FO Friday- March goals edition

Another month gone…where are they going??? So, before I get inot the goals, firstly I want to show off my new finished things.

Socks! Who doesn’t love socks? This pic is of them drying after they’ve been worn for the first time, because I had to wear them straight away!

This pair have afterthought heels, which I really dislike because of the kitchener stitch…

And secondly, another sewn card! (Note: I say another…it’s been quite a while since the last one I did. These are done by punching holes in the card with a large stabby needle, then sewing them in a set pattern with a smaller needle and metallic thread. The companies which produce the cards are form-a-lines (for the A6 size) and…I thought there was a sister company for square cards but I can’t find them again so maybe I imagined it or something…)

This is for a couple I know who are getting married in April. I had to change the pattern slightly so that both hands are holding top hats- in the original design the hand on the right had a handkercheif. I’m very pleased how this came out in the end.

Finally: a bird! This is a generic one done to see how large they are when finished- I think it might be a smidge too large for the planned use, so I’ll have to go down to embroidary thread and *very* small knitting needles (1mm I’m thinking)

So, the March goals I had:

1) Finish my mother’s first pair of socks. Done! The ends are even woven in, that’s how done they are:)

2) Carry on the wolf cross stitch. Done! I hit 75% at the weekend, so go me!

3) Sew the wedding card. Done! See above 🙂

 

4) Get gauge on cockatoo brae. Done! Sleeves are half(ish) done! More up to date picture of sleeves so far:

5) Stick all my sock yarn (not the stuff for project bird socks) on ravelry and find projects for them. Done! See my ravelry account. (Link opens to my stash page filtered to only include yarn with projects associate with it in a new tab). Obviously, this isn’t all my stash, but it’s all my sock yarn here in Bristol. Bonus: I actually also added all my yarn here in Bristol (including my handspun, although I’m not convinced I’ve done that bit correctly…), and found patterns for almost all of it (including my mothers bird socks). This brings me to a total of 28 projects in my queue, of which 26 are socks…

So, next months goals..

1. Finish the sleeves on cockatoo brae
2. Carry on with the wolf cross stitch (I’d like to finish but think it unlikely given that this final quarter is more complicated than the last and I only just hit 75%)
3. Knit up and write a blog post about afterthought pockets. (I want to in the end do a series on different pockets, and I figure that an afterthought one is probably the easiest to start with…)
4. Knit another pair of the bird socks (or at least get the first one done. I’m planning on doing the socks in their pairs, so this next pair will be cardamon main colour and bluetit cuffs, heels and toes).
5. Bonus: start knitting something with my handspun… This one is slightly terrifying, because it’s my handspun…But I also know that knitting it will allow me to see what’s going on with the yarn a lot more clearly than just eyeballing it! Bring it on! (I reserve the right to not talk about how bad it is if it’s truely awful…)

 

 

 

WIP Thursday- Omnibus edition and a bonus FO

Ok strewth this has been a busy *some vague length of time*. I feel as though I’ve been getting on really well with all my various WIPs, which may be because a lot of time has passed, I’m not quite sure how much time has passed (partially because I’m not quite sure when I’m counting from???).

So, I thought I’d do a thorough update of all my current WIPs. (I also looked at my ‘current WIPs’ page and was horrified at it…)

Firstly, the conservatory cross stitch- butterfly fairy. This is kinda not really a WIP at the moment- I had to put this scroll bars away beause my sister’s cat is here for the week and parked threads on the aida + kitty =bad idea. But I have still done some more on it since the last time I gave you all a photo of it, so here it is.This is a close up of the edge of the wing of the fairy. I’ve also been doing some of the large areas of stitching (but that involves blending filament so I’m sort of avoiding doing that…), so I’m more than half way down the right side now!!!

Quick question, looking at this. Would it be better if I rotate the pictures so they’re the ‘correct’ way around for you? I’m used to seeing them this way as I’m working sideways accross the design due to the size of my scroll bars?

I’m really looking forward to seeing the cat go (although he is an adorable cat, I think he’s put me off getting a cat when I’m older), so I can go back to work on this.

Then I have three WIPs in the sitting room… the blanket is officially on hold. I just can’t really be bothered to move it. Occasionally I’ll pick it up(in the evening, when it’s nice and cool) and do a few rows, it’s just too hot to work on most of the time. It’s my official completely mindless project! No pic because it’s impossible to photograph well and always just looks that same!

The cardigan is kinda-not really stalling. I’ve done the left front, but rather than use that momentum to see if these buttons will work, I’ve moved back to doing the sleeves. I had paused one sleeve to do the main body (easy way to gauge swatch, anyone?), so I’ve now nearly finished the sleeve cap ready to do the second sleeve. No photograph of this because I am upstairs and it is downstairs and I can’t stand the thought of having to go down and up the stairs again after my bike ride this morning (so unfit! Must do more cycling!). I had previously said that this appears to be knitting itself. I’m less convinced about that now, because all my energy is on the socks, so naturally they’re the ones knitting themselves now!

I did the heel turn!!! It really reminded me why I dislike knitting socks cuff down (I despise picking up the stitches along the heel flap, but there we go. Knitting and purling two together is so much easier than the wrap and turns used when knitting toe up, so swings and roundabouts I guess (where does that saying even come from???). This appears to be knitting itself since I’ve spent quite a few afternoons knitting while watching tennis. Very exciting sport for us Brits!

And finally, the WIP in my bedroom- Stained Glass. I finished a page on it!!!

This is page 6 out of 16, so I’m more than half way accross the second row now. I also started page 7, but I’m really thinking that I don’t want to keep working on it. When I started it, I had this grand plan to ‘colour’ the areas in different colours, but I’m not sure that I’d ever get around to it, and it’s really not ‘me’. Far too monochromatic. So I think I’m going to stick it back away for a while to see if I change my mind, and if not, just toss it. Life is too short to waste on things you don’t want to make and then dont want to use after it’s made!

Ok, I didn’t actually think I was going to type that all out, but then it happened! So I guess that’s going away again then, and I’ll find something else to start doing up in my bedroom. Hmm. Or maybe not, and if I’m up in my bedroom at a loose end I’ll start playing my computer games, which I have missed quite a bit!

And finally, the bonus finished object!It’s my mum’s birthday soon, so rather than trawl through card shops looking for something suitable, I decided to make my own card! Much less hassle, cheaper (if you take the cost of the card by itself, rather than the 10-pack), and probably didn’t take that much longer than the length of time I’d spend staring at cards hating life. Win all around really!

FO Friday- Christmas cards

All the Christmas cards have bnow been finished (probably!) I need 13 (well, 12 if I get away with giving my parents a shared card), and I’ve made 12!

I showed the first 6 last week, and then I completed another 6 this week. Somehow I have lots of free time (despite feeling massively busy all the time???)

Anyway, onto the snowflake cards!

I’m not wildly keen on this design (I dissect everything, clearly. Why can’t I just smile, wave and move on???). I feel that there are too many lines in the innermost star, and I really didn’t like stitching the outer bits. Ahh well, pretty card, lesson learnt!

This one was great fun to stitch, although I’m less impressed with the final outcome. It also looks wildly different from the original hole punching, which I find very amusing!!!

And finally:I love this one! The hearts are cute, and the inner circle was great fun to stitch 🙂 I even think I prefer the snowflake this way around, rather than having the point on top 🙂

 

And so now these are finished, I can start a new project at my desk… check back on Sunday to see what it is (hint: it’s an old one I’m digging out of the UFO pile…)

FO Friday- Christmas cards the first edition

So, this post should come as very little surprise to most of you, but the first load of my Christmas cards are now finished! Woot! What do you think of them all???

The first pattern I did is a holly wreath. Looking at it now, I think it would be better with the ribbon at the bottom (can I just be happy with what I did, and not pick it apart already please???)!

The berries are gorgeous, and I love them!

Then I did some with candles. I like these, although punching the holes for the candle proved slightly awkward, and didn’t work on one of them. Fixed the problem though, and again, love the berries! This pattern didn’t have specific holes for the berries, but there we go. Still worked well.

Wow the candles look wonky in this picture! I assure you, in real life they are perfectly straight.

The final design (this one is definitely my fav, and also my mum’s) is a sort of flower. I especially love the spirally bit down the side, but the flower is also gorgeous 🙂

I almost would prefer this flower to be on the left, but it’s still very pretty (Why? Am? I? Never? Satisfied???)

 

So, everyone. Which is your favourite???

Start-it Sunday

Yes, I have just invented this. 😀 Just on the spur of the moment, since I have today started something new, so why not.

More form-a-line cards! This will be the second Christmas set this year, which is useful since I need 12 cards to give various people. And there are 6 cards in each set. I think I’m slightly rambling, I didn’t quite get enough sleep last night!

So, onto the cards. This is the first one I’ve started

This set is three different snowflakes, which is a change from the last set (they weren’t quite finished in time for this Friday, so I’ll schedule a FO Friday post for next Friday. That I hope to schedule today, since my next week is crazy busy. Scheduling posts is so fun and useful!)

This is the front of the form-a-lines book which tells you how to sew each of the cards. It gives a general idea of what the cards will look like, although eagle-eyed readers may notice that the snowflake I’m currenty stitching isn’t aligned the same way. Not quite sure what happened there, quality control missed a bit!

Right, I’m off then. Crazy busy! See you all later

On my needles right now…

I currently have 4 things on-going, all of which involve needles in some way.

Firstly, my scrappy blanket. I’ve added about another row now (I’m averaging about 1 square each evening which my mum and I watch various TV things from about 4pm to bedtime with a break for dinner), and it’s coming along well. I’ve nearly finished my bag of scraps and will then move onto the new bag.

Yes, this is the same pic as last time. I haven’t quite finished the next row and trying to take a photo of it is even worse than this pic. Better pics to come when it’s cool enough to work on this again!I’m not prepared to sit under a blanket with this temperature!

I also got around to starting a new cardigan. I’m making a v-neck thing in pieces and seaming it. Except the sleeves. They’re still getting done in the round.

This is just the first sleeve 🙂

The whole body of the cardigan would be done like that but the row count on gauge is different so I’ll have to seam it. Lucky me… BUT- it’s rainbows and sparkly!!!!! Very exciting. This seems to be knitting itself, which is good because I also just started a new cross stitch project…*whistles innocently* But this has now become my evening knitting, so it hasn’t stopped altogether 🙂

So yes, the third project is a large cross stitch piece. It’s a cross stitch HAED(charted for 14-count rather than 25-count), which hasonly just been started. I put the fabric on the cross bars (so much hassle, I dislike doing that by hand…), and I’ve worked out where to start, and acknowledged the fact that I put the fabric on sideways (by accident, but it’s also too wide to go on ‘properly’, so I’m calling that a win). Although this looks like the top left corner, it’s actually the top right. And yes, that does make it rather interesting to stitch! Every time I want a new colour I have to check carefully against the key!

And finally, some Christmas cards. Readers who’ve been here for a while will recall the form-a-lines cards I made a while ago for a Christmas present. Well, this year I’m making them to give as Christmas cards. So far the first 6 cards have been pierced (except for a little bit I seem to have missed), and one design (2 cards)has been completely finished, including gluing a ribbon bow on it. I haven’t stuck the tri-fold-y bit down yet- I’ll do that when all 6 are done. These don’t get worked on all that much- they’re up in my bedroom and I feel kinda awkward staying there during the day in case my mum thinks I’m being anti-social, so usually they get done if I wake up unreasonably early!

There are also two projects which are finished, but not finished-finished. I completed this elephant stamped emboidery in 2 days for my aunt’s birthday in July. All that I need to do now is glue the fabric to the hoop and then some felt over the back to hide all the knots and things. I just forgot to get the felt when I was in town yesterday… oops!

The other is the OUAT monthly SAL. Anyone here remember this?

I still haven’t gotten around to doing anything with it *lesigh*. I guess that’s what happens when you stitch something because it’s fun, rather than because you want it on your wall. I don’t really know what to do with it…my mum says I should get it framed, but even then, I don’t really have anywhere to put it *lesigh*. I also have this vague plan to sew the individual months as birthday cards, but I have far too many plans for the time I have…what a wonderful problem to have!

Then I suppose there are all the other projects (stained glass, socks, scrappy sock yarn pillow cover…), but they’re not really getting worked on at the moment, so they don’t really count in my mind. At some point I should create a folder or something of all my abandoned projects so I can go back and work on them when I want something but don’t want to start anything new! I would love to finished stained glass, now I’ve remembered I have it…oops!

What a busy week!

So, I didn’t quite manage to finish the page on Stained Glass, but I think it’s fairly close! All that is left now is the bottom right corner, and most of that is blank space!I think it’s coming along very well 🙂 I’m still fairly amazed at how quickly it’s coming together!

This week was also rather productive, and I’m now more than half-way finished with my last Christmas present!

This is the second of three designs I’m stitching onto cards for a friend’s Christmas present. This design actually threw me a bit- I don’t really like all the long lines on it, for the stairs, and after I’d done 3, I’d had enough, but apparently this is the design I liked the most and so had to sew it 4 times! Bit annoyed to see the fourth- I thought I’d miscounted the number I’d already done! So I’m now on the final sprint now, just need to finish 3 more, and then stick the backs down to cover the unsightly selotape!

I’ve also cut out the triangles for my juggling balls, but that’s it! I’m not sure when I’m going to get a chance to sew them up, I’ve got so many other plans (with a deadline!) They might end up getting done over Christmas!

I realised the other say that I don’t have a Christmas jumper, and this is a travesty which much be swiftly resolved! The solution: NaKniSweMo- I’m going to try and knit an entire sweater in November. I already have the yarn- remember my aunt gave me loads of stuff back in April? (Ok, I just looked through this and it turns out I didn’t record the sweater’s worth of red yarn in a wool/acrylic/nylon blend which feels quite nice. Doh!) But anyway, I now have a plan for my first sweater- a Christmassy Nordic one with white patterns on (I’ve got some white sparkly yarn for this, so we’re all set! Yes, this will be my third attempt at my first sweater! Ahh well, I’ll get one finished sooner or later!

Also, someone on here asked what I will start working on when OUAT is finished, and I gave a rather vague answer of ‘something crafty’! I thought that I would expand on that a bit. Recently, I’ve fallen into a routine which works really well- one thing during the week, and another thing over the weekend. So far, that has been Christmas stuff during the week, and OUAT/Stained Glass/a tiny bit of the butterfly over the weekend. Obviously, this is going to go out the window when November comes around and I start on my sweater, but ignoring that, soon I’m going to have fewer demands on my time, as Christmas stuff, and OUAT are nearly finished. I like cross stitching over the weekend- I don’t need to put it down to go into Uni etc, so that will carry on. I’ve got quite a few things I want to stitch, but I think the main things will be Stained Glass/Butterfly/Cat Alphabet (yeah, I got this for Christmas and had the brilliant plan to finish a cat every 2 weeks and have it finished by the end of the year! Ha!) with some smaller bits when I get the urge to finish something already! I also think that cross stitch all the time is going to drive me insane, but I’ve got some ideas for what to do during the week- I want to finish embroidering my  skirt, and I still want to finish my cardigan, and figure out what to do with the red yarn which was going to be a sweater and then didn’t (my gauge lied to me big time so I got annoyed and hid it!), and there’s always more socks to knit! And I’d quite like to learn how to quill, and embroider some designs in hoops as decoration, and, and, and (there’s always more I want to do!) But I do think that the first things to do are my cardigan, and to finished the skirt, so when I’ve finished those I’ll have another re-think!

Ok, so while I was just finding the links for those bits in the previous paragraph, I was forcibly reminded of the insane blanket I’m knitting, which I suppose I ought to do first! Ok, I’ll carry on with that after November, and just take my cardigan home to work on over Christmas! I love having this blog, it’s such a good reminder of what I’m working on! At least, I think that’s everything I’ve got going! (Yes, I am ignoring my yearly plan at the beginning of the year to have the same number of WIPs at the end of the year as when I started, that’s just not going to happen!

So, what do you guys think about this plan? Any massive flaws in it that I can’t see?

 

October’s Block and nearly finished Christmas presents

So, October’s Block. It’s another ‘classic’ fairy tale, published by the Grimm brothers, and one that I think will be obvious by just a few clues. so…

It starts with a lovely man marrying again, and his new wife and her two daughters bullying his rather more lovely daughter(the main character). She (the main character) meets the prince for a few hours, and leaves an item of clothing behind which prompts a massive search of the entire city to find her again, because naturally in a few hours you can fall totally in love with someone…gotta love those fairy tales!

I think that’s enough information to be getting on with, if it really is more obscure than that I’ll give out some more hints next week (or maybe a pic of the finished thing!) It’s quite awkward to know how much information to give from the side of knowing what the fairly tale is!

So, onto the other half of this post, yes, the Christmas presents are nearly finished! I finished all the coasters! Here’re the ones you didn’t see last time

I just love that tit in the bird bath!

So that makes two of the three Christmas presents I’m hand-making finished! And I even made a start on the last one- a set of form-a-line cards.

You make these by punching holes in the middle of a tri-fold card (so you can cover the back, which gets a bit messy with selotape!)

There are patterns you print off and tape over the card, then you use a pin to punch the hole (into a block of foam!). It gets a little painful after a while, that’s a lot of holes, especially when you decide to be completely insane and punch 10 cards in one day! They’re not all of this pattern, there are three patterns in total, and I did 3-3-4.

Then you follow the instructions for how to sew them, and get something like this

They really are loads of fun to do (when you’re finger stops hurting from sticking a pin through card so many times!)

Annnnnd….breathe.

Well, that’s the first week of my final year at Uni finished with. I’m sure that I was supposed to spend more time actually working on the maths than I was, but meh. If the lecturers aren’t going to teach new stuff, I’m not going to waste my time revising stuff that I’ve seen so many times it’s written in indelible ink in my brain. I CAN’T forget this stuff, so obviously, I can’t see how anyone else can. *sighs*. But, that does mean that I’ve been busy crafting 🙂

So, I finished all the cards:

They don’t seem to fit in with the other cards, but hey, they were great fun to make 🙂

Soooooooo cute 🙂 And great fun to sew

And of course, you have to see the complete set

Really lovely set to sew, may do these again for any other cat lovers in my life

So, they were the first lot to get finished. I did 7 cards in a week. Not including the weekend- some people may have been shouted at on Friday evening, but I wanted them finished dammit! And they were finished 🙂

So, on Saturday, I wanted something small. After all, I’d just spent two weeks on those cats, I wanted something fast. So I got out one of my other keyrings, started it…and promptly remembered why I hadn’t done a second one before now. But, I persevered with the remarkably knotty yarn, the unlikely orange rather than red , and the tiny holes involved in 18 count aida, and got this:

The stitches are *really* squished in this 😦

I mean, seriously, who uses orange for a robin RED-breast??? Ahh well, all in all not the best cross stitching I’ve done *sighs*. This is likely to get sent to my grand-dad’s new girlfriend, just so it gets out of my life fairly permanently :P. Or maybe my mum. We shall see.

I only had a very little bit left on my Uncle’s hand warmers, so they were finished then (since I’d actually been to the yarn shop for the rest of the yarn I needed…)

Yay, finished too!

So they are ready to be packaged up with my aunt’s and sent off (nearer Christmas, obviously!).

So, having decided that that was enough IG crafting for a while, I started my Granddad’s bookmark, which is going to be very colourful. I haven’t really gotten anywhere with it yet (just the gold border), so no pic of that for you this week. However, this is a taste of how colourful it’s going to be, here’s my box of colour

All the colourfulness needed for my Granddad’s bookmark 🙂

Phew! A rather hectic week for crafting, hopefully next week will be too :). And hopefully next week I’ll remember to post on Saturday evening! See ya, and happy crafting

The butterfly is done :D

I know, I didn’t think that I’d make it, and it would get hidden somewhere until all the Christmas presents are done, but it’s done. I think I finished it on Tuesday, heaved a massive sigh of relief, and got on with pulling out the waste (much easier with dry waste, as the wet strands split so easily). So, here it is, in all it’s washed, unwasteified glory:

Well, it was fun, but I’m glad it’s over!

Near the end, with the deadline of tomorrow(eek!) looming, it was getting more irritating than fun. But I’m glad I did it, and I really like working on long-term projects, I’ve found! Not that I don’t like the adrenaline rush of finishing an instant-gratification project, but there’s a balance to be had. Unfortunately, there won’t be another long-term thing until after all the Christmas presents are done. Not that I really want a long-term now that Uni is starting again on Monday, and I’ll have to keep picking up/putting down things.

I’m looking forward to Uni starting again, but I’ll miss all the crafting time. I keep being reminded that this year I’ll have to put in a LOT more time, so we’ll have to see how that goes, I certainly don’t want to stop crafting, but the degree must come first, especially as this is the last year…

I took a bit of a break after finishing this, which I really needed! But I started again today, on some more form-a-lines cards. I’m doing the Cats set for my next door neighbour back home. I’ve nearly finished the first design:

Does anyone else see the kitten as being really smug???

Just another two designs to do now, which isn’t going to happen tomorrow! I need to do some reading of maths for my single project, which is really good fun 🙂

So, not really much crafty going on this week- the butterfly was fairly big I suppose, and then I needed the break, although that was coming next week anyway…

Hopefully I’ll still have lots of crafting time *fingers crossed*. Hope you’re all well, and see you next Saturday (if there’s anything worth showing you, anyway…)