Lots of Jammy Pants

Hi all -

I decided it was time again to make a slew of jammy pants. I'm a telecommuter, so I spend a lot of time at home and, although I shouldn't admit this in public, most of that time is spent in my jammy pants. They are just so comfortable! But they are made out of cheap flannel and so they wear out after a while. I had a bunch of flannel that I had purchased on sale at Joann's several months ago just waiting to be made into jammy pants, so I finally put my nose to the grindstone and got those done. Here are my 6 new pairs of jammy pants:

I love how extra-soft the fabric is when it is new!! While working on the jammy pants, I knew that I also had to make the leftovers of the llama fabric (second from the left) had to be made into a project bag, too:

Isn't that cute? Since flannel is a pretty weak fabric to be used for a project bag, I quilted the fabric with a cotton batting to make it stronger. I used a matching thread and did a simple diagonal cross-hatch for the quilting because I wanted the quilting to add strength to the fabric, without competing with the design. And the fabric went perfectly with this soft Ultrasuede that I got really cheap as a bolt end. At some point I'll be making some bags out of the Ultrasuede alone since it is so pretty!

As usual, I've also been doing some knitting. I've made good progress on my Aller shrug by Laura Nelkin. I now have the body completed, and just need to knit the sleeves and an edging around the front and collar:

I should be able to finish this up pretty quickly.

I also got my first installment for the Jimmy Beans Wool shawl club project. In the shawl club, Jimmy Beans sends me a little ball of yarn and a piece of the pattern every month of the year. This year's pattern is the Coral Coast Wrap by Ambah O'Brien. I got January's installment knitted up and am now waiting for February's installment.

These come out at the end of the month so I should be getting the next installment in about a week.

I'm also working on another shawl: the Fraser's Ridge MKAL by Rachel Roden. This shawl was designed as a Mystery Knit-ALong to coincide with the new season of Outlander. For those who haven't heard of this, a MKAL is a project where the pattern is divided into parts (or "clues") and the knitter doesn't know at the start what they are making. You follow the clues and find out when you're done what you are actually making. I've never watched Outlander and I wasn't planning on knitting another shawl right now, but I peeked at the spoiler picture of the project and I loved it so I decided to jump in. Here is the first clue knit up:

This has been a fun knit so far because most of it has been knit with a regular yarn (the orange) and a thin mohair yarn (the gray) held together. This is my first time to knit with two yarns held together and it's going really well. And the mohair yarn is really soft and fuzzy, so it's fun to touch. We got the second clue today so I'll try to get that knit up before the third clue comes out in a week.

Finally, I've had the urge to work on some cross-stich again. So I pulled out a project that was started by my mom and I took it over after she passed away. I worked on it for a while after she passed, but got bored with it and put it away. So I got it back out and hope to push through and get it finished.

I just have to stitch the trees on both sides of the picture and do all of the backstitching on the bridge. That's a lot of stitching, but I should be able to get it finished by summer. Then I can get it framed and hang it in the bathroom next to the companion one that she had completed and framed a long time ago.

Well, that's all I've been working on lately. I hope you are all doing well!

Nancy

Japanese Garden Center Finished

Hi all -

It's definitely winter now. We've been having cold, snowy weather lately, but I just remember that spring is just around the corner and it will be March in a couple of weeks. We'll have more snow then, but the days will continue to be longer and warmer now.

I've made some good progress on my projects. I finished the center of Japanese Garden, the wedding quilt for my niece. This quilt started as the Punch Bowl Botanicals Plum Quilt Kit from Bluprint, but I've changed some of the fabrics to add an Asian element and to add some greens to the purples of the kit:

The actual colors are brighter than in the picture, but you get a good idea of the movement the quilt creates. I love how this is turning out! I still need to decide on borders, but I decided to step back and work on some other stuff for a little while. After all, I have until the end of August to finish this one.

I've also done some sewing for Relief Crafters of America, which is a Facebook group that organizes sewing/knitting/crocheting projects for animal organizations. I originally joined them to make things for the Australian wildlife affected by the fires, but just as I got started the word came down that the Australian organizations were getting overwhelmed by the donations so they were asking us to hold off for a while. So the group changed focus and they are now picking several animal charities in America each month and are organizing crafting for those organizations. This month I signed up to make some things for The Pipsqueakery animal rescue in Indiana. I signed up to make 2 little snuggle sacks:

and 10 animal hammocks (I folded over a corner so you could see both sides of each hammock):

A friend of mine might recognize one of the polar fleece fabrics since she gave these scraps to me many years ago.... I'm washing the donations now and will package them up to mail to the collecting hub in the second half of the month.

I've also been doing some knitting. I finished by Umami Mitts by Laura Nelkin:

This was the November 2019 Lola's Choice kit, but I didn't have time to work on it until after Christmas. These are knit with a Fisherman's Rib stitch, which creates a fabric that is really spongy and airy so that it creates warmth from trapped air while remaining light weight. I'm keeping these!

I also made my Cassio Collar by Laura Nelkin. This was the Lola's Choice kit for January 2020:

This was a fun, quick knit and ended up really cute. I do love knitting with beads!

Finally, I started knitting an Aller by Laura Nelkin. This is a cute short-sleeved shrug that ties in the front. It is knit from the top down. I've gotten past arm holes so you can start to see the shape of the shrug:

I'm making this one exactly to the pattern, but I might also try another version with long sleeves since I think that might be useful when I get a little cold in the summer, but not cold enough for a full sweater. It's nice to have a project to work on that has long stretches of knit or purl stitches that I can do without much thinking. I've been doing a lot of lace knitting lately, which takes a lot of attention to make sure you don't make mistakes.

That's about all I have for now. I hope the winter is going well for everyone!

Nancy