"Count the Stars" Cross-Stitch Progress

 Hi all -

Summer is here and we've had a reprieve from the rain. We are experiencing hot, sunny days and the pine trees are finally dropping their pollen. This usually happens in early June, but the pine trees wanted to wait for the rain to end so their pollen can spread far and wide. It's kind of an amazing sight to see all of the yellow pollen wafting in the air, but it's also a difficult week waiting for it to finish because it's a mess and I have to keep the windows closed to keep it from getting on every surface throughout the house, so it gets pretty hot in the house by the afternoon. Also, I'm allergic, although my allergies seem to be easing a bit with age. I hope that keeps up!

As for crafting, I spent most of my time this week working on my "Count the Stars" cross-stitch:

Count the Stars

I now have all of the cross-stitch part finished. I finished the entire bottom section this week. It's nice to have that done! This piece is only 4"x6", worked on 18-count Aida cloth. That means there are 18 cross stitches in each inch of the design. The combination of small stitches and the dark color of the cloth make it really hard to see your work! Now I just have some more outline stitching to do. I did the regular outline stitches as I went along, so the remaining is done in special ways -- with metallic thread, couching, etc. When the piece is finished, I will probably sew it into a bag of some sort.

I also started work on a new knitting project. It took me a while to settle on this project. I received my Jimmy Beans Wool accessory club yarn, but I didn't like the included knit or crochet projects so I decided to make something else. Here is the yarn we received:

JBW Accessory Club Yarn

JBW has someone who looks through the patterns on Ravelry and suggests other options for the accessory club kits in case you don't like the patterns that come with it. She suggests both knit and crochet patterns. I originally was going to make a crochet scarf that she suggested, but I had trouble with the beginning instructions. It used a new-to-me technique for making the foundation chain and the first row at the same time. It's not a difficult technique, but this yarn is flimsy and I needed to use the purple yarn for this part of the pattern, so I had a difficult time seeing the stitches and picking things up in the right place. I decided to save that pattern for a better yarn and do a knitting project with this yarn instead since knitting is easier for me. So I opted for another one of her suggestions  -- the Galette Shawlette designed by Beach Nerd Knits. Here's what I've done so far:

Galette Shawlette

The white sections are all done in stockinette; the purple sections are lace. I'm about halfway through the second lace section, then I'll have another plain section and then a longer lace section. Here is a close-up of the second lace section:

Galette Shawlette - close-up

The lace is all knit from charts and this designer doesn't make her charts like most designers so I had to spend a bit of time up front zooming in on the project photo and comparing it to the chart to make sure that I understood what to do. It's funny because she spends time explaining in the pattern that you read her chart from left-to-right for right side rows and right-to-left for wrong side rows, which she says is different from most patterns. But that's the same as every other chart I've used for something that's knit flat. It's when the project is knit in the round that you read every line from left-to-right. However, she doesn't mention that she uses the same symbol in the chart for a right-side knit stitch as for a wrong-side knit stitch. This is not the way most designers make their charts. Most designers use the same symbol for a right-side knit and a wrong-side purl. They do this because, even though you are making a different kind of stitch on the right-side versus the wrong-side, the right-side knit and wrong-side purl both end up being a knit stitch when looking at the right side of the piece. When you chart it this way (the normal way), you can look at the chart and see what the pattern will look like in your work. That is, stockinette in the chart looks like stockinette in the piece and garter in the chart looks like garter in the piece. It really helps you see if you are doing the pattern right. But I figured it out because she didn't have right-side/wrong-side stitches indicated in her chart key. So, the pattern is completely correct, but I think it would be nicer if she followed the convention that other designers use. One other note for this pattern is that the pattern description on Ravelry just says that it uses 350-400 yards of yarn, but doesn't break it down to what is needed of each color. It looked like it would be about half of each color, so the 219 yards of each yarn that we got should be enough. But, once I purchased the pattern and downloaded it, the specification in the pattern is for 300 yards of the main color (white in my case) and 200 yards of the contrast color. To be safe, I ordered a second skein of the white yarn to make sure I can finish this project. I'll finish the second lace section now, then will wait until the new yarn arrives (scheduled for Thursday) to move on to the next main color section. I don't know if I'll get a skein from the same dye lot as the one I have, so if the dye lots are the same I'll continue with the current skein and only add the new skein if needed. If the dye lots are different and it looks like the color doesn't quite match, I'll knit the next main color section with the new yarn so I'm not switching skeins in the middle of a section. 

Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!!

Nancy

David Taylor Applique Class

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We had another week full of heavy rain. So unusual for us! But we're starting a sunny spell now.

The highlight of my week was a David Taylor applique class that I took through one of our local quilt guilds. He's an incredible teacher and is very entertaining at the same time! This class was his one day applique class where he showed us his design process and taught us his applique method. If you don't know who David Taylor is, you should look at his Web site. His work is incredible!! For this class, we had the choice of working on either a Chickadee or a Hummingbird. I chose to work on the Chickadee:

Little Chickadee

(I also bought the Hummingbird kit and a Columbine pattern.) I didn't get very far, but I understand the technique and can finish at home. He uses a ladder stitch instead of the whip stitch that I've always used. The ladder stitch is slower for me, but is completely invisible on the edge of the applique pieces. I'll have to practice the stitch so I can do it faster, then decide which stitch I like better. I think my whip stitch looks pretty good so I'll probably only switch to the ladder stitch if I get a lot faster with practice. David has moved back to the area (he's living in Fort Collins now) so I'll hopefully be able to take more classes from him in the future. He's also talking about maybe starting an Asilomar-like quilt seminar series in the area, maybe in Estes Park. That would be incredible!!

I also did some crochet this week. The Grocery Girls (a knitting podcast that I follow) started their Granny Square make-along that I've been waiting for, so I made my first project. This is the Granny Market Bag designed by Zeens and Roger:

Granny Market Bag

This was an easy project to make. You crochet a big granny square variation, then add the sides and handles gathering up the sides of the square in the process. I really like how this turned out and will probably make more as gifts.

I also started another bag for the Granny Square make-along. This one is the Summer Days Daisy Bag designed by Stephanie Jessica Lau. So far, I only have one of the granny square variations made:

Summer Days Daisy Bag square

I still need to make 14 more of these and then stitch them together and add the handles.

Finally, we got our June installment for the Juni Throw designed by Katy Petersen:

Juni Throw

Juni Throw - June close-up

This month's stitch pattern was easy to understand, but, for some reason, I had a lot of trouble stitching it without making mistakes. After redoing the first row four or five times, I added stitch markers to the top of each pattern repeat so I could isolate any mistakes and fix them right away:

Juni Throw - stitch markers to help with pattern

This was a big help and I was able to finish this section. In fact, after taking the above picture I saw that I had made a mistake in the current section and was able to fix it quickly and easily! With this month's installment, I'm half way done with this throw!

That's everything for this week...

Nancy

Gardenia Market Tote Finished

 Hi all -

Wow! Another week has passed so quickly!! We continue to have a lot of rain up here. My well is very happy! This week I concentrated on just a couple of projects, and finished them both.

First, I finished my Gardenia Market Tote designed by Alexandra Tavel:

Gardenia Market Tote

Gardenia Market Tote

I ran out of yarn before finishing this bag, but I found more of the yarn on Amazon so was able to order more and get it quickly. Since this is a commercial manufacturer, I didn't worry too much about the colors not matching from different dye lots and, indeed, you can't see a difference between the yarns. I love this bag! It's not practical as a shopping bag because it's made out of a lot of yarn so is a bit heavier and takes up more space than most market totes. But it's really pretty, feels soft and luscious, and can hold a lot. I think it will be a good beach bag, project bag or general tote bag. I followed the pattern as it is written (or as best I can since I still get confused about end-of-round instructions), except that I added an extra round for the handles to make them a little wider. 

My other project was a new knitting project. I was reading a forum for a designer that I like and someone posted something about the Terra Shawl. That reminded me that I was planning on making this shawl sometime for my niece, Terra. I decided that now was a good time to do that. Here's where I can demonstrate some of the wonderful features of the Ravelry web site (ravelry.com). I had purchased the pattern from the Ravelry web site a while ago so I was able to search for the pattern in my library and download it to my iPad for use in my knitCompanion knitting software. On the pattern page in Ravelry, they produce a link to a page where they have searched all of the projects that other people have made from this pattern and compared the yarn that they used to the yarns that I have in my stash (I add new yarn to my stash in Ravelry when I get it). So I could look at pictures of other projects that people made with the yarns that I already have to see if I like how the pattern works up in those yarns. That page also shows how much I have of each color of each yarn, with the ones where I have enough for the project highlighted. From that page, I could click on the yarn that I decided I wanted to use and the stash page for that yarn includes a note about where I have the yarn stored so I could immediately find the yarn and start the project. I think that's incredibly cool! And, to top it off, the Web site is free and there is just a little discrete advertising that doesn't get in the way of the usefulness of the site. I really love it! And here is my finished Terra Shawl designed by Joji Locatelli:

Terra Shawl

I still need to block the shawl to get it to its appropriate size and to open up the lace. The pattern was really easy, but I found that I definitely needed life lines because it was really easy for me to forget the increases. I had missed the increases at some point on my first start and ended up ripping everything out and starting over because that felt like it would be quicker than trying to find and fix my mistake. On the second try with the lifelines, I somehow added a stitch in my knitting but was able to just rip back to the life line and start again from there. Even with all of that, the shawl knit up quickly!

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

Nancy

Rustic Market Bag

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Things are good here. We continue to get a good amount of rain so things are really green around here right now. I love it! 

It was a really productive week for me. My favorite project was a Rustic Market Bag designed by Camilla N. Skjoenhaug:

Rustic Market Bag

This pattern is available for free on Camilla's blog, but I paid the $1 to get the ad-free PDF version. It's a great pattern and worth much more than $1! To try to support the designer, I looked at her other patterns but everything I liked was also free so I'll just take this as a gift. I really like the size and shape of this bag. And it has a pretty flower motif on the bottom, making it a more interesting crochet:

Rustic Market Bag bottom

It was easy to crochet, but it took me a couple of tries to figure out some of the instructions. But I think that comes from my inexperience and it would be really straightforward for a more experienced crocheter. The pattern has some wonderful picture tutorials to help you along. I'm sure I'll be making more of these bags! This one will probably end up as a birthday gift for a friend of mine.

After finishing the market bag, I was looking for another crochet project to start. I found a couple of other fancy market bags that I think I'd like to try, but they use fingering weight yarn and I don't have any of that in cotton or acrylic, which are the best yarns for market bags. So I ordered some yarn, and in the meantime I looked for another crochet project that I could make out of the acrylic yarn that I've been using up. I found the Knit-Look Ribbed Hat designed by Amy Depew:

Knit-Look Ribbed Hat

This was another free pattern (there are a LOT of free crochet patterns out there). This was another really easy pattern to crochet. Without ribbing on the brim, I was afraid that this hat wouldn't stay on my head. I was happily surprised with the final product. It's really comfortable on my head and feels like it will stay on just fine!

Once I finished the hat, I continued to search through market bag patterns using worsted weight yarn (the weight of the acrylic yarn I'm using). I found the Gardenia Market Tote designed by Alexandra Tavel:

Gardenia Market Tote progress

This tote has a different construction from the others I've made. The others were crocheted in the round, starting at the bottom. This one is crocheted flat, then the sides are connected (I'll figure out how when I get to that part of the instructions). It has a pretty flower motif integrated in the fabric:

Gardenia Market Tote motif close-up

This motif is a little bit challenging because at one point you have 17 loops on your hook and have to pull your working yarn through all of them. Sometimes it's smooth, other times the hook gets caught and I have to unravel things and start the stitch over again. It's getting easier with time as I figure out where to pull on the work when pulling the hook through to be least likely to catch on any of the yarn. This motif uses a lot of yarn so I'm not sure if I'll have enough of this color to finish the bag. Depending on where I run out, I'll either finish the bag with another color or order more yarn. This is a commercial yarn so it shouldn't be very noticeable if I finish with yarn that was dyed in a different lot.

On the knitting side, I was able to finish my Kerchief-errific cowl designed by Amy Gunderson:

Kerchief-errific

Kerchief-errific side view

This was another old Jimmy Beans Wool club project that I had in my stash. I think it turned out really nice. The yarn is really soft and the shape is perfect to cover your neck and the opening in your coat. The yarn is a cotton yarn with colored acrylic bits woven in to give it color, so it would also be perfect for making market bags......

I also resurrected another knitting project. I organized another space in my house and I ran across my Rock & Roll Scarf also designed by Amy Gunderson:

Rock & Roll Scarf

This was another old Jimmy Beans Wool club project. I knew I was close to finishing this project (Ravelry allows me to keep track of all of my projects, along with pictures), but couldn't remember what was holding it up. It turned out that it just needed to have the fringe added to the ends. That had stymied me at the time because there wasn't enough of the gray yarn left for the fringe since the grey yarn was used for one more repeat than the rest of the colors. I ended up cutting as much of the gray fringe as I could get out of the remainder and divided that as evenly as possible in the correct locations on the scarf. I then filled in the red and gold fringe. I put in fewer of the red and gold fringes than called for in the pattern, but it was enough to make the fringe look good and not draw attention to the thinner gray fringe. I think it turned out well! I blocked the scarf before trimming the fringe to make sure that blocking wouldn't affect the fringe shape. Being a quilter, I could easily cut all of the fringe to the same length using a ruler and my rotary cutter. It's fun when tools from one craft help with another craft!

My last knitting project is progress on my Prismatic Poncho:

Prismatic Poncho progress

This is another old Jimmy Beans Wool club project. I'll continue to plug away at this project until it's completed. It's a fun knit because of the bright colors and the soft yarn, but it gets tedious because the stitches aren't interesting and you constantly have to juggle three little skeins of yarn while you knit.

Finally, I did a small amount of sewing this week. One of my quilt guilds has an initiative where we are making block for Quilts of Valor quilts. Quilts of Valor is a national program that makes quilts for veterans. I picked up a couple of the block kits and sewed a couple of blocks that I will return at the next meeting:

Quilts of Valor blocks

It was fun to get back to my sewing machine. I have a lot more organization to do before I can work on any big sewing projects, but I can do small things like this. I wish organizing was as fun as crafting!

Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone is having a great week!

Nancy