WIP Wednesday edition of stress (yes, I know it’s Thursday)

Hi all, so I realised that there is less than three weeks till Christmas, which is something of a problem since I haven’t started the satsuma costumes yet. That’s this weekend plan…Work is also somewhat hectic right now (I got hit with a massive pile of ~400 scripts to mark…), so this is going to be a splurdge and go.

Firstly: wolf cross stitch! Another 4 hours added, bringing the total to 20.5 hours. This is quite a bit less than 1/4 of the whole design, so my last estimate of 80-100 hours might be slightly optmistic. But then most of the surrounding is half cross stitch, so that should be faster…I’ll leave that as my official estimate for now, I think.

Second: sleeves. Still going strong. I think I’ve pretty much got the hang of the cables now, so that’s good 🙂 I am still checking the charts, but much less than I was. So yay for that!

Third: mitred square blanket. This is so easy to pick up and put down, it now has 7 squares. Lovely garter stitch squishyness 🙂

Fourth: umm…yeah…so I saw the abandoned cockatoo brae, and decided that I had to sort that out there and then (I was procrastinating on doing the hoovering). So I re-swatched, and have decided I need to move to 2.75mm needles. Which is what the pattern calls for. Using the suggested needle size for a project feels really weird, but ok. (This is why you need to gauge swatch people. Even if you usually knit so loosely you have to go down a size, sometimes you don’t. Just go with the flow…) (Full disclaimer: I haven’t actually measured this yet. But pre-washing, I was hitting the 7 stitches an inch (I know, I really shouldn’t measured a larger part, but oh well)). Needles are 2.25 and then 2.75 (I think??? It’s either 2.5 or 2.75, whichever I have).

Fifth: the Christmas shawl. Well, I got last week’s 10 inches done, but not really this week…ok fine, I managed 6 of the required 10 inches. Which I’m trying to not stress over, because I have quite enough other things to stress over! And I should be able to easily make up the time (assuming I stop knitting on other things…)

6 inches is a lot!!!!! So now I have 10 inches and then 11 in the next two weeks…riiiiight. Completely believeable…

What I’ve been up to whilst at home

With my mum’s sewing machine!

I’ve managed to sew the main pieces of a dressmakers dummy pin-cushion. It doesn’t really look right, but I’ll chalk it up to experience and maybe make a better one next year. And the year after…I might start a trend here!

This pattern comes from here. It’s a video tutorial, which I found a little annoying, but it’s well explained and the printable is a pdf directly underneath. Now I’ve made it, and brought it back up North to stuff, it needs to do South again so I can borrow the glue gun to finish it! Talk about long-winded!

I also sewed two triangles together, and then hand sewed it into a little container. This is going to be an ort container, and I have some buttons to sew onto the fold over bits.

This pattern comes from here, and I’m really tempted to make myself one as well! They’re just so cute!

But not everything was completed with the machine. I hand sewed the last of the blue jugging balls. Now they’re just awaiting stuffing, and then practise with more than 3! I can’t wait 🙂

I keep forgetting to mention, so I’ll stick it here. There’s a pdf with a load of different juggling ball designs, here. So far I’ve only made the 4 and 8 panel shapes, but after stitching all these, I may try some of the others. They’re excellent palate cleansers, between larger projects.

I also cut out some of my butterfly and orange fabric, to make 7 balls, They’ll get sewn up after my small Christmassy ones, but that is probably going to wait until I’ve finished my mum’s birthday bits. I’ve still got lots to go 🙂

Before I went home, I knitted up another pair of toe-up matching jaywalkers 🙂 This time they even fit! (Not like my zombie ones!)

Making them matchy-matchy was a challenge, but great fun 🙂 I’ve got this yarn in a darker shade (it’s heart and sole) to do a pair in the same way- toe-up matching jaywalkers, but first I needed a break from matching, so I’ve started another completely different pair. One of them matches one I’ve already knitted, so I’ll get a pair and an odd sock out of this 🙂 I picked up the other yarn when I was in town…I have no idea how the yarn is patterned, which makes it great fun and a lovely surprise as I knit. No doubt sooner or later I’ll get a repeat, which will spoil it somewhat, but hey ho!

I also started knitting a cover for my ear-buds. I’m using cotton sport-weight, and my 1.5mm Karbonz. Yes, I am slightly insane 🙂 It’s taking way longer than I thought it would (big surprise 😛 ) but I’ll get there. I’m loving the colour repeats on it, so it’s all good!

So what have you all been up to over Easter? Any tips for getting back into working mode after the holidays?