"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