I'm 60!

 Hi all -

It's been a long and busy year, and I'm finally getting around to writing another blog post. It's been a very busy year. Our little company was acquired by Google on Dec 1 and I've spent a lot of this time working every spare hour to get our system to run in their cloud. I got the initial work done in mid-June so have had more time for other stuff this summer. But I never got around to writing about any of it, so decided that I should write today since it's my 60th birthday. Boy, does time fly!

To get back into things, I worked on a lot of small projects. I started with the Rosemary Cowl by Alison Green:

Rosemary Cowl

Then I made the Permafrost Cowl by Rachel Brockman, which is shaped to protect your skin where your coat opens:

Permafrost Cowl

Permafrost Cowl

I had a lot of yarn left over from the Permafrost Cowl, so I decided to make a Fernhill Hat by Kate Gagnon Osborn:

Fernhill Hat

Fernhill Hat

I also made the Bridgette by Jane Richmond:

Bridgette

I made these Mosaic Dish Towels by Universal Yarns:

Mosaic Dish Towels

and made an extra towel with the remaining yarn:

I made these Colorful Cloths by Amy Gunderson:

Colorful Cloths

and made a couple of extra dishcloths with the leftovers:

I made the Embark Shawlette by Becky Dahlberg:

Embark Shawlette

Embark Shawlette

I made the Orchid Cowl by Jo Strong:

Orchid Cowl Detail

Orchid Cowl

All of these projects were from the Jimmy Beans Wool Accessory Club. I really enjoy this club because you get a new, fairly small project each month with interesting patterns and a variety of wool. You also get similar knit and crochet patterns each month. So far I'm just doing the knit projects, but I do want to learn to crochet, too.

I also started knitting the Flowla shawl by Laura Nelkin. The is the July Lola's Choice project. Laura decided to do a mini mystery knit-along for this project: the pattern was divided into 4 parts and we received a new part each week. I finished the first two parts:

Flowla

After that, I got a bit bored with this pattern and got tired of knitting with cotton yarn, which has no give. So I started working on my After the Storm Cardigan by Kelly Fowler:

After the Storm Cardigan

It's hard to tell, but this is the upper back of the cardigan. The pattern has narrow stripes of color, and, if you look closely, you can see that I just finished my first stripe, which is purple.

Finally, a couple of years ago I purchased the Birthday Box from Jimmy Beans Wool. This is like an advent calendar for your birthday month. I thought my 60th birthday was the perfect time to work on this! This is the box:

Every day you get a little surprise or a small ball of yarn to create the accompanying shawl project:

The project is the Birthday Bliss shawl by Amy Gunderson. There are knit and crochet versions of the pattern and I'm working on the knit version. So far, I've kept up to date and here is yesterday's progress:

Birthday Bliss

Birthday Bliss Day 11 Close-up

That's all of the knitting I've been doing. It looks like a lot, but the projects were small it's been a while.

Some of you are probably also wondering about Lance. He continues to do well. Amazingly, he's somewhere around 15.5 to 16 years old now! He has DM (degenerative myelopathy), so he has a lot of trouble getting around, but he can still walk, although he looks a bit drunk and sometimes needs help getting up. Otherwise, he's amazingly healthy and seems happy and comfortable. He gets acupuncture every other week to help him keep going. It's nice because his vet does the acupuncture, so we also talk about all aspects of his health while we're there. It really eases my mind knowing that he's getting such great care!!

That's it for now. I hope everyone is having a great summer!!

Nancy

Been A Long Time!

 Hi all -

I apologize for another long silence. Life has been busy and I just started working for a different company so some things had to fall off of my plate. I've continued to work on things, but it's been a bit slower. And I'll be going to Kansas City again in another week or so to help my sister through replacing her other knee. I'll be there for another 5 weeks, so I probably won't post again until I get back. So, let's get to it.....

In my previous post, I had finished knitting my Halloween advent calendar hat, All Treats, No Tricks designed by Amy Gunderson. At that point I was waiting for the perfect pom-pom to come back into stock. It reappeared and I was able to snag one, so here is the finished hat with the perfect pom-pom:

All Treats, No Tricks

The colors aren't great in the picture, but the pom-pom is black with bright pops of color and really is perfect for this hat!

I also knit another hat since my last post. This one is the Boulder Beanie, also designed by Amy Gunderson:

Boulder Beanie

This was the September 2021 Jimmy Beans Wool Accessory Club project. It was a lot of fun since it had both stranded colorwork and baubles, done a different way from other patterns I've tried. And, again, I found the perfect pom-pom to top it off. I really love this hat!

I found I was enjoying whipping out some smaller projects, so I pulled out the January 2021 JBW Accessory Club project. This one was the Rosemary Cowl designed by Alison Green:

Rosemary Cowl

This picture is prior to blocking. The cowl is blocking now so it will be cleaner when that is done.

In the interest of making progress on some of the WIPs (works-in-progress) that I have sitting around, I pulled out my Aquifer scarf designed by Laura Nelkin:

 

Aquifer

This is another really interesting knit and it is turning out so soft that I can't wait to finish it!

The final knitting project I'll share today is this year's Craftvent project from Jimmy Beans Wool. As the name implies, the Craftvent project is an Advent Calendar project. They do this every year and this is my third or fourth year participating. This year's project is the Festive Wrap designed by Ambah O'Brien. The project comes packaged in this pretty, sturdy box:

Craftvent Box

Inside the box, there is a drawer for each day:

Inside the Craftvent Box

Most of the drawers hold a small ball of yarn, like we got for day 2:

Craftvent Day 2

Others contain little surprises. So far, we've gotten the needles for knitting the shawl and a nice project bag:

 

 

Craftvent Day 1

Craftvent Day 4

Here's what I've done so far:

Festive Wrap

So far, I'm up-to-date. I hope to knit today's portion tonight.

Finally, I also worked on an embroidery project. This is the Cape Flower Needle Keeper kit designed by Sue Spargo:

Cape Flower Needle Keeper - outside

Cape Flower Needle Keeper - inside

For this project, I started with an organizer made by Yazzii. I then appliqued the felt pieces and did the embroidery on the finished piece. I thought this was an interesting idea and wanted to see how well I liked trying to work the stitching on a finished item, where you have to deal with burying your knots behind the fabric in order to hide them, without poking through to the inside of the organizer. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, but I didn't really enjoy it so I probably won't do another project of this type. Here is a close-up of the applique and stitching:

Cape Flower Needle Keeper

Well, that's all for this post. I hope you enjoyed my projects! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!!

Nancy

Fright Club Hat

 Hi all -

Fall is in the air. It's starting to cool off here and the leaves are starting to turn. It's a beautiful time of year! Here is a picture of the aspen grove on my property right now:

The colors are more beautiful than I could capture on my camera! And to show how beautiful my property is, here's one of the boulders framed by a lone aspen tree:

And the beautiful view from my yard, including a bit of the pond across the street and a couple of the ridges just south of me:

I find it all breathtaking! I just wish the pictures could come close to what it looks like in person!

The main thing I've been working on is the smaller Jimmy Beans Wool (JBW) Fright Club project. Every year, JBW puts together a couple of "advent" calendar projects for Halloween that they call their fright club. There is a larger calendar that has 31 little surprises that you can open up each day in October, and there is a smaller project that has 13 little surprises. I usually get both projects because I think they're a lot of fun. Since I have the larger project to do in October, I decided to do the smaller project in September. The smaller project is the All Treats, No Tricks hat designed by Amy Gunderson. The surprises for this club came in cute little boxes:

Fright Club Boxes

Most of the boxes contained little balls of yarn for knitting the hat, but several fun surprises were also mixed in:

Halloween Tag for Hat on Day 4

Halloween Stitch Marker Necklace on Day 7

Candy and Fake Tattoo on Day 10

Finishing Supplies on Day 13

The project is a hat. I chose the bright colorway:

All Treats, No Tricks

This is a stranded colorwork pattern, which isn't my favorite technique but I'm getting better at it. Here's how my stranding looks on the inside:

 

All Treats, No Tricks Inside

It has a cool double brim that has ribbing on the inside to keep the hat secure.

 

All Treats, No Tricks Inside Ribbing

And I put the tag from day 4 on the brim for some extra jazz. I'll probably get a fun fake-fur pom pom to put on the top. Grocery Girls has a black pom pom with multicolored highlights that I think would look really cute. I just have to get around to ordering it (and hope it's in stock).....

The other knitting project I've been working on is my Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry. I've got the right sleeve finished and am now working on the left sleeve:

Comfort Fade Cardi

After I finish the sleeve, it'll be on to the collar/front band. That part will take a while since it's got a shawl collar, which will be quite a bit of knitting.

I've also been really into hand embroidery lately. I've had my Birds on Parade bag kit, designed by Sue Spargo, sitting around for a while so I decided t finish it up. I had finished the applique and embroidery called for in the pattern a while ago and had decided to add some extra applique and embroidery on the back of the bag since it seemed like a waste to not decorate that space. I just had a little bit more embroider to do on the back, then I was able to sew the pieces together into a bag. Here's the front of the bag from the pattern:

Birds on Parade Front

And here's what I added to the back. It's so hard to decide when to stop with the hand embroidery!

Birds on Parade Back

And, just to be complete, a peek at the inside:

Birds on Parade Inside

I decided to use some of my own fabric for the lining rather than using the fabric that came in the kit because the supplied fabric was directional, but was cut so that it would be sideways inside the bag and that bothered me. I also changed the way the bag was constructed from the directions in the pattern. The pattern directions would have resulted in raw edges inside the bag and I like a clean lining. It was a pain to construct the bag my way because the outside was designed as a single piece, but I figured it out and really like the result.

The other embroidery I've been working on is a pair of pre-marked pillowcases. I picked these up at Joann's as a little prize for myself on my birthday while I was in Kansas City. I'm still working on the first pillowcase:

Retro Cats Pillowcase

It's been kind of fun working on an old-fashioned project and I think it'll be fun to sleep with these!

Nancy