ever going to make it!  Things have been ticking along in my crafty world, though I have been on a bit of a social media break the last few months.  I will flit in here and there on various platforms, but actually enjoyed feeling like I don't have to "keep up" anywhere. 

I have been doing a LOT of cross stitching during  the past three months.  Oh, I'm so happy to be back into it!  Most of what I have worked on are still incomplete:  usually I only like to show my finishes, but I think that will have to change if I want semi-regular blog content!  I participated in Stitch Maynia this year:  I had fourteen new starts and love every one of them.  I was happy to get back to my regular works-in-progress at the end of the month though.

One thing I did finish was this sweet design above from Danybrod.  Bluet, Marguerite, Coquelicot.  The flowers are just so summery, and each colour represents the stripes on the French flag.  A perfect stitch in anticipation of our trip to France next month!

Crochet has taken a back seat to my cross stitching this year.  I think I may have burnt myself out on it from the two years where that's all I wanted to do. It bothers my shoulder as well, so a break is probably a good thing.   I even considered selling off my yarn stash:  thankfully I realized that was just the gremlins talking and instead just boxed it up to keep the dust off of it.  One day I will get it all out again and it will be like the best yarny Christmas ever!

I  do try to keep just one crochet project on the go:  I pick it up occassionally and put in a few stitches.  No deadlines for finishing and slowly, slowly things come to completion.

I call these Porch and Patio wraps.  They are made from easy care, washable acrylic yarn;  perfect for early morning coffee on the patio or late night sitting by a camp fire.  The pattern is really easy and mindless, but I think the finished piece looks more complicated than it is.  I used two skeins of Caron Big Cakes for each shawl:  'Nightberry' for the shawl on the left and 'Blue Hawaiian' for the shawl on the right.  You can find the pattern here: https://thecrochetcrowd.com/crochet-2-cake-shawl-pattern/

I hope your summer is swell:  thanks for visiting☺.

Happy days,
Jenn

I finally got glasses....

..and now I can stitch again!  I can't tell you how excited I am about that, so needless to say I have been cross stitching like crazy these past few weeks.

I finished stitching up three projects:

Stitching Friends by SubRosa Design on Etsy.  I changed the colours and the placement of the letterimg.  I love the little mice but my family does not!  The extra large sewing implements make them uneasy apparently.

Winter Stamp, a kit by Vervaco.  This almost got put away for the year because I didn't want to stitch anything more with winter.  However, it was the bright crocus and sweet snowdrops that kept me stitching, and I am so glad I did!  I just love the colours and those two sweet little chickadees.  This is one part of a seasonal series and I would love to stitch them all, however the only place I can find them now is in the UK.  I am also taking part in Stitch From Stash again this year, and so far have not done too badly.  Best not get off track with an impulsive mail order purchase!

This last picture was my oldest work in progress, and also the first kit I ever purchased.  I started this close to three years ago and it is nice to have it completed.  I found the frame at the thrift store the same day I finished stitching, so it was nice to be able to fully finish it right away.

Butterfly Scene by Creative Accents/Dimensions.

Being able to stitch again has really brought my stitching bug back.  I recently had a birthday and asked for cross stitch kits of course!  My kids gifted me some lovely ones, and I have started one and am setting up for another.

I also treated myself to some pretty new scissors, so I will be one happy/busy stitcher for a while!

Thanks for visiting!
xo  Jenn

Stash Down Throw Down 2019

The great Stash Down continues!  The kids were off last week for March break.  We had no plans for travel, and some of us were feeling a little under the weather:  that made it easy to keep plans off the table and just stay home.  It was pretty quiet, but we had a few days out to break up the week.  On our home days I stayed in my pyjamas until noon, crocheting as much as I could.  After the Tulip  blanket finish I wanted some quick little projects to keep me motivated.
First off the hook is the Vagabond:

I was excited to try out this gradiant yarn from Red Heart, colourway 'Nautical'.  I didn't use the whole cake, and in fact could probably make another of these asymmetrical shawls if I wanted.  It works up pretty quickly as there are only two rows to repeat.  I like asymmetrical shawls best as they seem to have less bulk around the neck.

The weather is still on the wintery side, so hats, scarves and cowls seemed fitting.  I like them because they're so quick:  it only took about four days to make all of what I am going to show next.

This pattern, with a small modification from me, is the Trailing Vines Cowl by Kathy Lashley.  It used two braids of Caron X Pantone in the colourway 'Blue Peacock'.  While I love the colour combinations of the Pantone braids, I really don't enjoy working with them.  I am happy to have these out of my stash.

This Caron Chunky Cake has been falling off my shelves for months, so it was nice to work it up and get it out of the way.  This colourway is called 'Cherries Jubilee', and some of those pink shades are VERY bright!   A simple v-stitch scarf and basic beanie with pompom used up every last bit of the yarn.  I love having no left overs!

This was a new-to-me yarn called 'Loops Boucles'.  It is intended for finger knitting, which is why I passed over it in the first place.  However, a local you-tuber did a tutorial on on making this hat, which only required one skein of this yarn.  The yarn is on clearance at Michaels, so I thought it might be fun to give it a try.

This only took a few hours to knit up, and the yarn is wonderfully soft.  I am still not a fan of knitting, so I am glad I just bought the one skein.  You can find the tutorial here, but check out her other videos because there are a lot of great ones.

And finally, some small skeins got used up for a few projects.  They didn't make much of an impact in their absence from the shelf, but little grams add up to kilos over time!

I doubled up two strands of Loops and Threads Woodlands yarn to get something similar to a DK weight.  The beanie is again a basic beanie pattern, this time stitched in half double crochet.  I love the tweed-ish look of the yarn, and the high wool content makes it feel like a tweed fabric as well.

You get a better idea of the colour blending in this picture.  The pattern I used for the cowl is called 'Fantail Cowl'.  Mine is much shorter than the pattern because I ran out of yarn, but doubled up it makes a cozy neck warmer.

So despite it being a lazy sort of break it was productive.  Until the weather warms up I just need to keep on hookin' on and reduce my yarn stash even further.  I still weigh my finishes and record those, along with any aquisitions, every month.  So far my losses are creeping up on my gains:  a few more weeks like this and I might just be in the black!

Thanks for visiting,

xo Jenn

Tulips in the Snow Blanket

I am so happy to share this today!  My second blanket finish of 2019.  This is the Flowers in a Row blanket pattern from Red Heart yarns.  For a while I was calling it my Tulips in a Row blanket, but as we have been buried in snow the entire five weeks I worked on it, it is now called Tulips in the Snow!

I started this on February 1, 2019 and completed it March 5, 2019.  I worked on it almost every day:  each section of tulip and dividing rows took about an hour to stitch.  So, 26 rows means 26 hours for the main body, and the border took between 5 and 6 hours to do.  The grand number of tulip flowers is 1,456!

Lots of open spaces makes for a lovely drape:  meaning this blanket has a nice snuggle factor.  The snuggle factor was tested many times during construction by my in house, Quality Control.

Thanks for visiting!
Xo, Jenn

Hoopla

I was going through my fabric the other day, mixing and matching to make some little project bags.  I found a few print collections I just love, but for different reasons they will not be made into project bags.  Also in my craft stash is a rather large collection of wooden embroidery hoops:  for several years I picked these up whenever I saw them at the thrift store.  So, pretty fabric + wooden hoops = some new wall decorations.

I have always loved these laundry day prints:  I actually have made a project bag from some of these, but there was enough left over for three hoops to hang in my laundry room.

 Aren't those little irons just the cutest?! I painted the hoops with some chalk paint to coordinate.

These sewing room prints were too cute to have sitting in the closet, so now they will sit on my craft room wall.

This one is an embroidered piece I found at the thrift store.  The colours are so beautiful, and I LOVE anything with flowers.  It may have been intended as a cushion cover:  the design looks like it was supposed to form a square, but it gets more crooked as the ribbon embroidery was worked outward. I thought this was a good solution so it can be displayed, but I won't have that niggling little voice pointing out its crookedness.  Those colours are really cheering me up in these pre-Spring
days!

Thanks for visiting!
Xo Jenn

February Things

February is only, at maximum, three days shorter than other months.  Why then, does it feel like two weeks shorter?  I guess I start the month with great enthusiasm:  I mean, January is over, so that's exciting.  I also love Valentine's Day so I  am full of plans for handmade cards and decorations.  I drew this little chalkboard, above, and my Welsh dresser got a pink and white make over.

There is that rush for Valentine's Day crafts, which for the life of me I can't seem to plan before February 1st.  So the first week and a half are spent madly stitching, and hoping I can get to the mailbox in time.  

I got my kids cards made:  they're teenagers now but I can't help myself:

I got my gifts made and mailed in time:  crocheted soapsavers ( these things are amazing!) and an owl for a Valentine birthday.

I use Red Heart Scrubby yarn for the soapsavers:  not the cotton kind, but the acrylic.  It dries faster and has a better "scratch".  Pattern:  https://jaydainstitches.com/workshop.php

I love this little guy!  I think I want my own.  The pattern is from here:  

https://www.hollyshobbiescrafts.com/single-post/2018/01/25/Owl-Will-Always-Love-You-Valentine-Caddy-Crochet-Pattern

I finished a few small cross stitch projects once all the gift stitching was done.

My January country house by Les Grilles de Maryse.  These used to be free on her website, but there is now a fee of 15 euros I think for the set of twelve. Still a good deal though, less than two dollars per chart.

I completed Feruary's design last year, so it was actually on display for the month.  I don't think I will stitch one per month;  they will get finished when I feel like it!

I have had this chart in my stash for years.  Every February I pull it out but this year I actually stitched it!

'Chocolate Covered Cherries' by Casey Buonagario.  I have a few more of her charts in my stash I would love to stitch this year.  Sadly she is no longer designing and her charts are out of print.

Another DMC Coloris stitch:  I used this thread because it reminded me of those satin lined, heart shaped, boxes of chocolates.  I should have used another fabric because the cream part of the floss blends in too well with the fabric.  I think this thread is fun for certain kinds of projects, but I don't really love the quick colour changes.

I also started another throw: Flowers in a Row with a colourway I saw on Pinterest.  I love that they look like tulips!  It has been great to work on during our exceptionally cold and icy month.

How perfect that they matched my Valentine's tulips!

As I mentioned it has been very cold and icy this month, so there was a lot of time for making.  I started at least five other things, organized my cross stitch magazine collection and built four Ikea pantries.  At times it felt like a lot of wheel spinning, but in hindsight I think I made the most of it.  I am happy to see the beginning of another month and *hopefully* the arrival of Spring.

Thanks for visiting!