Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Smalls Sal - Feburary 2015

http://stitchinglotus.ca/2015/02/smalls-sal-2015-february-check-in/

The Smalls Sal is hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus.

I am so happy with my results this month. My project truly is a 'Small' at only 1 1/2 in x 3 in, but it turned out so cute and not only did I get the stitching done, but I finished it into an Ornie too!!! Here is a picture...
This is a small chart that is in Prairie Schooler's 'January' booklet. That makes 4 ornies all stitched and finished for the year!!

Monday, February 23, 2015

IHSW - February 2015

IHSW is hosted by Joysze over at Random Ramblings. For this SAL you make every excuse to stay at home and stitch all weekend on the third weekend of the month. OR you just do as much stitching and staying in as is possible with your schedule:)
 
I actually didn't get as much stitching done this weekend as I would have liked, but I did get a bit done, and a little is better than none, yes? I worked on my new start for February - Snowflake Serenade from Country Cottage Needleworks. I hadn't had a chance to get much of a start on it before, so most of this was stitched this weekend...
There is a LOT of white in this one, and usually I don't like to stitch white, but I love the softness of this design. It's one I can put up at Christmas and leave up all winter long. Or at least until I get sick and tired of winter, like about a week after Christmas;) I think this one might be much more fun to stitch during the hot months of summer!! Right now it's making me cold:)
 
Okay, now I'm off to go and see how some of you did on your stitching...

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Friday Night Sew In - February 2015

http://sugarlanequilts.blogspot.com.au/

Friday Night Sew-In is hosted by Wendy of Sugar Lane Quilts. For me this sew-along means a push to get the sewing machine out and actually sew something, since I would normally rather just stitch or be playing with yarn. But when all I do is stitch this is what I end up with...
 and...
 and...
SEW many pretty stitchy things, but none of them finished into anything that can be shown off!! Almost all of these were stitched by me, though a few were a gift or and exchange piece. And this is only about 2/3 of what I have!!! Since I've really fallen off the quilting bandwagon (as in if I NEVER quilt again, I'll be okay with that) and I am trying to tell myself that is okay, because I don't enjoy machine sewing and I do enough other handwork, I don't need to be a quilter too:) But I do want to show off some of my stitching, so I'm going to use FNSI to do a bit of finish work each month, and by the looks of things, that should keep me busy for some time:)

This month I finished off 4 pieces, and sadly none of them were in the above photos, so I haven't actually put a dent in the pile!! :) 
These are all pretty recently stitching projects. This is the third time I've done the bird stocking (from BBD), but this time it's for ME!! The other stocking is by Plum Street Samplers that I stitched in December and I just showed off Grateful Hearts from 4 My Boys on Valentine's Day. Frosty is part of Snowflake Serenade from CCN that was given to me as part of an exchange. I'm actually stitching the whole Snowflake Serenade right now too:)

Next month I'll start to put a dent in that pile, but I'm happy with my progress here too. Now I have a good head start on my Christmas ornies too!! :)

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

WIP Wednesday - Lots of Yarn!!

I'm going to join in a time or two each month with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesdays. Most of the bloggers post their quilt WIPs, and I will too if I ever get that bug again, but for now I'm thinking mine will mostly be yarn related:)

I started 2015 out with a new knitting project in hopes that it would be done by the end of February... Well, that's not going to happen, but I am around 40% done with it now, and I still love the pattern and the yarn!!
The pattern is Guernsey Wrap by Jared Flood and can be found on the Brooklyn Tweed website. I had several comments last time I posted this about how hard it looks. It really is not hard though!! I'm a very beginner knitter, as in I've only knitted a simple scarf and a few wash cloths. This pattern only uses knit and purl stitches, no increases or decreases or knitting 2 together etc (I'm going to stop now, as these are the only knitting terms I know so far:).  I did have to learn how to read a chart, but again it's only two type of stitches and in the end I liked the chart better than written instructions. The hardest part is to keep track of where I am in the pattern and I'm using a stitch counter to help with that. The above photo also shows a wash cloth that I'm (s-l-o-w-l-y) doing for myself.
 
This month I joined #SBSCALFEB15 on Instagram. We are working on South Bay Shawlette by Loin Brand Yarn, the free pattern can be found on Ravelry or on Loin Brand's website.  
I wanted to see how the different thicknesses of yarn would look and I'm happy with how both have turned out, however, I think I'm going to stop with the purple/gray one as I'm pretty sure I will never use it. I'm not ready to tear it out yet though, just in case;)

I have found that at least with this yarn (the purple/gray), the wool in it doesn't seem to be bothering my skin. I've tested allergic to most/all farm animals, cats and dogs (and am super allergic to rabbits and guinea pigs), so I wasn't sure how I would react to wool. And no, just because I'm allergic to animals doesn't mean that we don't have any. ;0) Dogs seem to bother me the least so they are the only ones that get to stay inside, though we've had a guinea pig - which is more of a problem when I handle them, a rabbit - it finally had to go to the office/storage building when he started shedding, and an occasional cat indoors:) I have to live on allergy meds and my inhaler, but it's worth it to me. We'll see how I handle the horse dd will be getting for her birthday in a couple months:)

I have a baby blanket that I need to start soon too, so I need to hurry up on these. I haven't decided if I want to knit or crochet the blanket. Here is a picture of the yarn colors the family wants - it is to be gender neutral as they aren't finding out the sex until delivery.
Any advice or pattern suggestions? And no, I don't find these colors to be very gender neutral, but hey, it's what the family wants:)

Okay, that is it for my yarn inspired update!!

Sunday, February 15, 2015

GYB Give-Away Update!!!

I want to thank Vicki of 2 Bags Full once more for hosting the Grow Your Blog Hop each year!! It is a lot of fun to meet new bloggers from all over:) Vicki will keep the Grow Your Blog post up all year, so it's not too late to visit a whole lot of new blogs whenever you get the chance.

This year I had a give-away on my blog for these 2 wash cloths...
 I had 29 comments on my GYB post and the random generator I used pulled up #22 which was Gill!! I have contacted Gill and will be sending these two out to her this week:) Congrats!!


It is getting late tonight so I will leave you with some (late) Valentine's love...
This is an old chart. Grateful Hearts from 4 My Boys.
and wish you all a good night's sleep (or a great day depending on where you are;).

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Turtle Trot - Feb 2015

It is a dark and cloudy day today. I think that after some nice spring-like weather we are getting back to winter again. I knew the warm weather wouldn't last, but it was nice while we had it:)

I'm really excited about my progress for Turtle Trot this month. I was hoping to have a finish which didn't quite happen, but it got close and I am happy with that:)

I worked on Summer House Pincushion from BBD. I started out here...

 And am here as of today...
I really love this brown -Cocoa Bean from CC- and this blue - Blue Moon from CC- together. I'm just almost done with it and plan to stick with it for next month as well, so there *should* be a finish for my next Turtle Trot update:)

Sunday, February 8, 2015

YOTA Challenge - Feb 2015

The YOTA Challenge is a fun SAL so that we can show off our stitching progress once a month. It is hosted by Pull the Other Thread.

I've chosen to focus on 'Birds of a Feather Mystery' from With Thy Needle and Thread. Here is where I was before...
 And where I am now...
Other than the bad lighting for this photo:) I'm really happy with my progress. Also, there was very little frogging this time, and that is always a good thing!! I'm really looking forward to seeing this one complete by the end of the year.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Give Away Project: Done!!

A few weeks ago I posted my the Grow Your Blog Hop post and mentioned a give away at the end of it, but I didn't have the give away projects done yet!! :( Now they are all done and are ready to be sent out to the lucky winner!! :)


This one has the start of what will be *MY* dish cloths:)

There is still another week to enter this give away, so if you are interested go HERE and leave a message (and a way to get a hold of you if you are a no-reply blogger, or don't have a blog). I will pick a winner on Feb 15th.

Monday, February 2, 2015

New February Starts!!!

I had a lot of fun starting new projects in January, so I decided that I want to keep that fun going and see if I can make new starts each month of the year!!

For stitching I chose...
 Snowflake Serenade by Country Cottage Needleworks and...
 A small piece from the January booklet from Prairie Schooler for the Smalls SAL.

For crochet I am doing a CAL on Instagram (#SBSCALFEB15) that is a shawl freebie called Southbay Shawlette from Lion Brand Yarn. It can be found on Ravelry and on the Lion Brand website.
I'm actually doing two of the shawls (I'm making them bigger so that they will fit me:). The original pattern calls for lace weight yarn, but I don't have any, so I'm doing the first one with a worsted weight and a size J hook and the other with sock weight and a size H hook. The smaller one is two rows less than the blue one, but you can still tell how much different they will be. I was worried that the heavier weight yarn would not show the pattern as well, but I think it still shows pretty good. I was making some fingerless mitts with the sock yarn, but I didn't like how the colors were working with it, so I'm going to see if I like it better with this. I'm still a bit afraid of how my skin will react to the wool in it too, but we will see how it goes;)

And finally, I REALLY didn't need to start anymore knitting since my Jared Flood Guernsey Wrap is only around 30% done, but I did need to get the dish clothes done for my give-away, so I thought that was a good excuse. ;)  The blue and cream will be the ones I give away and I am hoping to make a couple for myself as well!!
Do any of you start new projects each month?