Friday, May 22, 2015

Some Birthday Shopping

Last Saturday was my birthday (May 16th) and I had a day of shopping planned with my sister-in-law. We were going to go to our (semi) local needlework store and then to a couple of yarn stores as well as go out to lunch together. Unfortunately my car decided to start having some issues. I guess at 255,000 miles it was due to have a couple 'sick' days, but I was a bit upset it decided to do it on my birthday!! No problem, we just rescheduled and we were able to get out and have a fun day yesterday.

So what did I end up with? First I will say that while I love stitching, knitting has become a strong competitor for taking up a good deal of my free time. So while I did do a bit of both stitching and yarn shopping, the yarn defiantly took most of my allotted birthday money:)

My (small) stitching haul:
A freebie from Lizzie Kate that the LNS had sitting by their register, Pin Feathers chart from With Thy Needle and Thread and a piece of linen for it, linen and threads for two other projects I will be working on soon.

And the yarn:
The purple and grey sock yarn (Berroco Comfort Sock) will be for THIS SCARF pattern, the blue alpaca sport weight (Frog Tree) will be for THIS SCARF, and the teal baby llama lace weight (Queensland Collection) is undecided right now. I had another scarf idea for it, but I'm thinking maybe a shawl instead. I bought almost 1000 yards of it (it is SOOOOO soft and squishy!!) so I think I will be fine doing a bigger project with it. I forgot to include the size 2 and size 4 straight needles that I bought as well.

You may wonder WHY 2 more scarves (or you may be a scarf addict and completely understand already:). Well, I've never been one to wear scarves, but after making my first (LINK- from the old blog) I really started liking them so I've wanted to make another in a prettier and lighter weight pattern. The other reason is that I've recently discovered KALs (knit-alongs) and have joined in on two. The first by My Sister's Knitter is dedicated to any crocheted or knitted items that you are making for yourself. Better yet if it's a WIP and you need some motivation to get it completed. This KAL/CAL runs from May 15 - July 15 and all you have to do is join her Ravelry group. The other is from Suburban Stitcher and is dedicated to all knitted things that can be worn around your neck. There are prizes to be won on this one for how many yards you knit or if you use any of the sponsor's patterns or accessories. It runs from June 1st - the end of August and you can join in at her Ravelry group HERE.

It's already been a lot of fun seeing what everyone is working on/planning for these KALs and now that I have some yarn I can start posting my plans as well:)

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

One Side Down, One to Go

I have been working hard to get things off my needles and hooks this past week. Now if I can just stop casting on new projects I would feel like I'm getting somewhere!!

I have been mostly focusing on making bags lately, to hold all my projects. I have been using plastic Walmart and Hobby Lobby bags to hold everything, but I want something prettier than this...
The first bag I'm working on is my new knitting project for May. Here is a pic from the beginning...

Project from 'The Knitter's Year' by Debbie Bliss
I just finished the first side (with some changes on how the handle will be) and have one side left to go...
Umm, and lots and lots of ends to tuck in!!! That part might take longer than the knitting!! I also plan to line this bag so that any knitting needles or crochet hooks I store inside won't poke through. 

I'm super excited about the next couple of bags I have planned as well...
Some are already cast on and a couple need to wait their turn. So far all the bags I've started or am ready to start have been knitted, but I would like to try to crochet and maybe sew up a few others as well. Goodness knows I have enough projects going to fill them all!! 

Monday, May 11, 2015

Turtle Trot - May 2015

I hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing, restful weekend, and that those who are mothers had a very Happy Mother's Day. Above is a basket of flowers I bought for my mom - cat not included;) Hubby got his mom a plant as well as she loves to garden:)
 
Yesterday was also the posting day for the Turtle Trot SAL. At the beginning of the year we all choose 10 projects that we wanted to make sure to make some progress on during the year. For me it was out of many, many projects:)
 
 
This month I was able to work on one of my chosen projects. The before progress...
 And the after...
This is Flower and Bird Sewing Roll from Chessie and Me. I've almost got the first of the two panels done now. I have one thread color issue that is going to hold me up a bit until I figure it out. I changed out the color of fabric (the first photo being more true to color) and because of that the yellow-y thread they used for the tulip flower won't work. I'm not sure what I'm going to use yet, but I will continue on with this once I've figured that out:)  Until then I will move on to the next project and have fun with it for a while!! Happy Stitching!!


Friday, May 8, 2015

Gardening - Take 1

We've had an unusual Spring this year in that it's stayed nice and cool for much longer than normal. We've had a few days here and there that have gotten pretty warm, even sorta hot, but all-in-all it's been a very nice Spring.

So I decided that it was time to get into the garden and get things growing!! First we needed some plants. I heard through a Facebook post that some FFA members a few towns away was having a sale of some tomato plants and cucumber they had grown and thought it would be good to support them. Then we headed to our favorite local greenhouse and got the pepper plants...
Then I needed to clean up the garden plot. Last year we decided to abandon the big garden area we had (around 100ft by 50ft or so). It was a LOT to take care of and the soil is hard and very weedy. We build 2 4x8 raised beds instead. Now this really limits how much we can grow, we had hoped to be able to add a couple more raised beds this year, but that didn't happen, but it is much easier to take care of...

Yes, it was quite a mess from the Autumn/Winter seasons!! I took a shovel to the outer edges and chopped, chopped, chopped away until it was all clean and nice again. I don't know how I didn't get this little guy while I was doing all the chopping...
He got lucky, I saw him just in time, and since he tried to go deeper into the weeds I was trying to get rid of, I picked him up and moved him to a safer place. Hopefully he'll come back and eat lots of bugs for me!! :)

We got the garden planted that same day too, but the sun wouldn't cooperate and the pictures turned out really bad so I took some this morning...
 Peppers
 Tomatoes/Cucumbers
 Dying tomatoes
Dying cucumbers
 
As you can see the tomatoes and cucumbers aren't doing so well. Between being transplanted and the winds we've been having, I'm pretty sure we will be buying some new plants and starting over again. we have some rough weather moving in this weekend, so I think we'll wait until next week:)
 
Maybe by next weekend (my birthday weekend!!!) I'll have some pictures of the new plants:) 

Monday, May 4, 2015

May's Monthly Starts

And a bit of April's Wrap-Up too!!

First for the new monthly starts...

Stitching...
Love Thy Neighbor from Plum Street Samplers. I bought this one quite a while back and thought I just LOVED it. Then it came in the mail and I couldn't make myself start it. Something about it just didn't feel right to me. I still liked it, but didn't love it. It's taken some time but I think it's the sideways house and the odd pumpkin/peach things as well. I still really like the colors and the basic part of it, so I've decided to stitch it without adding the far right hand side. I think that will do it for me and have me loving it again:)

Crocheting...
A hat for my daughter. She just recently got her hair all cut off (I mean she went from mid way down her back to hair right up to the base of her neck with only about 2 inches of length at the top!!). It looks really cute on her and has been easier to maintain than she thought it would be. She is overall very happy with it. She requested a few hats that I think will make it look even cuter still and this is the first she wanted to have done. I'm not so sure how it will turn out with this color combo, but I'm giving it a shot and since it's not too difficult of a pattern, I can always make another if she doesn't like it:)

Knitting...
A knitted bag to put my knitting in!! I LOVE bags of all kinds and am always toting several out to the car for the times I need to be waiting on dd during one of her activities (she is SOOO close to being able to drive herself!!!). This pattern is by Debbie Bliss and it said to use up leftover yarn, but I found all this yarn (cheep cotton yarn at Walmart) and the colors reminded me of Spring. I do have to admit that I took this picture a couple weeks ago, and I wasn't able to stop myself from going ahead and starting it. I have one side of the bag just about done and I've only stopped since then because I want to do the handles differently than the pattern says. Not being a very experienced knitter, this has slowed me down quite a bit, but I think I know what I'm going to do with it now, and can hopefully get the first side done in a day or two:)

And now for the April Wrap-Up. As I said on my last post, April was a crazy busy month. Most of my free time was spent running around like a crazy lady:) But it was a super fun month too, and I did get a little crafting done...

Stitching...
A pathetic little amount of stitching done on 'Hand Print on my Heart" from Heartstring Samplery. This is a project from being in the Ladies Prim Society. The instructions say to stitch this with one thread over two, but I don't like how that looks so I was going to order more thread, but decided instead to stitch it over one and see how I like that. Well, I like it very much, so that's the way I'm going with it:)

Crocheting...
Working on the baby blanket for my dh's friend. I'm almost at the half-way point, but I need to get this done by the end of the month, so this will be a focus for me for sure!!

Knitting...
This is turning out very nice and I am sure I am going to love it in 15 years or so when it's finally done!!! UGG, this is a VERY SLOW project. Between using size 3 crochet string and knitting with size 3 needles, this one's going to take a while.

As you can see, I have lots of fun things to take up my free time (and some of my 'housework' time as well;) and several of the projects have given me reason to learn new stitches too which I find to be lots of fun! Learning how to increase and decrease in knitting has opened up lots of possibilities for new patterns to try. I'm having a really hard time just starting one new knitting project at a time!! Next month I am joining my first KAL (knit-a-long) on Suburban Stitcher's Revelry page. Its focus is all things that go around your neck and I have 3 different scarf ideas for this one. It goes through until the end of Aug, so I'm hoping I can force myself to start a new one each month instead of all 3 at one time like I want to. ;) I'm also really itching to try out knitting socks. I even have the yarn and the needles that I will need, ACK!!  I better get off here and get some 'work' done on what I already have going. :) Have a great day!!