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

Ottie's Mat

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Mine has been quiet and uneventful. I live alone in the Colorado mountains and my family lives in Kansas City, so I just stayed home and relaxed. I am taking some time off work, though, to get away from the grind and hopefully get some things done around the house. I have gotten some work done on my projects, so that's good. And Lance is getting some nice walks!

My first project was a mat that I made for my brother-in-law, Ottie. He was just diagnosed with lymphoma and has a bunch of swollen lymph nodes in his abdomen that are making it hard for him to breathe. My sister said that he often kneels by the bed to ease his breathing, but the carpet is making his knees raw. She wondered if I could make something that would be soft on his knees, but wouldn't slip around or scrunch up. I was thrilled that she had found a way that I could feel like I was helping out, even if it is in just a small way! My first thought was to make a flannel mini-quilt. I could sew some of that gridded rubber stuff that you put under a rug to keep it from slipping on the bottom to keep it in place. I could also use some stiff stabilizer to keep it from scrunching up. I thought I could use some high-loft polyester batting to comfortably pad his knees. She asked for this on the Friday before Christmas, so I wanted to get it made and into the mail as soon as possible since I knew it would take a while to make its way to KC. With these things in mind, I started looking at my supplies. I found some really nice flannel that my mom had given to me years ago. It was really soft and thick so it shouldn't wear out quickly. For the backing, I found some nice microsuede that I thought would hold the mat in place on the carpet. I also found some high-loft batting that I use for trapunto:

and a very stiff fusible stabilizer that is stiff enough for things like ball cap bills:

When I described what I thought would work, my sister asked me to make it 24"x36". I was happy to get some guidance since I wasn't sure what would be best!

To start, I had to figure out how to cut everything. The flannel and batting are pretty unstable and stretch pretty easily in all directions. So I decided to start with the microsuede. I cut it approximately 26" by 38" since the size didn't have to be exact and I wanted plenty of extra for the seam allowances. The microsuede was a little hard to cut because I couldn't fold it over so I could make the cuts in one motion. Instead, I had to make part of the cut, then move the fabric and the ruler and make the rest of the cut, trying to keep everything straight in the process. It actually came out pretty good! I tackled the stabilizer next. I had both fusible and sew-in versions of the stiff stabilizer. Because the stabilizer wasn't wide enough to be able to cut it as a single piece, I decided that it would be easier to use the fusible version of the stabilizer. I've used an iron on the microsuede when making bags with it, so I felt pretty sure that I wouldn't ruin the microsuede with the iron. I wasn't sure if the stabilizer would stick to the microsuede, but it worked like a charm. I used a damp pressing cloth, like the instructions said, and fused two pieces of over-sized stabilizer to the back of the microsuede, then trimmed everything to the edge of the microsuede. I overlapped the pieces of stabilizer by a couple of inches in the middle because I didn't want the mat to fold over on itself or be unstable in the center.

Next, I tackled the batting. I decided to use 2 layers of batting to get the padding level that felt right to me. I laid out the 2 layers of batting and put the microsuede on top with the wrong side of the microsuede against the batting. I first did a rough cut around the edges, making the batting slightly bigger than the microsuede. I used the large Clover magic clips to hold everything together, and I basted around the edges of the microsuede to keep the layers together:

I couldn't really get a long basting stitch because the feed dogs didn't move the batting very well, but it still worked. With the layers basted together, I could now use the rotary cutter to trim the batting to the edges of the microsuede:

Now it was time to deal with the flannel. Just like I did with the batting, I cut the flannel a little larger than the microsuede, used the magic clips to hold the layers together, basted around the edges and trimmed the excess flannel. I sewed them together with the right side of the flannel facing the right side of the microsuede because I decided that I wanted to have a clean edge without a binding. I knew it was going to be hard to turn everything right side out, but I decided that this was what I wanted to do.

With everything basted together, I was ready to do the real sewing. I wanted to do rounded edges, so I drew the sewing lines on the back of the flannel with an air-soluable marker, rounding the corners with a bowl:

I sewed around this line, leaving about 18" open for turning. I trimmed the corners with my pinking shears to reduce the bulk there:

I used a seam ripper to remove the basting stitches where I left the opening for turning, then turned the mat right side out. It was quite a job turning it right side out with the stiff stabilizer, but I think it was still easier than putting on a binding and it gave a cleaner edge. I edge-stitched about 1/8" from the edge around the perimeter of the mat to close the opening that I'd used for turning and to keep the edges in place. Then, I sewed around the perimeter again, about 2.5" to 3" (I don't remember what I used) to keep the batting from shifting through time. Here's how the top of the mat looks:

And here's the back:

I really like how it turned out and hope that it meets Ottie's needs! I boxed it up and got it in the mail on the following Monday morning. I couldn't fold the mat because of the stabilizer, so I had to roll it up and put it in a fairly large box. Hopefully, it gets to them some time soon! According to the tracking, it went from my post office to Las Vegas, where it arrived and then departed again on the 24th. Since then it's been in "In Transit" limbo so I have no idea where it is or when it'll arrive. But the post office usually ends up coming through so maybe it'll arrive tomorrow.....

The other project that I've made good progress on is my advent calendar shawl project, the Tidings to Yew shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. If you remember from my last post, this project comes packaged in 24 little bags that you use as an advent calendar. Each day you get either a little ball of yarn to complete that day's portion of the project, or a little surprise. I did end up getting a little behind, but was able to finish the project over the weekend:

The knitting is finished and the ends are woven in, but I still need to block it and then trim the ends. This project was designed as a shawl, but I'm going to block it thinner to make a scarf since I'll find that more useful. I might use some of the left-over yarn (there's a LOT of leftovers) to make fringe. I'm still deciding on that.

I've also made progress on my I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli. It's actually starting to look like a sweater now!

All of the hard work is done, and now I can just sit and knit without thinking. Since I find the sleeves tedious (knitting narrow circles is harder than knitting the big circle around my belly), I'll probably knit until the end of my current skein of yarn, then attach the sleeves before finishing the bottom. That way I get the tedious knitting out of the way as early as possible.

Finally, I've also made good progress on my cross-stitch project. Cross-stitch takes a lot of time, but I love seeing the picture emerge as I go along!

The top part is all done, including the backstitching which has to be done after the cross-stitching. Now I'm concentrating on the middle. I'm over half way done at this point, so that feels good!

Nancy

Working on Craftvent 2020

 Hi all -

Christmas is fast approaching and it's starting to feel like winter here. I usually spend this time of year scrambling to finish making Christmas presents before my trip home. But our strange COVID year continues and, since I can't travel home, I'm skipping Christmas this year. That seemed a lot better than trying to mail packages back and forth at a time when the post office is completely slammed. I'll really miss my family, but it's a bit of a relief to not have to worry about all of those Christmas projects. I assume we'll have a family zoom meeting sometime over the holiday, like we did the Sunday after Thanksgiving. My sister (who took over the "matriarch" role after our mom passed away) is responsible for the scheduling of all of that stuff. We have a nurse and a respiratory therapist in our family who generally work holidays and odd hours, so the scheduling can be a bit difficult. It's so nice that my sister is willing to do all of the organizing! My sisters are the best!!

So this year I'm getting to work on whatever projects strike my fancy. The main project I've been working on is my Craftvent project from Jimmy Beans Wool. Every year, JBW has a special project that is packaged as an advent calendar. They always have a couple of color options and have a knitting version and a crochet version. This is my third year of doing the knitting version. The calendar is a lot of fun. It's set up so that you have a little package to open every morning until Christmas. The package will either have a little ball of yarn that is used in the next section of the pattern or a little surprise. Last year, the packages were these cool little tins with magnets on the bottom with a metal board so they can hang on the wall:

The daily labels were little slips of paper that cover up the window in the tin. Now I can use these tins to store little sewing and knitting notions on the wall:

This year the packages are little draw-string bags. For example, here's the first day's package which held the knitting needles for this project:

Now, each day we either get a little ball of yarn to add to the project:

Or a fun little surprise:

This year's project is the Tidings to Yew shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. Here is my version so far:

This has been a really fun project to work on and, although it is designed as a shawl, I think I'll use it more as a scarf. I might even use the left-over yarn to make fringe on the ends.

I've also done a little work on my latest sweater, I See Spring designed by Joji Locatelli:

Last time I had the upper back part done. This time I picked up the stitches on the left shoulder and knit the right upper front down to the point where it will connect to the upper left front once I get that added. For the other knitters out there, this is the first sweater I've made that uses short row shaping. My wrap-and-turns are a bit visible so I might not be picking up the wraps correctly. It doesn't look too bad so I'm going to leave it and continue to do things the same way for this sweater, but I'll have to do some practicing after I'm finished with this to see if I can figure out the right way to do this. I'll also try some other methods of short rows to compare with this one to figure out what method works best for me.

For a change of pace, I've also been working on my current cross stitch project:

Cross stitch is a pretty slow craft so it's hard to see the progress without comparing it with previous pictures, but I've mainly been concentrating on the areas around the outside of the arch.

That's about it. I hope that everyone is staying safe and healthy! It's a difficult time, but the more carefully we follow the restrictions, the quicker we can get back to normal. 

Happy Holidays, everyone!!

Nancy