Making Progress

Hi all -

Sorry for the long silence.  I ended up going to Kansas City for a couple of weeks. At the time I left my house, my brother-in-law was getting ready to go into hospice so I wanted to be there to take care of my sister's dogs so she could concentrate on him. Of course, it takes a while to get everything organized, so when I arrived at my sister's house, she was at home collecting her stuff for the transfer to hospice, which was supposed to occur in about an hour. But when she got back to the hospital, she found that he had passed away while she was gone. It really was the best outcome at that point because he was in pain and the pain medications really messed with his head. So we ended up spending my visit making the arrangements and going through his stuff to try to get as much accomplished as possible while I was there to help. Ironically, the mat that I made for him and mailed on Dec 21 was sitting on the porch when I arrived on Jan 4, so I could have just brought it with me rather than shipping it. I like to support the post office, but for this package I really should have used FedEx or UPS. So that's why I've been absent for so long. But now that I've been back for a couple of weeks, I've been able to make some progress to share with you.

The project that I'm concentrating the most on right now is my cross-stitch project. I feel like I'm on the home stretch so I'm really motivated to finish it. Here's what I have so far:

Dreaming of Tuscany

This project is really starting to take shape! The top 2/3 is completely finished, including the backstitching that has to be done after the cross-stitches. I try to do a lot of the backstitching when I complete different sections of the project because the backstitching can take a lot of time and it's depressing to end up having a week of backstitching to do when you feel like you are almost done with your project! I'm really loving how this looks and the colors make it perfect for my bathroom. I think I'll enjoy looking at it there every day.

My other exciting project is my current sweater. It's the I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli. I'm about halfway done with the body and have finished the first sleeve:

I See Spring

 Even though the instructions have you finish the body before working on the sleeves, I like to finish the sleeves as soon as possible because there is less bulk in the sweater while you are twisting it when knitting on the sleeves and because knitting the narrow rounds of the sleeves is harder on my hands so I like to get it over with as soon as possible. All I have left to do on this one now is to knit the other sleeve, finish the body and knit around the neckline. I might do the neckline before the rest of the body, too, since it will again be easier with less bulk and I hate picking up stitches so I'll be able to get that over with, too. I love the weight and feel of this sweater. The yarn is a wool/silk mix that I think will be really comfortable.

I did go ahead and take a break from the other projects to knit a quick headband. This was the February 2021 Lola's Choice project that I got in the mail last week. The kit came with a really soft, fuzzy yarn that was wonderful to work with! The pattern was Twistola designed by Laura Nelkin and I was able to knit it up in about 4.5 hours.

Twistola flat

Twistola "worn"

I'll probably make several more of these as gifts!

Last but not least, I finally sewed together the bag that I made for myself out of the fabrics that I used for my niece's wedding wallhanging.

I love how this bag turned out and will try to work some hand embroidery into more of my projects. I think it really adds some fun and detail to things!

That's all for now. I hope everyone is staying healthy and happy!

Nancy