Keeping Up With Blossom & Buds

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm out on my deck right now enjoying the beautiful weather under my new Rapid Shelter. Loving the shelter, but they were definitely right when they said that you should have two people to put it up! It wasn't easy, but I got it up by myself!! I had to get some sort of shelter because my big tree that provides shade to my deck came down in our recent storms. My deck is south-facing and gets a LOT of sunshine in the summer so you need some sort of shade in order to enjoy it. We're not expecting any big winds in the next couple of days so I should be able to leave the shelter up for a while rather than taking it down after each use. Phew! I put cinderblocks around each leg and have ordered some long straps so I can strap them to the top corner supports for more security in smaller winds. Hopefully I've covered all of my bases!

I've continued to work on my Blossom & Buds crochet blanket designed by Lindsey Newns. I've finished this week's pattern and am ready for the next part tomorrow:

Blossom & Buds

We just have two more "logs" and then some borders, so I'm guessing we'll be done in a couple of weeks. I've really liked timing of the pattern parts and am really enjoying the different stitches and the bright colors!

I've also made some more progress on my Summer Blossom Mandala designed by Rohn Strong:

Summer Blossom Mandala

It's hard to see my progress when comparing with my previous photo, but I have added five or six more rounds to the blanket. The rounds are getting longer (up to 272 stitches now), so they take a bit more time. But at least it means fewer ends to weave in! The most difficult part of this blanket for me is the pattern. It's a bit sloppy so there are some details left out. Part of that is because this pattern is meant for intermediate crocheters and some of it is just sloppiness. For example, in several places I've come across where it says to "repeat from *", but the * is missing. This type of mistake isn't a big deal, but there are others that require a bit more thought on my part to figure out what is really meant. But now that I know there are omissions and mistakes, I can figure out what I'm expected to do because I know the problem might be the pattern rather than me.

Finally, I fixed the problem with my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes:

Festival of Stitches

I figured out why I made the mistake in the first place. The pattern has you carrying the caramel yarn up the edge as you make the stripes in the first section. I assumed you would carry it up to the next section as well so assumed the pattern would continue on that side. But, instead, the designer went to the other side after the center section, expecting you to cut the yarn and restart it with this section. So I switched the order of the sections in the pattern and used the correct chart for this side so I wouldn't have to make those extra unneeded ends to weave in. So I'm back on track now!

That's all for now. I hope everyone is continuing to enjoy the spring weather!

Nancy

Blanket Progress

 Hi all - 

Spring is really here and we're really enjoying the nice weather! I mentioned last time that we visited family in Kansas City and Grace got hurt again. She got her stitches out on Tuesday and her wound is looking great! Funny thing, yesterday she got tangled in some barbed wire on our walk. She was completely fine, but the T-shirt she was wearing to protect her scab was ripped to pieces. This is funny because it seems that she can handle anything in the mountains, but as soon as she gets into the "dangers" of suburbia, she gets hurt! I think I might have to wrap her in bubble wrap on our next visit! (I did pull up all of the barbed wire and brought it home. I will put it in the trash as soon as I get a heavy duty wire cutter so I can cut it up to make sure it won't hurt the trash guy when he puts it in the truck. We walk in National Forest so it's okay for me to clean that up.) But on to the crafting....

I've continued to keep up with my Blossom & Buds crochet blanket designed by Lindsey Newns.  Last week's pattern installment had us add the tulip panels shown on the top and left sides in this photo:

Blossom & Buds

This week we are adding another couple of flower panels. I've started the first one here:

Blossom & Buds next panel

These flowers are pretty cool because they are created while crocheting the panel rather than being made separately and appliqued to the panel. There are three rows of flowers on each panel, so I have a ways to go with this week's pattern installment. But I'll still get it done before the next part of the pattern drops on Tuesday.

With the nice weather, I wanted to work on a project outside. I was having to juggle multiple balls of yarn at the same time on my currently active projects, so I took the opportunity to start yet another new project. I picked up my new kit for the Summer Blossom Mandala crochet blanket designed by Rohn Strong. This is one of the crochet blanket kits I recently purchased. Here is what I have so far:

Summer Blossom Mandala

This project has a lot of color changes, but so far always uses a single color at a time so it is perfect for working on outside! Because of all of the color changes, it also has a lot of ends to weave in. I'm weaving in all of the ends after every day or two of work to keep that chore manageable and to keep the ends from getting in the way. As the rounds get bigger, I'll be doing more work between the rounds so I won't have to keep weaving in so many ends. The yarn for this project is a 80/20 acrylic/wool mix. The wool adds a wonderful softness to the yarn and seems to reduce the splitting while I work, while still allowing the blanket to be put in the washer and dryer. I can see myself using this yarn for other blankets!

Finally, I've also made some progress on my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes. I finished the center triangle and started on one of the sides. Unfortunately, I had the center triangle pointing the wrong direction when determining which was the right side and which was the left. So, my side section is pointing in the wrong direction:

Festival of Stitches

The caramel piece on the side should be going straight out to the right instead of turning upwards, so I'll have to rip out that section and start that part again. I kept feeling like something was wrong while I was working on this section, but didn't realize until today what it was. Luckily, I didn't get really far on that section and because of the different colors of yarn I should be able to slide a needle into the side stitches of the center triangle and then easily rip out the side section stitches. But I'm saving that for another day....

Well, that's all for now.I have so many projects that I want to work on all of the time that it's hard to decide what I want to work on each day. I sure wish there were more hours in the day! But this is definitely a good problem to have!

Nancy

Started Blossom & Buds Blanket

 Hi all -

It's starting to feel like spring aournd here! The snow has melted, except a few spots where there were big piles from the roof or where the snow piles were especially large. It actually got up into the mid-60s today! How beautiful! We just got back from a week visiting the family. One of my nieces is just finishing her PA degree and had her white coat ceremony. I'm so proud of her!! In the ceremony, she was inducted into the national honor society, which requires a 3.8 GPA and being in the top 20% of your class. Did I mention how proud I am of her? The only down side to the trip was the Grace got injured again. It was the same injury as last time -- an open wound about the size of a nickel on her side. Not a big deal, but it was really hard on the dogs to not be able to play together! But we're home now and Grace is doing great and the stitches will come out next week.

Since my last post, I was able to start my Blossom & Buds crochet blanket designed by Lindsey Newns. I mentioned this blanket in my previous post. This is a free pattern that comes out in weekly installments. I've finished the first two installments:

Blossom & Buds

I have the third installment of the pattern so should get that finished this weekend, then I will get new installments each Wednesday until the blanket is finished. I'm enjoying working on this blanket and it's giving me the opportunity to try different stitches and techniques. The yarn is 100% acrylic and I have a love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes it feels soft comeing off the skein and sometimes it's a little scratchy and splitty. But it ends up feeling soft in the blanket and the blanket will be completely washable, so it's good in the end. Lion Brand yarn had a sale on kits a couple of weeks ago and I got my income tax refund, so I ordered 3 more crochet blanket kits to work on when this one is finished. They will have more stitches and techniques for me to try.

While waiting for the second installment of my crochet blanket, I also started a new knit shawl. It's the Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes:

Festival of Stitches

This is going to be a really fun shawl to work on! As the name suggests, it has sections of different stitches to play with. I love shawls with stripes of color and a lot of different texture from different stitches!

I was also able to block my Filemot shawl that I shared in my previous post. I wanted to share a couple of pictures of the blocked shawl just because the blocking really opens up the stitches beautifully. Here is the full shawl:

Filemot

I decided to block the edges into points along the sides, but I could also have made those rounded. (Points were easier....) And the shawl naturally forms the curl at the end. Here is a close-up of the stitches to show the fern-like design:

Filemot close-up

The yarn, which is 80% wool, holds its shape really well after blocking!

That's all for now. I hope everyone is doing well!

Nancy

Filemot

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is enjoying their spring! We've had quite an April here! This is a La Nina year, which means conditions favorable for big snows, and it has panned out! We had a foot of snow a week ago and another 2 feet yesterday. Luckily, the days in between have been warm enough to melt everything. Today the temperature is 51F and the ground is covered in snow and a couple of inches of water. This is great for our water table! Of course, lots of heavy, wet snow leads to power outages and we've had our share! Our power was out all day yesterday and the night before except for a while yesterday morning when we had power, but it blipped out every 30 minutes. Luckily, I prepared a bit since for me lack of power also means lack of water, internet and phone. But it didn't feel that bad yesterday since a couple of weeks ago we had a big wind storm in the area and the power company proactively turned off power to much of the region. I'm really glad they did that, but it was tough! What I didn't realize (but made sense after they told us) is that the power company has to inspect every inch of line (and, of course, fix any problems found) before they can turn the power back on. For us, that meant over 3 days without power. It was an eye opener, especially since the house never got above 45F! It was certainly better than a fire and now I've purchased some more items (a large battery to run the wireless router for a few minutes periodically to check on power status and make any necessary phone calls, a bluetooth speaker so I can listen to audio books longer before running down the battery on the iPhone, a solar powered backup batter for the iPhone and iPad, etc).  This outage was easier than snow outages since I could always take my car to town to escape the house and fill up a large container with water so I could flush the toilet. Next time this happens (and there's sure to be a next time), I feel like I'm more prepared to handle it!

Anyway, on to the crafting.... The biggest thing I've been working on is my Filemot shawl designed by Hunter Hammersen. I actually started this project in 2018 but had to put it away because it was too difficult for me at the time. The pattern is twisted rib based. So you're making a lot of stitches through the back loop (which is more awkward, for those who don't knit) and the decrease stitches are more complicated. It also has yarn overs placed between knit and purl stitches, which I hadn't encountered before when I first started this pattern. A yarn over is just making a new stitch on the needle by laying the yarn over the needle. Between two knit stitches or two purl stitches, that means wrapping the yarn once around the needle. But, between a knit and a purl stitch you either don't move the yarn at all or you wrap the yarn one and a half times, depending on which stitch is first. It took me a while to figure out how that worked and I kept making mistakes when I first tried to make this shawl. So I put it away, but now I pulled it out and found that I got into the rhythm of the stitches pretty quickly this time. I also switched to the sharper knitting needles that I generally use now. Here is the finished shawl:

Filemot

And here's a close-up of the stitch pattern. The color is off in this picture. The above picture is true to life.

Filemot close-up

I haven't blocked this shawl yet. I was hoping to do that yesterday, but couldn't with the power outage. Blocking will increase the size of the shawl, open up the stitches a bit and allow me to emphasize some of the shaping of the edges.

Another project I worked on is my monthly blanket project -- the Wildflower Crochet Blanket designed by Lena Skvagerson. This is the Jimmy Beans Wool blanket club project where we get some yarn and another part of the pattern each month. Here are the blocks for this month:

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 10

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 11

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 12

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - center block progress

I'm really enjoying the variety of this project! I'm learning a lot and getting a lot of practice! I'm always looking forward to the next month's installment!

Finally, I got Grace set up for doggy daycare so I can now take classes with my different quilt guilds. My first class was a needle turn reverse applique class with Margaret Willingham of Eye of the Beholder Quilt Design. In class we learned her techniques and started working on her pattern for a pineapple:

Crown Pineapple - front

Crown Pineapple - back

Her pattern had both reverse applique and regular applique. You start by tracing the pattern on the lowest layer, then baste through the layers with thicker thread to transfer the pattern to the front. This pattern has two colors of reverse applique, which is what I'm working on now. There are two additional colors of regular applique that I'll apply to the top once the reverse applique is finished. I think this will be really cute when it's finished. I'll probably make it into some sort of a bag since that tends to be my go-to project for small pieces like this. Wallhangings don't generally work for me because my walls are already filled and I don't tend to swap things out on the walls. But I use bags a lot!

I'm also looking forward to starting another crochet blanket project next week. I was really taken by the Blossom & Buds Spring Crochet Blanket from Sirdir. Here's the picture from their web site:

Blossom & Buds Spring Crochet Blanket

Isn't that cute?? This is a crochet-along (CAL) and the first installment of the free pattern comes out on May 1. I can't wait to start! Today I also ordered several other crochet blanket kits from Lion Yarns since I just got my federal income tax refund and I think these blankets are great ways to get better at crochet. I can't wait to get those, too!

Well, that's all of the crafting. I thought I'd leave you with a picture of Grace enjoying the snow from a week ago:

Grace enjoying the snow

I wish I enjoyed it that much!!

Nancy

Fiber Fest Shawl Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is enjoying their spring! We've had a lot of melting here (and another foot of snow) and still have a couple of feet of snow on the ground. We're supposed to get a little more on Sunday night, but then next week looks beautiful! I look forward to seeing some bare ground sometime!

I was able to finish and block my Fiber Fest Shawl designed by Stephen West. I don't have a good place to take a picture of a finished shawl, but here you can at least see the whole thing and the shape of the shawl:

Fiber Fest Shawl

I love the colors, but think I would like it more if there was less white mixed in with the blue. It dulls the blue and kind of dulls the green on top of the blue. Here are some close-ups to give you a better idea of how the colors look:

Fiber Fest Shawl - body

Fiber Fest Shawl - main pattern

Fiber Fest Shawl - border

I love how this turned out! I really love how the stitch pattern of the final border makes such sharp points. I did a simple blocking without pins, so those points really created themselves. One thing I don't really like is how the center lines in the brioche part of the border (the purple and green part) bow out. I think it would look better if those were straight, but that's a minor detail. I'm guessing that I probably needed to make those stitches tighter. I haven't done a lot of brioche so I'm still figuring out how tight I need to do things.

I also received my March shipment for the Jimmy Beans Wool Blanket Club. I'm making the crochet version of the blanket, which is the Wildflower Crochet Blanket designed by Lena Skvagerson. This blanket is constructed as individual squares that are then connected in the end to make the blanket. Here are the squares for March:

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 7

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 8

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - block 9

Wildflower Crochet Blanket - March center block progress

The fist block (block 7) is the first time I've crocheted a block from corner to corner, diagonally. I had to use a lot of stitch markers so I would recognize where I needed to work into the stitches, but it was pretty easy to do with that help. The second block (block 8) is probably my least favorite block for the blanket so far. It would be a good learning block if I hadn't done last year's blanket which was just variations of this pattern, but it's a bit awkward to put a wavy pattern in a square block and putting the border around the block caused some holes to appear along the right side of the block. The third block (block 9) is a variation on the Granny Square. I had to start this block over a couple of times because I wasn't reading the instructions carefully for some reason, but it was easy once I paid attention. I like how the center block is coming along. 

Grace has been having fun playing in the snow. Here she is playing in the snow on our walk on Monday, after the most recent foot of snow:

Grace on her walk

She loves to play in the snow! We usually go out in the yard in the afternoon to play a little soccer:

Grace playing soccer in the yard

It was in the mid-40s today, so Buttercup went out for the first time since we got all of the snow:

Buttercup enjoying the day

She enjoyed finding little water puddles to drink from and watching us play soccer!

March Madness continue today with the first half of the Elite Eight. Unfortunately, the University of Kansas didn't do well and they are no longer in the tournament. But I can still enjoy some very good college basketball! And if I don't get another post written before then, I hope that everyone enjoys the ecclipse! We're just going to stay home and enjoy our smaller part of it.

Nancy

Snow, Snow, Everywhere

 Hi all -

Well, it's been quite a week! We ended up getting over 4 feet of heavy, wet snow in last week's storm. I can only remember one storm with more snow since I moved up here in 2000. Luckily, we only lost power for 2.5 hours. Not sure how that happened! Must have been because I got everything as ready as possible for a long power outage. 🙃 I have a fairly long driveway so it took me three days to get the driveway cleared and the car dug out. Here's Grace enjoying the snow while it was still coming down:

The snow completely buried most of the fence. Do you see the fence peeking out of the snow on both sides of this picture?

I did an initial shoveling of the path from the house to the driveway while the snow was still coming down to give Grace a place to walk:

We got another 8-10 inches overnight after this. A neighbor walked by on the road while I was working on the driveway and took this picture:

At least it was beautiful while I was shoveling after the storm!

On the second day, one of the neighbors was passing by in his little Bobcat, working on the neighborhood roads, and he stopped and dug out some of the big piles left at the end of the driveway by the plows. I was VERY thankful since the pile was huge and the pieces were heavy!! Once I finished the driveway, I worked on digging out the car:

It really felt good when I was done!! We've had some warm sunny days this week and the melting has begun, but there's still a LOT of snow out there! Our morning walks have been affected because the trail is very difficult to navigate right now -- lots of postholing! But I did take Grace down to one of the dog parks in Boulder yesterday where she got to do a bunch of running and swimming! It's a different world down there! We have another storm coming this weekend, but it's a bit early to get a good forecast on the amount of snow we'll get. My neighbor said that Weather Underground is forecasting about 10 inches, but that they tend to overforecast. I'm torn between wanting the snowpack and being ready to walk on solid ground!

When I wasn't resting my arms after shoveling, I did make good progress on my Fiber Fest Shawl designed by Stephen West:

Fiber Fest Shawl

I'm working on the first of two borders now. It is a more complex version of the Brioche bands, where the Brioche forms a triangular pattern. I've finished the first of three pattern repeats for this border:

Fiber Fest Shawl - Brioche Border

Then I'll just have the final border to finish, which will be purple stripes on the blue background. I'll be really happy when this shawl is finished! I really love it.

Finally, March Madness is upon us so I'll be happily knitting away while watching the action! It doesn't look like Kansas has much of a chance at willing the Championship this year, but you never know!

Nancy

Craylola Scarf

 Hi all -

I thought I should get this out before the storm starts. If the forecast bears out, we are in for a couple of feet of snow in the next couple of days. Up here, that means that we'll also lose power which means no water or internet either. And there's very little cell service up here, so it will be some time to relax and concentrate on hand work. To get ready, I'll be filling a couple of buckets with water for the toilet and bringing my battery charger in from the car (I have one that can be used to jump the car battery) and topping it off since I keep my knitting patterns and my books on my iPad and iPhone. The more I do to prepare, the more likely we are to keep our power....  😉

The first project I want to share with you is my Craylola Scarf designed by Laura Nelkin. I made this scarf for my neighbor. For some reason, my dogs like to escape my yard and go to her house. Lance did that all of the time until he got too old to slither between the bars in the gate. And now Grace is doing the same. I've been working to shore up the gate to keep her in, but it's been a process. I started by covering the gate with plastic chicken wire, but Grace broke through that within a couple of days. So then I covered the bottom of the gate with craft chicken wire (a thinner chicken wire that is covered in green plastic). With that, I saw evidence that she got through the upper part of the gate. So now I've covered the top of the gate as well. That seems to be keeping her in. (I didn't originally cover the entire gate because I was scraping my hands on the zip ties that I used to attached the plastic chicken wire when that went to the top. But I switched to heavy-duty zip ties for the wire version and I don't seem to scrape my hands on that as much.) Anyway, the last time Grace got out before I covered the tops of the gates, I saw her at my neighbor's house (as usual) and when I went up to get her my neighbor wasn't home and Grace had obviously knocked over a painted Mexican flower pot and it broke. I let my neighbor know what had happened and offered to replace the flower pot, but she was really nice about it and told me not to worry about it -- she would glue the pot back together in the summer. So I decided to knit something for her to apologize since it felt incredibly intrusive to me. So I looked through my Laura Nelkin kits and decided to my Craylola for her:

Craylola

I've been wanting to make this scarf for a while. I love the zig-zag construction and all of the beads (just under 600 beads in total)! And I like that it's a thinner, lighter scarf that I think can be more useful. Here is a close-up of one of the ends while it was blocking:

Craylola - close-up

I'm thinking that the weight of the beads will also help to keep the scarf in place around your neck. I hope to make one of these for myself sometime!

I also started another Stephen West shawl -- the Fiber Fest Shawl. Stephen said that he designed this shawl to highlight one of those wonderful single skeins of yarn that you pick up at a fiber festival because it is so beautiful, but you don't know how you are going to use it. I haven't been to a fiber festival, but I have a lot of beautiful skeins that I've bought online just because I couldn't resist! So I looked through my yarn stash and picked out some skeins for this lovely shawl:

Fiber Fest Shawl

One of the reasons I wanted to make this shawl was because it has these mini baubles that I wanted to try:

Fiber Fest Shawl -- mini baubles

I think these are so cute!! This is where most of my knitting efforts are going right now.

Before I go, I'll share a couple of Grace pictures. I think I've mentioned that she loves sticks! Of all sizes!

Her favorite stick lately has been this VERY HEAVY stump!

I know how heavy this is because she keeps setting it on the path in front of me so I'll throw it for her, and I can only get it to go a couple of yards. And just another fun picture of the bobcat tracks I found on my driveway when we got back from our walk a couple of days ago:

I took a picture with my hand so I could gauge the size and check online to make sure they are actually bobcat tracks -- and they are! I love all of the interesting wildlife we have around here!!

Well, the first game of the Big 12 tournament is on now so I'll watch the rest of that and then start my storm preparations before the second game starts. I hope everyone is doing well!!

Nancy