My Weeks In Stitches

Hello everyone!  I've had a few crazy weeks with training for my job, end of school stuff and prepping for a business trip.  I'm actually typing this blog post from the airport on my way home!  I have a few photo updates for you, though!

This last weekend I started back on my socks.  I figured I should do some work on them before it officially hits 100 degrees in the Boise area!

And I've been doing a lot more cross stitch.  I finished the brown on the first set of Dorotheos.  As you can see, I decided to do a second shade of brown as the "stems" of the flowers.  I've been doing the variegated flowers on the plane this trip.

I also printed some coloring pages from Don't Eat The Paste - they were so fun to work on when we had a little down time during our trip!  If you need coloring pages for a trip, or just to help you unwind, I highly recommend her site!

My Weeks In Stitches - A Finish!

Hooray, I finished the Easter sweater!  I'm really happy with it - it fits, it feels so soft, and it got lots of compliments at church LOL. People hugged me and stroked the fabric, then said, "Wow you made that?!?" followed pretty quickly by "You look amazing, by the way!"  It feels nice to have people notice my efforts!

So, sorry for the bathroom mirror selfie (laundry room, no less), but the kids were occupied when I wanted to take the pictures:

This is a little better look at the fabric and the front drape.  It can also be twisted and worn around the neck like a scarf with sleeves.  The sleeves fit perfectly, too.  I didn't have a single moment of tugging the shoulders forward.  This is awesome, because it's my first time doing sleeves this way - I've always done raglan, but these were set in.

I also did a little bit of cross stitching.  I pulled out Dorotheos (My Big Toe Designs).  This is the last progress picture I found in my gallery, so I'm pretty certain it's the last one I shared:

At some point I finished the brown border of this motif, this is what I accomplished Thursday night:

I'm out of the practice of taking pictures when I stop for the day.  But I did finish the blue flowers in this motif, and start the border of the next.  I'll have more to show next week!

My Weeks In Stitches

The past few weeks have been almost all Christmas gifts.  They are finished and (mostly) delivered now, so I can focus on other things!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness is finished!

 I've started on Doro Theos:

The plan when I started this was to stitch Doro Theos twice - once in each of the variegated threads I got to use in Great Is Thy Faithfulness.  These colors go nicely with the color scheme in my bedroom, and I want to hang them in the chair-corner where I do my Bible reading and blogging.  However.  The chocolate variegated thread is very subtle.  And the blue-tan thread blends too well into the fabric (you can see what I mean in the "finish" pic of Great Is Thy Faithfulness).  So I think I've decided to do mixed color schemes instead of mono.  I'm also thinking about stitching each motif and framing separately (maybe in hoops not frames), so there would be 6 circles around Great Is Thy Faithfulness - here's a pic of the intended design as charted:

What would you do?  6 separate motifs, or 2 vertical sets?  I need help deciding before I finish this motif - I need to know where to start the next one!

Finally, a peek at the hibernating sweater.  The designer calls it "$5 In Paris", but I call it Parisian Berries & Cream.  I really like these colors, and I'm glad I did the charcoal stripe in between the main colors:

This seemed like a very short holiday season to me, anyone else?  It seemed like I only really had 2 weekends to get everything done, and that meant everything!  I'm glad to be done with all the busy-ness, although there was a lot of enjoyment in the busyness.  For one thing, K played Mary in the church Christmas program (I think she did an amazing job).  And I had a great time hanging out with my coworkers at our annual holiday party.

Maybe the shortness of time was because I didn't do as many handmade gifts?  Since I didn't start working on secret projects in September, I experienced the season more like "normal" people who buy things pre-made in stores?

Have a great week everyone!

This Year I Resolve To Work On One Project At A Time

I'm just kidding; I would never ever do that!  But you're reading!

Yes, I know what the productivity experts say about focus and really being able to devote attention to tasks.  And I think we've had this conversation before on this blog.  I think a creative person needs a certain amount of chaos to sort out, mess to organize, a reasonable number of problems to solve in order to function.  At least I do!  It may take longer to finish something this way, but my enjoyment in what I do is a lot higher than if I treated it like a task.  In general, I am a highly efficient person at work and at home - I am the type of person that sits at the table for a minute after dinner, mentally plotting the most efficient way to clear all plates, serving pieces, glasses, etc.  It's like a puzzle to me.  But with hand-made pieces it's a different type of efficiency - not based on "getting done" as quickly as possible.  My enjoyment is from the process.  Why would I want to be done stitching quickly?  What do you all think?  Is anyone else like this?

In honor of turning the pages of the calendar, I thought I would post my "Wish To Finish" list for 2015:

- $5 In Paris sweater (I haven't posted any pictures of this yet, as I haven't done a lot of work on it since I started up blogging again)
- Dorotheos x2
- Frame "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and both "Dorotheos" for my bedroom
- Cross-stitch design I started working on over a year ago on my computer - I want to complete the pattern so I can share it!
- National Crochet month series of posts (that will be for March)
- Promised knitting tutorials for hat and hooded fingerless mitts

As I look this over, I don't have a lot of new projects planned, but I certainly have room for them!  Do you all have any fun project starts planned for 2015?  Share in the comments - either your planned starts or your thoughts on doing one thing at a time - or both!

Happy New Year!

My Week In Stitches

Progress pics!  And kids growing up too fast!

Let's start with this year's Seahawks socks (I dubbed them Volume 12, referring to the loud fanbase in Seattle - the cabled side gusset reminded me of the 12 hawk wings on the uniforms).  The original pattern, which the designer called Maeva, can be found here.  Holy Cables, Batman.  Lots and lots of little cables, and the pattern didn't seem very intuitive until I got to the leg portion.  And the cuff was very difficult.  And then I bound off and fastened off without trying on - and couldn't get the cuff past my heel.  Here I am binding it off, so excited, going to wear it...

And here's the sock after I discovered I couldn't wear it:

I gave up on this pattern.  I may try again another time, because the side gusset was really cool.  But I would 1) try on as I go (which is the point of toe-up socks anyway), 2) do a different cuff, and 3) take the time to do a stretchier bind-off.  And maybe do a solid color.  Yes, I did try to salvage the sock itself, but I swear the ribbing was difficult to figure out, and I'm not very good at picking up stitches unless it's a stockinette row.  Also, I would have had the same agony of trying to make the 2nd one, and I would have bad feelings every time I looked at them.

So now I have another one started.  But all I have is the toe, and I'm not happy with it.  I may give up (again) and finger-knit a scarf or something.

Kid-knit:

(See this post for a full report on the winter accessory set I made for the girls).  I remade H's hat, properly measuring her head, ears, everything this time.  And it fits!  And she loves it!

Cross stitch:

Before

After

Yes!  Really!  I did a little work on "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" Friday night while H was at her first school dance.

!!!

Yes!  Really!  She turns 12 and goes to a school dance.  With her friends, because they're 12.  The theme was "Hunger Games", and I think the dress we found went with the theme pretty well:

Sorry for the dark picture, I barely got home from work before she had to leave, so I didn't even have time to turn on another lamp.  She had a fantastic time, and made some great memories!

My Weeks In Stitches - a "Sampling" of Work

Sorry for skipping out last week, I was focused on getting a baby package ready to mail.  I can't wait for the mommy-to-be to open it and see the cuteness inside!  Also, I was starting a new personal knitting project.  Don't judge me; at least there will be pictures!

Shareable updates!

Fairy Sisters - I really-really-really wanted to finish the night sky on page 3 of Fairy Sisters this month.  (I know, my goal list says both pages.  I'm ambitious at the beginning of the month.)  But you'll see that I at least set myself up with a way to measure progress - by filling in this rectangle.  The right edge of the rectangle is right about the edge of page 3:

And for the Theme-a-Licious update - Great Is Thy Faithfulness.  I'm really happy with the variegated threads, and I'm happy with my other thread choices, too.  This is going to look so pretty in my room.

And I'm "sampling" making socks.  So I had to start a new knitting project.  This green and blue yarn was totally on sale, and begging to become Seahawks-themed socks, so I work on them during games on Sundays.  And they've now won 4 straight.  (I call them Legion of Boom, it's a football reference.  The pattern is Uzu on Ravelry.)

My Week In Stitches and A Mini Rant

I'm way late posting this week's update.  Saturday was a weird day, that's all I can say.  No, really, it's been a weird week.  But it meant a large block of stitching time on Wednesday, and no blogging mojo this weekend.

My kids' school called me during lunch on Tuesday to say my younger one had a fever.  I was able to go pick her up, and a fever in the middle of the day means she won't be clear to go back the next day (she has to be fever-free for 24 hours) so that meant I stayed home with her on Wednesday and worked on Great Is Thy Faithfulness:

(which just happens to be my Theme-a-licious project for September - the theme is Samplers.  And this has words.  From a hymn.  And will have Quaker-ish motifs in the half-circle border.  And in the small sampler section of MBTD's website.  There - all of that = sampler.)  This is turning out to be a very quick stitch, which makes me happy.  I need a quick stitch!

And look at all of this obvious progress on Fairy Sisters - it was the Facebook SAL weekend again, so I devoted some chunks of time to stitching the sky.

I also made some significant progress on the baby gift for T & S on Sunday afternoon.  As in, I'm really happy with how it's turning out and I wish I could show you a picture....

And now for my mini rant.  I enjoy streamlining things, which includes using my Android phone to take picturess of my projects and having those pictures automatically backup to my Google account.  Then I can go in when I'm writing a blog post and edit the photos online, including adding text, before publishing them.  The native photo editor on my phone won't allow me to add text, either.  (Which is strange because my old one would.....)  Well, Google made some changes to their online photo editor, and it looks like the option to add text is gone!  Now I have to either use a "real" camera and load pictures on my computer that way, or I have to open my Picasa photo editor, download/sync the online albums, make the edits, and re-sync them so I can add photos to my post.  I can still do it, but it's extra steps.  And I hate extra steps.  And the text I added looks tiny.  I really wish they would change it back.  I understand that it's free and open-source, but it seems the changes they've made only serve to make photos look more "vintage."  I don't want my photos to look more vintage.  If I want photos I take with my phone to look vintage, I'll put them on Instagram.  (By the way, you can follow me on Instagram if you want - sometimes I share sneak peaks of projects that I don't put on the blog.)

Happy Mail Day To Me!

It's just one piece of mail, but it's been sooooooo long since I had any stitching supplies arrive!  Thanks to 123stitch for nearly instant gratification!

There's not a lot here, but I'm excited about it!

I put the throw pillow from my bed behind so you can see how nicely the colors work together - this will be a decoration for my room.  I have NONE of my stitching hanging anywhere in my house.  And I have no artwork in my bedroom right now, other than kid-art.  I deserve to have something I've made that I love in my room.  So I ordered 28-count Monaco (my fav fab) in Tea and some over-dyed threads from Threadworx - Rich Chocolate (which has a very subtle variegation) and Hidden Treasures.  Which I think was dyed just for me.

The pattern is from My Big Toe (hooray for Boise-area designers, boo for no more LNS to shop in) - "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," which is my all-time favorite hymn.  I plan to stitch this with some combination of Doro Theos to make a meaningful installation in my bedroom.  And I may not wait until 2014 to start!