Start it Saturday- black on black edition

So…..for a variety of reasons the wedding sampler has been put away for the time being, and I decided to start something all for myself 😀 (I say that like it’s a good thing…)

The problem? It’s black aida. Black and shades of grey thread and quite a lot of blank space between all the stitches…

The good thing? No backstitch. And it’s going to look hella rad when it’s done. I just have to survive the black on black stitching first…

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Update of all the things!

Naturally, the only thing to do upon finishing two things is immediately start more things! Three to be precise.

 

Firstly: more socks. See, I didn’t have a portable project, since my mother’s socks require two balls of yarn and a book for the charts. Therefore, I needed a new pair of socks, preferably ones with a basic or non-existent pattern. These socks fitted the bill, and I had a great time starting them (I’ve modified the pattern somewhat):

Secondly: my handspun stripy colourwork scarf. I decided it was time to start. And now I’ve done a bit, I need to start over, I want 27 stitches (25 for the colourwork patterns, 1 stitch either end), and I’m also thinking that I don’t want to pair the blue with the yellow… I’m also thinking that my handspun is wayyyyyy too overspun/plied, but I can’t exactly frog and respin yarn…

Thirdly (and most impressively): new cross stitch. After I finished the wolf, naturally I had to make a start on the next cross stitch on my to-do list. This currently has…not an insignificant number of hours in it. I’m currently in the ‘ooh, new start, fun’ mentality of it, and it’s lovely to stitch whilst ‘watching’ the commonwealth games, so it’s getting a lot of attention at the moment.

This new start will eventually become this:

 

As well as all this, I also finish-finished the wolf cross stitch. After two failed hunts, I found the perfect frame in TK Maxx! So yay me!

SO Sunday- double edition

Two things to talk about today! Aren’t you all lucky 😉

 

Firstly: new socks! This weekend is 4 days due to all the bank holidays we have floating around! And how better to spend it than b starting a pair of green Spring socks? (Other than working, but I couldn’t do that thanks to my building being shut 😦 ). So, new socks! I am particularly impressed with how the ribbing ended up being framed in the way it was- I was willing to do a complete new colour in order to do it, but it turned out that two colours being framed like this results in 1 inch perfectly 😀

And the pattern is just flying off the needles. The thing I am most excited about project bird socks is pushing me so far out of my comfort zone. I’ve borrowed a number of sock books from someone in my spinning group, and I chose patterns as best I could based on what traits in the yarn I wanted to display (so Spring colours for this green), without looking at how the sock is constructed. I’m looking forward(ish) to doing new things I haven’t done before (or maybe only done once or twice, and then ignored). Here’s to learning new things!

 

The second thing is also about learning new things, or at least experimenting. For my OLAS cardigan (the big cabled thing), I want to put in pockets, but not afterthought ones. Which got me thinking about what has been written about knitted pockets (not much), and what is possible. So now I’m experimenting with different pockets, and will discuss each of them on the blog. (As mentioned in the last blog post, where I mention my monthly goals). And how better to try new things than by killing two birds with one stone, and knitting it left-handed??? (I want to learn proper left-handed, which is different to knitting backwards to avoid purling so I can teach a lefty properly 🙂 More on this at a later date). So here I am knitting essentially a gauge swatch, but will have a trick up its sleeve later, feeling a lot like a beginner again!

Start (and finish)-it Sunday, and January goals

So, as I have previously mentioned, my word of the year for 2018 is ‘Preparation’. And after doing my ‘Hello!’ and ‘make today awesome’ hoops, I decided to start making a cross stitch of my word of the year. And so this afternoon I did so. I didn’t exactly intend on finishing it today, but it was a very quick and easy stitch. 🙂

And now, a few days late (so much for being prepared!), my goals for January. This is the first time I’m trying this out, so we’ll see how I go!

• Stitch and finsih Preparation (already half done!)
• Finish and sew together Kita’s OLAS cardigan (this includes buttons and pockets…)
• Carry on with the wolf cross stitch (the aim is to finish it next month, which might be a tall order…)

We shall see how I go!

Start it Sunday…oops?

So, umm, I might’ve started more than one new project this week…

But first, the cardigan sleeves! I did indeed cast on the first sleeve of Kita’s cardigan, and promptly got swallowed in the black hole of 2×2 ribbing for 7 inches…

Part way through I came to my senses, and remembered that I can’t be trusted knitting one sleeve at a time, so I cast on for the second sleeve and caught it up to the same point…knitting two sleeves somehow doesn’t make the ribbing go any faster unfortunately.

But then it was finished, and I got to start the main body of the sleeves. This was also not great, since the two sleeves have opposite cable patterns (and some matching cables too, to keep things spicy). And the main cable body started two rows after the little cables, so the row count is off whichever way I look at it. I’m happily pottling along though, and of course aran yarn always knits up really fast 🙂

At least, I thought I was happy, but then I got this in the post, and so I really can’t be held accountable for my actions…

This is 22 of the 24 miniskeins I got myself as an advent calender. I sort of sneezed, and lost track of myself, and came up with this.

Which, fortunately, isn’t square. (Half way through I remembered that I wanted to do mitred squares- knitting the blanket from the inside out, rather than bottom to top as normal, so the fact that this wasn’t square meant that I could figure out how large I should make the mitred squares. And so voila, a finished mitred square!

This had a cast on of 55 stitches (2*27+1). I decrease on the first row, because that makes the decreases on the wrong side as I prefer the look of the other side. It worked perfectly, and I used up pretty much all of the 20 yards I was given. 🙂 This might grow rather quickly, because it’s addictive. Such pretty little garter stitch squishiness!!!! Or I might actually go and do some work on the wolf cross stitch…

Start-it Sunday-Wolf edition

Look at this, two posts in as many days! Don’t get used to it, I must admit! But I finally decided to start the wolf cross stitch, so yay for that! For those that haven’t seen it before, this is what I’m talking about

It’s done on 18 count which means that the final design is a ‘normal’ size for framing (5-7 inches), but is rather hard on the eyes! So far I’ve done approximately 2.5 hours work on it, so many many more hours to go! Ive said it before, and I’ll say it again, cross stitch is slooooowwwwwww.

This is the right eye (well, the hole in the middle will be the eye when I use that colour) and the side of the nose heading towards the end(????) of the nose. Is there a special name for the black bit on the nose???

Anyway…I think my eyes need a break from squinting at the fabric, so I’m off to do some more knitting…see you Wednesday (in theory!)

Start-it Sunday and some new stash

So, last Sunday I went to Hobbycraft. Gotta love popping home to visit the parents and them suggesting a trip there!

I picked up three cross stitch kits, and promised to knit my mum a shawl over Christmas (lucky her!)

Firstly: a new start! It will eventually say ‘make today amazing’

I didn’t think the start recording how long it’s taking me to make this but hopefully I’ll remember for the other kits I have! When this one is finished, it will go in a hoop as a Christmas present for one of my friends, who expressed a desire to fill her house with hand-made things 🙂

I also got a similar one for myself

I’m looking forward to making this for myself, it’s so bright and colourful! Again, will go in a hoop when it’s finished.

And finally, a gorgeous wolf head!

This is also quite small- 5 by 7 inches I think. But it’s on 18 count, so detailed and fiddly to do! Again, looking forward to doing this when I get around to it!

So much to do, so little time! (And I may or may not have ordered the yarn for another 2 jumpers, but it hasn’t yet arrived so I can’t talk about that yet…)

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