And Here's the Finish...

Tada... here's the other scarf I finished :-).

It has little pockets at the ends for cold hands. I knitted it using the seed stitch - pretty easy and rhythmic to work up. I have a bunch of left over of this suede feeling fiber, so I'm planning to do a little stuffed toy with it. Hopefully soon. In the meantime I'm finally working on a scarf for me. I had a bit of a stressful moment today when I dropped an increase stich, but I bulled though. I'll see how bad the booboo is tomorrow.

New Year, Less Money...

Well, it's been a good new year so far. Not that I'm deep into it yet, but hey it's good to start out on a high note!

I went to Toronto to visit friends on the new year. While I was there we knitted a bunch. Unfortutanely, I forgot to get a photo of the scarf I finished. Hopefully I'll remember to get a pic of that before I give it to the intended scarfee. I did pick up some gorgeous yarns at a the local shop:

 The top one is a 100% merino wool, the pink one is a cotton cashmere, and the blues are a 100% wool. I'm planning to use the merino to make some socks. I'll have to practice with something else first though. I'm thinking a scarf and mitten set with the wool. I couldn't decide what to do with the cashmere, but one of the ladies at work today was chatting with me and we decided on an open weave shawl to wear with a little black dress :-).

Just before Christmas I signed up for the Stitching Retreat run by Jan at A Stitcher's Garden (my LNS). I'm really looking forward to the fun in March. Of course, now it's the dreaded name tag challenge that's hanging over my head! The theme for this year is Americana. I have some ideas for the piece, but have no idea when I'm going to work on it now that I'm running a triathlon training program at one of the local Ys and have weekends filled up with visits to Canada (maybe for more yarn?). I'm sure I'll be able to pull through!

I am going to the stitch-in at my LNS this week, so at least I'll be getting in a little time on a few of my open projects. Maybe I'll work on the teacup hardanger piece this time.

A Break From Cross Stitch

I've been taking a bit of a break from cross stitching lately. I think I needed to work on another craft for a while. The past couple of weeks I have been knitting like crazy. I found a nifty little set of knitting project cards for scarfs and decided that it was the time of year to work on such things.

The first one I completed was a tubey scarf. It was fun to work this one up on my round needles:

You might guess this is for a girl from the festive colors and the butterfly. That might be stereotyping. But you're right ;-).

My second scarf allowed me to play a little with my enormous knitting needles:

 

This one is a shawl scarf. There's a little blue butterfly - can you find it?

The third is almost finished. I'm expecting to complete it today :-). It has a fantastic ribbed pattern and will be about 6 feet long. It uses roving instead of fully spun yarn and has a wonderful felted feel to it as a result:

I have another scarf that I'm planning to start with a beautiful nubbly texture to it. I'm hoping I can get started on that one later today if I can finish this one up.

Yesterday I stopped by a friend's house on the way home from a Christmas visit with my in-laws. I saw a cross stitched mug on the counter and asked when she had gotten it. It had been a gift from her daughter-in-law, who was also the matron-of-honor at my wedding. She received the gift before her son was married to this woman. We got chatting about how wonderful it is to give and to receive hand made gifts. I noted that I find it sad when someone gives a craft as a gift and the receiver puts it away and never uses it. I feel that crafts, by definiton, are meant to be used. She had a wonderful response about what its like when, later in life, you come across just such a gift when cleaning out a disused room or a closet. That is just the type of conversation one should have at Christmas!!

Awards and New Crafts

This week my Paradise Macaws project was on display at work for the employee's art show. I was excited to learn that I had received 1st place in the needleworking division for the juried awards! I was also thrilled to find out that the award was 2 oil/lube/filter changes at a local auto shop :-).

Today Jerry and I went to a beginning spinning class at a local Alpaca farm. It was very interesting. It was $40 for each of us for a 5 hour class. The fibers were provided and we could borrow a drop spindle for the class. The first part of the class our instructor, Elizabeth, told us about the history of spinning, different resources, local sources and demonstrated basic technique. After lunch we tried our hand at it. We ended up spinning using the drop spindles and plying the yarn we had created. We also got to try our hand at the spinning wheels she brought with her. Here's a picture of Jerry using the parking method to draft his yarn...

And here's my yarn after spinning, but before plying....

And here's some of my finished 2-ply yarn....

And with that I'll close my thrilling photo essay so I can make some mac n cheese n dogs for dinner!

The Birds Are Framed

Yesterday I picked up the framed Paradise Macaws from A Stitcher's Garden. Jackie did another great job on the framing. I'm looking forward to entering the piece in the employee's art show for the county where I work.
I also finished the Letter X from my Art Deco alphabet project. I think I have 6 of the 24 done now. I'm moving along slowly on these. They are nice travel projects thought, so it seems like a shame to rush through them.




I've been making some progress on the Magnolia project. This was a little toss off piece that's been sitting in my closet for a while. I just felt like I needed to get it done so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore ;-). It will go into the base of a small serving tray. I'm hoping I'll be ab le to get it done before the end of the year.I've also been doing a little on a hardanger project. But the photo of that project will have to wait a bit :-).

No Photo Finish

YAY! I finished the birds project. Unfortunately, I didn't have batteries for my camera at the time and so no photo yet. It's out for framing now. I will be definitely posting a pic once I get it back! I'm so excited.

I'm also almost finished with my Letter X. I'm home sick from work today, so I might see if I can get that one wrapped up too so I can feel like a super hero ;-).

Despite my vow not to start another stinking project until I got through a few of the ones lurking about the house, I decided to start my Quaker gameboard project. Hmm, lets see here where that link is... oh, here's my pic of it:
Well, time to wander off for some medicine, breakfast and stitching :-).

Birds progress!

Yes it is true... I have been stitching!! I made enormous progress this week on the birds project! I only have the tail feathers and the flowers that sit in the middle of the leaves to finish. Here's the piccy...

I'm sitting in Lake Placid right now, taking a break from a conference for work. I don't think I'll be able to do much more on the birds this week because I'm here through tomorrow, have an appt tomorrow night, have stitching on Wed, skating on Thurs and then getting ready for the dog tracking test at our house this weekend. Whew!!

While I'm on travel I've been doing a little on the letter X project. I'm sad that is going as slowly as it is, but I suppose there's nothing to help that!

Well, time to head to the next session. Happy stitching!