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