I'm Back....

 Hi all -

Sorry for the long absence. It ended up being a long summer for me. My biggest concerns were my sister and Lance. 

My sister has had a lot of knee pain for several years and she finally started looking at knee replacement surgery. She is the one who lost her husband in January, so she is newly living alone. So I wanted to be there to help her out after the surgery. She was able to get the surgery scheduled for early August and I came out to help her for 5 weeks. Luckily she was able to schedule it so that her daughter, who is a traveling nurse, was able to be there, too, to help out. I mostly took care of the dogs and encouraging my sister to do her PT while her daughter mostly took care of the nursing. The first week after the surgery was a bit tough because the drugs, the pain and the worry made my sister a bit grumpy, and she can be pretty grumpy when she wants. I think one of the things that got to her was the in-home PT person used the worry about not breaking up the scar tissue in time as an "encouragement" for her to do her exercises. She would say that she had to work hard to break that up because otherwise it would be permanent and the replacement would be a waste of time. What she didn't say was the time period where you need to worry, which ended up being on the order of 6-8 weeks rather than 6-8 days. Once we realized this and once my sister started making progress, things got a lot better and it was a wonderful visit. My sister had been thinking about getting both knees done at once since she's a "get it over with" type of person, but she ended up being very glad that she decided on one at a time for this! She's doing incredible now and is working on scheduling her other knee. She's hoping to get it done in December so it counts towards this year's insurance to save money.

Lance is doing really well, but there are always more concerns and more work as he gets older. He's now 14.5 or 15 years old (he was a stray so we don't know exactly) and he has degenerative myelopathy, which is a spinal cord disease that makes his back legs weaker and weaker. So he has a difficult time walking and has trouble with incontinence. To add to the fun, he also had a liver biopsy earlier this summer. It's pretty major surgery for a dog his age, but the vet had found a possibly-cancerous liver nodule during an ultrasound and it was early enough that he could remove that nodule before it could spread so we did it. It turned out that it was benign. The first week after the surgery was tough because, although he ate at first when he got home, he stopped eating after a day or so and ended up losing 3 lbs in a couple of day. He also couldn't use his back legs at all for a couple of days and his incontinence was out of control. We ended up taking him off of the after-surgery meds and he got back to his usual self.

Because this just wasn't enough, my washing machine decided to break down and it took about a month for them to be able to deliver my new one. I live in the mountains so delivery trucks only come up here once a week so it can be hard to schedule. And my house was hit by lightning which knocked out everything that was connected to the outside world -- internet, land line and satellite TV. It took about a month to get everything replaced and set back up. But we're back to normal now!

On the plus side for Lance, I was talking to the lady at the Post Office one day and we talked about how expensive dogs are as they get older. I mentioned that Lance had DM and she told me that she had a doggy wheelchair that someone had given her for her dog, who passed away earlier this year, and she had been looking for someone to pass it on to. It turned out to be the perfect size for Lance so she gave it to us. We got it just before going to Kansas City, so I was able to teach Lance how to use it on flat land before coming back home to use it on rougher terrain. Here is a picture that my niece took when she passed us on a walk one day:

It's not a great picture, but you get the idea. The wheelchair is designed so that it supports his back end, but he can still use his back legs a bit so they get exercised. It's not something that he uses all the time because we want him to use has back legs as much as possible and it's not practical in the house or in my yard, but it does allow us to go for short walks again.

But that's enough personal stuff. Now I can share what little I've been working on. The biggest project I've been working on is my Open Minds MKAL shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. An MKAL is a "Mystery Knit-Along" which is a knitting project where you don't know what you're making but you get a little piece of the pattern periodically until you have the project finished and finally see what it looks like. Some people chose their own yarn based on Laura's guidelines, but Laura also offered some kits and I was able to snag one of those. I kept up fine at the beginning, but got behind when I visited my family for a week in the spring and haven't finished the project yet (story of my life....). This pattern consists of 6 "clues." Here is my shawl after the first clue:

Open Minds -- Clue 1

And here it is after the second clue:

Open Minds -- Clue 2

The third clue was the mirror image of the second:

Open Minds -- Clue 3

This is where I fell behind. So I started getting the clues and seeing how the shawl went together, without actually knitting it. Based on the construction, I decided to skip clues 4 and 5 and go on to clue 6, which fills in the back of the shawl:

Open Minds -- Clues 1, 2, 3 and 6

The reason I did this is because clue 6 uses a specific amount of yarn while clues 4 and 5 are written so that you can use up your yarn. You are told to reserve a specific weight of yarn for clue 6, but by doing clue 6 first I didn't have to fudge that measurement so should be able to use more of my yarn than I could have by following the clues in order. Now I just need to finish up.....

I also made some more progress on my Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry. I've finished the body and still need to add the sleeves and the collar. Here is the front of the cardigan:

Comfort Fade Cardi -- front

And here is the back:

Comfort Fade Cardi -- back

I hope to make more progress on this soon because I'm really loving how it's turning out!

My final knitting project is the Rock & Roll Scarf designed by Amy Gunderson:

Rock & Roll Scarf

 I started working on this because I needed an easy project to work on while at my sister's house. This is a simple pattern, but each row takes a while because it's knit across the scarf rather than end-to-end so there are 500 stitches on the needles. I'm making this a little bit wider than specified in the pattern because I want to use up as much yarn as possible. I have about 6 more stripes and I'll be done.

I also did a little bit of sewing. A friend of mine is retiring after working 40 years at NCAR, where I worked for 23 years. As a retirement gift, I decided to make her a project bag. She loves chickens and used to raise them so I used some chicken fabric for the bag:

Chicken Bag -- outside

Chicken Bag -- lining

I think she's going to love this!

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to keep in touch better in the coming weeks.

Nancy

I See Spring Finished

 Hi all -

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there! I hope you are having an incredible day!

We're still in our spring/winter cycle here. It was beautiful for the last couple of days, and now we are starting to get the next snow storm. We're again forecast to get 1-1.5' of snow by Tuesday morning. If we get that then this will be the 5th foot-plus storm in 5 weeks. Looks good for fire season this year!

I'm excited to have finished my I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli:

I See Spring

It only took a couple of hours to pick up the stitches and finish the neckline, once I got myself motivated. I love how it turned out! It's a good weight for spring and I've been wearing it a lot in the evenings.

I had to get my current sweater finished so that I could start on my new sweater. Now I'm working on a Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry. I'm making this sweater as part of a knit-along (KAL) with the Grocery Girls podcast. I really enjoy this podcast and it has introduced me to a bunch of beautiful yarns and interesting designers and patterns. They are sponsoring a KAL of this pattern running from March 19 through June 19. I got a late start, but I'll try to get mine done on time. They will be drawing prizes for anyone who has finished. There are a lot of people in the KAL so it's unlikely I would get a prize, but it's still fun to try! This pattern makes a faded sweater, which means that you slowly move through a collection of yarns while knitting the sweater. These are the yarns that I'm using:

Comfort Fade Cardi - yarns

I love these beautiful colors! I've been working hard on this project and I've made some good progress:

Comfort Fade Cardi - current progress

It shouldn't take too much longer to finish the body, but then I'll have the arms to finish, which always take a lot longer than expected, and the pattern has a shawl collar which will also take some time. It'll be fun to work on and will be a beautiful sweater, even if I don't make the finishing deadline!

My final knitting project hasn't really been started yet. It's the Open Minds mystery knit-along (MKAL) designed by Laura Nelkin. In a MKAL, you don't know what you're knitting until it's finished. You are told what supplies you need (or you can buy a kit) and you get portions of the pattern (called "clues") periodically until you've finished the project. I decided to just buy a kit because Laura puts together beautiful kits. Here's the kit I got, along with the project bag I'm keeping everything in:

Open Minds - kit contents

In some MKALs, you don't know anything about what you're making until it's done. For this MKAL, we do know that we're making a shawl and that it has an "interesting" construction. It includes optional beads, which add to the fun. I love doing Laura's MKALs because they are always interesting knits and I always learn something. They mystery part is great because it allows me to work on a project that might be too intimidating if I saw what I was going to make before I started. There's also support from everyone else who's also working on the project, so I can get help if I get stuck. And Laura is incredible about answering questions. And even if I don't need help, I usually learn something or get unexpected pointers from reading the answers to other people's questions. It's really a lot of fun! So far, we've just gotten the supply list and instructions on making our gauge swatch:

Open Minds - gauge swatch

Since everyone knits differently, the gauge swatch is important so that you can determine which size needles you need to use to get results that match what the designer got. Getting the right gauge not only helps you get the right size project in the end, but also helps to ensure that you don't run out of yarn.

Aside from knitting, I've also made progress on my Christmas banner felt applique project:

Most of the larger pieces are attached, so now it will mostly be details that I'm adding. Once I finish this project, I'll probably start on a felt applique Christmas stocking for my brother-in-law. My mom made Christmas stockings for all of her kids and the grandkids, but we've been using generic stocking for spouses. So I want to make stockings for my brother-in-law and for my niece's husband at some point so they will have nice stockings, too. Nobody is expecting them so there's no pressure if I don't get them made, but I think it would be nice.

Finally, I made a little bit of progress on my Count the Stars cross-stitch project:

Count the Stars

It's not much, but every stitch gets me closer to finishing.

Nancy

Dachshund Finished

 Hi All -

Wow, time just keeps flying by! I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted! It really feels like it's just been a week or two. Before we get started, I need to let you know about a change on the blog. The old mechanism that I was using for distributing the blog posts through email is going away. Google has decided to stop supporting it. If you are currently signed up to get email notifications of new blog posts, those emails will stop soon. So, instead, I've provided a link to the right so that, if you want, you can sign up to get emails about new blog posts from Bloglovin' (thanks, Terry, for providing the example on your blog, On Going Projects, so I didn't have to figure out what to do myself!). I've only had one example email from Bloglovin' to see how it works, so the jury is still out on whether I like this mechanism. My first impression is that I don't like it as well because instead of getting an email with the blog post inside, you instead get an email with a link to the blog post contained within the Bloglovin' interface. That's just not as clean to me. I also got an email with other blog suggestions when I first signed up so I thought it might end up being like Instagram, which I won't use because of the excessive emails, but I've only gotten the single email so far so maybe it won't be so bad. Anyway, I hope the link is useful to anyone who like email notifications like I do. And if anyone knows of a better email notification service, just let me know.

Anyway, back to more interesting topics. The biggest news is that I'm now fully vaccinated. Yea!! I got the J&J vaccine two weeks ago yesterday, so I'm now at my maximum immunity. And I had no side-effects what-so-ever, so that was nice. The only near-term changes this makes for my life is that I made the dentist and auto mechanic appointments that I'd been putting off. Both will make me feel better! It also means that I'm ready to go to Kansas City if my sister needs me. She's been having trouble with her knee and her doctor has recommended a knee replacement. She lost her husband in January, so I told her that I would come out and help her if she gets the replacement. I hate to think of her alone in the house (with her 3 large dogs) and falling down or getting stuck somewhere or whatever with nobody there to help her. She, of course, initially said that she would be fine on her own, but after thinking about it she seems to be more receptive to help. So now I'm ready to go if/when she decides to have the surgery.

Enough personal stuff -- let's get on to the crafting.....

I was excited to finish my Dachshund cross-stitch that I'm making for my (other) sister and her husband:

Dachshund

I love how it turned out! It looks so much like Annie! What an expressive face! Now I just have to get it framed. Since I'm vaccinated, I'll try to remember to take it in next week when I have my car appointment.

I've also made good progress on my Christmas banner felt applique project:

Isn't that cute? It's moving along pretty quickly. My only concern is that it might not hang well because I think I over-stuff it. My tendency is always to stuff things like you would a solid stuffed animal, but that's not appropriate for a piece like this. I do make a concerted effort to scale back on the stuffing, but it's still probably a bit much. But I still love it!

Since I finished Dachshund, I looked through my stuff and picked up a couple more cross-stitch projects that I had started in the past. The first is called Count the Stars. When I picked it up, I just had most of the moon finished:

Count the Stars -- initial progress

I've been plugging away on it and now it is mostly finished:

Count the Stars -- current progress

This is another small piece, stitched on 18-count Aida fabric, so I need to use a bright headlamp when stitching on this project so that I can see what I'm doing. And the dark fabric makes it even harder on the eyes. But it's still going fast!

My other cross-stitch project is called Mime With Cat. This is a little bit different type of cross-stitch project as an image is painted on the Aida cloth, and I cross-stitch on top of that image. That makes the pattern a suggestion rather than an exact count of stitches in any area because what you stitch depends on how the image lines up with the fabric. This is what the project looked like when I picked it up:

Mime With Cat -- initial progress

To give you an idea of how the stitching interacts with the painted image, here are some close-ups of some areas:

And here is my current progress:

Mime With Cat -- current progress

You can see that I'm currently working on the pink ribbon in the image. You can compare that with the completed blue ribbon to get an idea of how this project is done. I know that some people don't like clowns or are afraid of clowns, but I love them. I think they are so joyful and the mime clowns are so elegant! When finished, I'll get this project framed so I can display it with some small mime clowns that I made before:

These just make me smile!

Finally, I did do a little bit of knitting. I have a bunch of wonderful knitting projects waiting for me, but I've been having trouble getting motivated. Sometimes I can jump-start my mojo by making a quick and easy project. So I decided to make a River Crossing Hat designed by Amy Gunderson:

River Crossing Hat

This was a quick and easy project, knit with a soft, chunky yarn. I love how the stitch pattern looks on this hat. I just didn't like the height of the hat. It fits my head, but just barely. So I'll put this hat in my Homeless Shelter bag and, if I make another one for me, I'll repeat the stitch pattern a couple of extra times to make the hat taller.

That's about all that's going on here. We've continued to get more snow -- a total of over 2.5 feet in the last 2 weeks. I love that we are getting all of this moisture so, hopefully, we won't have such a severe fire season this year. But I'm also really ready for the snow to melt away. Lance is over 14 years old now and he is losing some neurological control of his back legs, so walking through this snow is a bit hard for him. He's doing really well and is completely healthy otherwise, but his back legs collapse sometimes when we're trying to walk through deep or unevenly packed snow. It'll be nice when we get back to bare ground so he can enjoy the walks more and do some wandering around! But we'll still take all of the moisture we can get!

Nancy

Lots of Snow!!

 Hi all -

It's definitely been an interesting March! This month we went from having one of our drier winters to having enough snow to bring our snow pack up to its normal depth for this time of year. This mostly happened over a single weekend, about 2 weeks ago! We are now having one of our top 5 snowiest Marches in recorded Colorado history. They got about 2 feet of snow down in Denver, and we got over 3 feet at my house. While I'm really happy to get the moisture and know that we need more to recover from the severe drought we've been experiencing, I have to admit that I'm more than ready for spring! Here are some pictures from when I was shoveling. This is what I got done in the first session, before quitting so I could attend a work meeting:

Here's a close-up of the car after shoveling the snow all around it:

Lance has to watch from behind the gate because he likes to stand right under my elbow and get petted, which doesn't help with the shoveling:

His face is covered with snow because the wind kept blowing the snow out of the trees and around from the piles. Luckily, it was a beautiful day to shovel!

We had some warm days last week that helped with the melting, but this week has been cloudy all week with a couple of inches of snow each day, so it's been piling back up. Here's what it looks like out my front door right now:

We're supposed to have some warm weather this weekend, so I'm really looking forward to that!

On a fun note, we had a couple of visitors last Friday. I was attending a live zoom cast-on party for a sweater knit-along when out of the corner of my eye I saw a moose walk past my window. I love moose, but know that they don't get along well with dogs so I immediately got up and closed the doggie door so Lance couldn't go outside and visit them. There were two moose in my yard munching on the bushes and the aspen trees. They didn't cooperate for really good pictures, but I'll share a few anyway:

They grazed for about an hour, then decided to lay down in the snow just outside of my kitchen window for the rest of the day. I, of course, kept going into the kitchen to look at them because they're such incredible animals! Luckily, I was able to take Lance outside on leash a couple of times to relieve himself because they were laying in a place where the corner of the kitchen blocked their view of the front door. I look forward to seeing them again!

Now let's get down to crafting! I've continued to make progress on my various projects. I was able to finish my long-stitch parrots:

Scarlet Macaws

This will be set aside until I decide what I want to do with it. I'm currently thinking it'll get sewn into a zippered tote bag big enough to hold my cross-stitch frame.

I also made progress on my Christmas banner:

It's fun to see Santa taking shape!

And I'm almost finished with my I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli:

I See Spring

This one is almost done. I just need to pick up stitches around the neckline and knit a couple of rounds of garter stitch, undo and redo the bind-off on one of the sleeves because it came out too tight, and weave in the ends. There are some things that didn't come out great in this sweater, but it fits well and I think it will be really comfortable to wear. I look forward to some nice spring weather so I can wear it!

And, since I'm always looking at new projects, I started a new cross-stitch project. This is a new one that I just purchased because it will be perfect for my sister and her husband. It's a picture of a Dachshund that looks exactly like their dog! Right now, it's a head-less dog:

Dachshund

This project has been going fast so I expect I'll have it finished soon. I'm a little worried that there won't be enough thread in some of the colors, but hopefully I can trust the maker. This uses wool thread and I don't know what brand it is or what the color numbers are so it will be very difficult to match the threads if there isn't enough. When it's finished, I'll probably get it framed for my sister and her husband. Like all dog owners, they really dote on their baby so I think they'll be thrilled with this gift!

That's all I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. As usual, I also have a bunch of projects on my mind. I found a couple more cross-stitch projects that I had started that I'd like to finish now. One of them is all ready to go, the other one was in a plastic sack that basically disintegrated and I couldn't find the thread with a quick look around, so I'll have to do some more searching before I can work on that one. I have the yarn for a cardigan that I'll knit in a knit-along, so I need to finish my current sweater so I feel better about starting on the new one. The knit-along runs through June so I should have enough time to finish even though I'll be starting a little bit late. There's also a knit shawl project that I'm excited to start and necklace project made using a little lucet that I'd really like to play with. I love learning how to use new-to-me tools! And so many more that I won't even mention.....

I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring! 

Nancy

Fanciful Butterfly Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Spring has been showing itself around here. We've had bright blue days with temperatures in the 40s for the last couple of weeks, with one snow day a week to keep us on our toes.We're up in the mountains so it's not unusual for us to get snow storms up until June. I want to get the snow because we're in a severe drought, but it sure is nice to get those beautiful, warm days! And I love it as our days continue to get longer and longer!

I've just been flitting between projects that grab my interest. I finished my Fanciful Butterfly cross-stitch project.

Fanciful Butterfly

This piece finished at 5" square. I love all of the details! I've put it aside for now, but will probably stitch it into a project bag at some point. I'm really enjoying getting back into cross-stitch so you'll be seeing more of these projects in the future! Micheal's used to have a lot of great sales on handwork kits and, being a sale whore and a hoarder, I have a large stash of projects to choose from.

I've also continued to make progress on my current sweater, I See Spring designed by Joji Locatelli.

I See Spring by Joji Locatelli

As you can see, I now have both sleeves finished and I've made some progress on the body. All I have left to do is finish the body and pick up the stitches around the neckline and knit a couple of rounds of garter stitch to stabilize the neck. I want to finish this sweater up in the next couple of weeks because the Grocery Girls, the knitting podcast that I love, are having a knit-along for the Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry and I want to join in. They're having a zoom cast-on party on March 19. I ordered yarn from a company in Canada and it's scheduled to arrive on March 18 so I might possibly be able to cast-on with everyone else. If it's late, no problem. I can catch up since we have a couple of months to knit the sweater.

To keep my roving interest satisfied, I've also picked up a couple of new projects. The first is a project that I started many years ago and then put aside. It's a felt applique Christmas banner:

I really love doing felt applique and have mostly made Christmas ornaments. But it would be a really bad idea for me to put up a Christmas tree with my current cats, so this Christmas banner will be something fun that I can put up and enjoy for Christmas. I'm not sure why I hadn't picked it up in so long because I'm really enjoying working on it now. It still has a ways to go since it has about 120 felt pieces and I'm currently working on piece #13.

My final project is a new long stitch project that I pulled out of my stash.

Scarlet Macaws

Long stitch is a form of needle point, done using all of the same materials as regular needlepoint, where you make long vertical stitches rather than the regular small diagonal stitches. As you can see, these projects are very quick to do (I started this one after finishing my butterfly cross-stitch, so less than 2 weeks ago), but they can still have a lot of detail. And the vertical stitches really look cool. When I finish this, I'll put it aside for a while, but will probably end up sewing it into a tall tote bag with a zipper closure that will fit the cross-stitch frame that I use. Currently, projects using this frame are stored in a regular open-top tote bag, but I like having my project bags securely closed to I'm more confident that I won't lose anything. I haven't lost anything yet, but I'll still feel better with something more secure.

That's all for this post. I'm really enjoying the variety of what I'm doing right now. But, as usual, the list of projects that I want to work on is so much longer that what you're seeing. It's so hard to pick what to work on! So I'll just keep plugging away.....

Nancy

Dreaming of Tuscany Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm! It's been a crazy week for our country! We've been very lucky at my house with only one day of subzero temperatures. The rest of the time it's been beautiful here. We did get a foot of snow last week, but we usually have more of that up here and need a lot more so hopefully that will keep coming.

I don't have many pictures to share today, but I'm excited about my latest finish. I finished working on my Dreaming of Tuscany cross-stitch project:

Dreaming of Tuscany

I really love how it turned out and the beautiful colors! I'll be saving it until this summer when I'll get it framed and hang it in my bathroom. I'm waiting until this summer since that's when I expect to be vaccinated. Although I really want to support the small framing businesses in their time of need, I'm not comfortable yet spending time in a framing shop making all of the matting and framing decisions until I've had my vaccine. At that point I'll also get the cross-stitch of my mom's that I finished a little while ago framed, too.

Since I've really been enjoying working on my cross-stitch projects, I picked up another WIP (Work In Progress) that I've had sitting around for years. This one is called Fanciful Butterfly and I think I will be able to finish it up pretty quickly.

Fanciful Butterfly

I remember putting this one aside years ago because it was a real pain to stitch the white thread on white fabric at 18 stitches per inch. It's difficult, but it sure does turn out elegant! Now that I've picked this up again (and am using a headlamp for bright light while I stitch), it's actually coming together very quickly and I think I'll be finished with it fairly soon. This one is smaller and I think I will end up stitching it into a project bag.

Finally, I stitched up another Twistola headband designed by Laura Nelkin.

Twistola

Twistola, full view

I made this one out of some yarn that I had in my stash that's not as fuzzy as the yarn that came with the project. This yarn allows you to see the details of the cables better and is a little less slippery in my hair. I have extremely straight, shiny hair so it can be hard to keep headbands in place.

That's all of my projects for now. The last thing I want to share are some pictures of Lance from the day I brought him home. I adopted him on Feb 16, 2008. Hard to believe we've been together for 13 years! Damn, he's cute!!

Nancy

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