Tag Archives: knitting

18

Jan. ’20

My weekly update, 1/18/2020

I’ve done very little this past week.  It seems to have gone in a blur.  Last Saturday’s post I complained about being sick and not getting as much done as I wanted to and this week I do not even have the excuse of being sick.  I just had a lot of family and other obligations that kept me from crafting to my heart’s content.

Monday was my quilt guild meeting and it was a good meeting. I’m co-membership chair so I have a bunch of duties I needed to do to prepare for the meeting.  At least I was able to knit on my socks during the meeting.

On Tuesday, we went to the Los Angeles Clipper game and had a blast.

Wednesday, I was in Century City, and went with a friend to a yoga class.  Which was awesome!  I haven’t gone to yoga for almost a month and while the class kicked my butt I was very glad to go.

Thursday was knit night and it was my daughter’s last night with us before she headed off to college. So I went to knit night for a couple of hours before the family and I went to sushi for the girl’s last night.

And on Friday, we woke super early to get the girl to the airport for her early flight.  It was fine and at 1pm my parent’s called to say they were on their way to visit for the weekend.  I love that they are here visiting but my plan was to spend Friday sitting on my butt stitching.  Instead I had to run around getting them dinner.  I’m okay with it.

Anyway, that’s my busy week.  So what was I able to actually do?

First up – morning knitting on my socks for 15 minutes every Monday – Friday.

last week – 1/11/2020

 

I checked this off for 5 of 5 days.

1/18/2020

The cuffs are done and I’m working on the heels.  I have about 2 or 3 more rows on the heels and then I can kitchener it and call it a finish!  woohoo…

Second, my evening knitting on Ricky’s Weasley Sweater every Monday through Friday.

Ricky’s Weasley Sweater
1/11/2020

I checked this off for 1 of 5 days.  I only did about 2 – maybe 3 rows during knit night so any picture I take today will not be much different than what I showed last week.

I had dropped a stitch on my Fairy Hill Shawl and spent some time trying to fix it. Mindy spent more time on it but I didn’t get anymore done on it than that.  And I got another small blip done on my mix wave cowl.

Mix Wave Cowl
1/11/2020

For Cross Stitch, my goal is to work on it every evening Monday – Friday.

Mama’s Bukid
1/11/2020

I did nothing on this project all week.  🙁  So it looks the same. I wanted to finish up those columns last night but it will have to wait until my next free xstitch moment.

And finally Quilting! I was able to finish Glam Clam last weekend and posted about it during the week. But here it is again!

Glam Clam
Finished Top
1/13/2020

And finally for Sewing, the top and bottom of my Megan dress is put together and my next class is tomorrow. I’m excited to get that to the next step.

Megan Dress
1/11/2020

I guess I made small progress on some projects and no progress on others.  That’s okay. And I have a finished top so that is reason to celebrate.  I hope life calms down a bit over the next few months so I can get back into the rhythm of crafting, creating, and relaxing.

I hope you all have a happy crafty week!

Melanie

To see the full 2020 crafty plan, click for quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and everything else.

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11

Jan. ’20

My weekly update, 1/11/2020

Now that the first full week is almost done, let’s do a quick check in to see my progress. To see the full 2020 crafty plan, click for quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and everything else.

To summarize, I have no specific goals other than to carve out time to craft on particular projects. This week, the first full week basically blew me out of the water because I got sick. So sick that I missed my minigroup get together on Monday, worked only part time Monday – Wednesday, and barely made it to knit night on Thursday.  I was able to do some things but not all things every day.

Monday – In addition to minigroup, I was supposed to go to yoga. I didn’t go. I also didn’t go on Wednesday or Friday.  🙁  I hope to change that next week.  I know yoga is not a craft but I need it to stay healthy and enjoy crafting.  So it’s part of my weekly “must do’s”.

First up – morning knitting on my socks for 15 minutes every Monday – Friday.

I checked this off for 4 of 5 days.  It doesn’t look it, but those tubes are about 15 inches long and I’m just starting the cuff.  There is no heel yet but I’ll be adding those on using the afterthought heel method when the cuffs are done.  I smell a finish coming…

Second, my evening knitting on Ricky’s Weasley Sweater every Monday through Friday.

Ricky’s Weasley Sweater
1/11/2020

I checked this off for 3 of 5 days.  It’s really hard to take a picture because it keeps rolling on itself and it’s on cables.  I did my best above and hopefully the colors come out right on your end.  It looks fine on my monitor.  His sweater is Slytherin but he did not like the idea of a green sweater so I made it gray with green.  It originally was supposed to just be a Green R but I wanted there to represent more green so included striping at the bottom of the sweater. I hope to also have stripes on the sleeves but that will depend on whether I have enough of the green.

I also did a couple of rows on my Fairy Hill Shawl which I still do not have a picture of. It’s because it’s all bunched up on cables and any picture I take will just be a jumbled mess.  And I did another blip on my mix wave cowl.

Mix Wave Cowl
1/11/2020

For Cross Stitch, my goal is to work on it every evening Monday – Friday.

Mama’s Bukid
1/11/2020

I checked this off for 4 of the 5 days and I’m almost done with the first 2.5 columns of these last 2 pages. There are 2 pages (a top and a bottom) and I want to finish 2 columns per month so I can get this long time project done and framed sooner rather than later.  I’m in the home stretch now because once I finish these columns I will only have 4 columns left!  And if I am on pace this will be done in March.  The problem as I’ve said in previous posts is that I’m not loving working on this project right now so it’s super hard to get myself to work on it.  I started these columns in December and didn’t even get halfway through the column.  Now, these are made up deadlines so if I take a month or two longer, it’s not a big deal.  🙂

And finally Quilting! My only schedule for quilting is to quilt all day Saturday but sometimes I work it in during the week.  So I was able to finish my Good Fortune Quilt!   I posted this picture recently but here it is again in all it’s glory.

Good Fortune
1/6/2020

It’s hard to see but the top is done and I have already put it away in my quilt queue.  Next up is Glam Clam and I’ve already started working on it today.  In fact, I finished another row.  I only have 1 row left and if I buckle down I might be able to get that one done today and have a second quilt top finished in January!  It’s stuck up under my sewing machine until I finish typing up today’s post so you get a picture of it “under the needle”.

Glam Clam
under the needle
1/11/2020

I do not actually have all day today as we are expecting friends for dinner this evening so I will need to end early to get ready for the socializing.

For Sewing, I just posted about this yesterday so it’s the same status.  But tomorrow is Sunday and normally Sunday is sew day.  Unfortunately, but fortunately, instead of sewing, I’ll be taking a quilting workshop with Mike McNamara offered through my quilt guild.  So I’ll be quilting tomorrow as well.  More on that later.

I hope you all have a happy crafty week!

Melanie

 

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04

Jan. ’20

2020 Crafty Plans: Knitting

Good morning,

For Knitting, I plan to knit on socks every morning for 15 minutes.  I am currently knitting some sock tubes and when I use up the yarn I will be adding cuffs and then putting an afterthought heel.  When those are done, I’m going to work on some slipper socks that my Knitting BFF says will be fast.  and then I’ve got a third pair of socks that I’ve wound the yarn for and will work on.

Last year I kitted up 15 sock projects and over the course of the year picked a project at random whenever I finished a project.  I finished the year with about 6 or 7 projects untouched.  This year, I kitted up 13 sock projects with yarn and pattern in a project bag. This includes the projects that rolled over from last year. Knitting 15 minutes every morning Monday thru Friday takes me about 2 months to knit a pair.  Some projects will be finished faster and some take a bit longer.  So I hope to get through about half of these kitted projects in 2020.

Other than my socks, my priority project is Ricky’s Weasley Sweater.  Like I said in a previous post, I have a long term goal for each of my family to have a Weasley Sweater.  In 2018, Kayla’s was finished, Jacob’s was finished in 2019.  I am working on Ricky’s for 2020 and mine in 2021.  I would have started on mine in 2020 but I’m still waiting for the yarn.  So Ricky’s Sweater has a drop-dead deadline of Xmas 2020.  All of my other projects do not have a deadline so I work on them as I feel like it. Since this has to be done, I plan to work a couple of rows every evening Monday thru Friday.

On Thursdays, it’s knit night.  My local yarn shop is closing in January so my little knitting group will need to find a new place to knit on Thursdays.  I’m so sad to see it close but the owners are retiring and are excited for new retirement adventures.  I’m happy that they are moving on happily rather than other not so nice reasons that many of our local crafty shops have fallen to.  But at knit night, I do not work on my socks. I work on other more fun projects that I usually do not have time for during the week. Here they are and I’m sorry I do not have any pictures.  I’m travelling as I write this and my projects are sitting at home waiting for me.

Fairy Hill Shawl – I’m about 70% done with this project and it’s my next priority project because it’s very close to being done. I really only have about 30 rows or so left and I try to do the difficult row during the week because it’s harder for me to work on that during knit night. Too much fun happening that I’m not able to actually pay attention to my knitting sometimes. At knit night, I knit the wrong side row which is just a bunch of purls and can easily be done during knit night. Just so you have an idea, a row contains about 350 stitches right now and every row there’s an increase of about 4 stitches.

24 days of Christmas Shawl from Jimmy Bean- This is the shawl I started last December (2019) with my Advent Calendar I purchased from Jimmy Bean. During the month of December I knitted a couple of rows a day. But now in January, I pushed this down the priority list and only work on it during knit night.

By the time I get to this point at knit night, my knitting friend Liz gets in from work and we are working on the mix wave cowl together.  We are both a bit overwhelmed with this project and it helps when we have our BFF Knitting guru, Mindy, there to help walk us through any questions we have, which we have a lot of.

Then I work on my Water Lily top for a handful of rows.

My travel project is a headband for Kayla and I was halfway through my final one.  Unfortunately I didn’t have enough yarn so I ripped it up.  I have a skein of a different red yarn. I will make a beanie for her with that and when the beanie is done I will use the remaining yarn and the rest of the first yarn to make the headband for her. My plan is to alternate every row so we get a striped affect.  Both yarns are red but they are different enough that you could tell.

At Stitches SoCal last November I bought a kit and yarn for a number of various projects.  They are numbered and kitted up on my shelves. When the Fairy Hill Shawl and the Advent Shawl is done, I will work on the Orient Express shawl.  I have yarn for 3 hats and I need to find patterns for them. When the mix wave cowl is done, Liz, Mindy and our knitting group will be working on the Soldotna, a color work hat, Tranquil Mist Twinkle shawl, Wine Country shawl, or color work mittens.  I think we’ve got a bunch of KALs going on and I’m not entirely sure what’s next. When my Water Lily top is done, I’ve got purple cashmere yarn set aside for a sweater for me. I just need to figure out which pattern I want to work on. That’s a lot of projects that are queued up and as one project is completed, another is ready to take its place.

~here’s to a great knitty 2020!

Melanie

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28

Dec. ’19

Jacob’s Weasley Sweater!

Yesterday, I posted my update on my make9 list for 2019.  Here’s #8 – Jacob’s Weasley Sweater.  He’s Ravenclaw.

My goal is to have a Weasley Sweater for each of my family members and to take a family picture with us each wearing them.

Last year, I made Kayla’s Weasley Sweater. She’s Gryffindor.

This coming year, 2020, I’ll be making Ricky’s and in 2021, I will make mine.  Ricky’s will be Slytherin and mine will be Hufflepuff.  Not because we are those houses like the kids but because I wanted us to represent each of the houses.

~Always,

Melanie

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16

Sep. ’18

It’s been a long time and I wanted to say hello!

Hello!!!!

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately.  Isn’t it weird how they still call them podcasts even though podcasts used to mean just audio recordings?  And some of them still call themselves VLOGs but those really mean the vlog style of simply recording short snippets.  And for those who cross stitch, they have FlossTube.  It’s still a video podcast on YouTube  but is specific to videos about cross stitching.  It’s so very interesting how words and meanings are created and changed as technology progresses.  Anyway, in my little world, there’s a shift as more and more bloggers switch to YouTube.  But then there are still a lot of bloggers keeping up that world.  I haven’t opened up a YouTube channel yet and as tech savvy as I am, getting dressed and prettied up is just way too much work for me to sit in front of my phone and chat with the world.  I would really love to though.

I mention the whole YouTube thing because somewhere in all my watchings, I discovered that I’m a multicraftual.  Meaning… I do a bunch of different crafts.  In the past, I used to think I only have room for 1 hobby or 1 main thing. I can have little side things but really 1 main thing is it.  I only have room for so much stuff and there is only time for so many things.  But lately, that kind of thinking has gone the way of the dinosaurs.  I am doing 3 things right now – cross stitching, knitting, and quilting.  I know I haven’t posted much of anything on that front but believe me – I still call myself a quilter and I still think of myself as primarily that.  At some point in the near future I want to start sewing garments and stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, space is still an issue.  I only have so much room for yarn, floss, and fabric.  Of everything fabric and quilty things have taken over most of my craft space.  Knitting takes up very little space in comparison and cross stitching even less.  At least for me.  My yarn stash is just in one bookcase and I’m on a yarn diet for right now.  I went a little overboard on the yarn purchases last year and now I’m working my way through it.  Cross stitching takes up 2 drawers and I’m slowly putting kits together.  Before this recent cross stitch frenzy that has taken over me lately, I had a small box of stuff that fit in a little drawer.  I’ve probably tripled my stuff since then but that means 2 drawers full of stuff.

Time is still an issue too.  There’s only so much time in a day, week, month, year.  I primarily knit while I’m out of the house and cross stitch on one project during the week and a second project on the weekends.  Quilting is more difficult.  I’ve been stuck on this project:

Celtic Solstice
2/6/2017

Do you see that… I finished the top in February 2017.  It took me the next YEAR to finish the back:

Celtic Solstice
The back, not yet finished
Daaaang, that’s big!
2/15/2018

And in the meantime, the place I used to rent a long arm at (Barron’s) got rid of their long arm and I no longer have a place to quilt it.  This is a king size quilt.  I ended up just biting the bullet and wrestling it under my machine. Yes, my domestic sewing machine!

Quilting Celtic Solstice
9/2018

I do have a Bernina 790 and that machine has a great big throat so that helps.  But, it’s still crazy and I hate it.  It’s been sitting there for the past few weeks. I’m about half way through the quilting but I am not feeling like doing this right now.  In fact, I probably will not get back to it until the last weekend in September.  Next week I’m going on a quilt retreat!

So I haven’t been doing much quilting this past couple of years because this humongous quilt was occupying way too much space in my brain.  What can you say, it’s a king size quilt.  I don’t even have a king size bed.  You may wonder why I just didn’t get it quilted?  I could have paid a long armer to quilt it for me and be done with it.  And if it was for me, I probably would have.  But this was a mystery quilt. It was Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt from a few years ago and I’m not especially in love with it.  Well I love the pattern but I’m not in love with the colors.  They are not my favorites.  That’s reason number one has to why I didn’t want to pay a lot of $$ for it to be quilted.  Then reason #2 – I’m giving it away.  I do not know yet who it will be going to but, someone will be getting it at some point.  So at this point, I just want this quilt to be done, given away, and out of my house forever.  Then I can move on to something else.  And with Barron’s no longer having a long arm for me to rent, I’ll need to figure something else out on that end.  I will probably by myself something in a couple of years.  The Bernina long arm is too much money.  But I may get a sit down machine.  It will not take up as much space as a long arm and will allow me to get these quilts quilted.  So over the next two years, I’ve decided to just get the tops and back ready and build up a pile of quilts to be quilted.  These are my thoughts and things can change over time but, this is what I’m thinking of doing.

I would like to post more often but I find that I get hung up on the picture part of the blog.  I do not have problems taking pictures, but putting my watermark and uploading a pic to wordpress seems to be a major hang up for me.  I do have more things to say but I’ve got to go give our dog a bath, so I will need to come back and tell you more of what’s going on.

I miss blogging and writing.

<3,

Melanie

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12

Apr. ’18

Knitting Update, Week 15, 2018

 

  • My April Socks

Nestled Socks
Knitting Expat
Cosy Sock Club
4/12/2018

  • Kayla’s Weasley Sweater

Kayla’s Weasley Sweater
4/12/18

 

  • Land of Sweets Cowl
    4/12/2018

~Happy Knitting!

~Melanie

 

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04

Apr. ’18

Knitting Update, Week 14, 2018

My March socks:

Derive Socks
Knitting Expat
Wanderlust Sock Club
March, 2018

  • Kayla’s Weasley Sweater

  • Kayla’s Weasley Sweater
    3/31/18

Scrappy Vanilla Socks #1
Twisted Owl minis
Row One, 10/2017
3/31/18

~Happy Knitting!

~Melanie

 

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20

Mar. ’18

Knitting Update, Week 12, 2018

My March socks:

Derive Socks
Knitting Expat
Wanderlust Sock Club
March 17, 2018

I still have a few pattern repeats to complete on the foot before I can start the toe.  MyPOA for this week is to finish these socks this week and as long as I keep working on these every day that should happen.

  • Kayla’s Weasley Sweater

Kayla’s Weasley Sweater
3/17/18

As you know from my POA post, I finished the cuffs.  Yay!  I am loving this sweater and I can’t wait to be finished.  I plan to mattress stitch the sleeves and sides together and then finish up the neck part.  Depending on how the neck part goes, I’m hoping this will be finished this week? Okay, maybe that’s dreaming so it will probably be more like a couple of weeks.

  • Land of Sweets Cowl

Land of Sweets Cowl
3/17/2018

I haven’t made as much progress on my cowl as I’d like but a bit of progress is better than none at all.  🙂

~Happy Knitting!

~Melanie

 

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08

Mar. ’18

Knitting Update, Week 10, 2018

Here’s an update on my current set of priority knitting projects. Last month, I finished 2 projects on my knitting priority list.

My February socks:

Warm and Snug Socks
Knitting Expat
Cosy Sock Club
February, 2018

and my Martine Hat:

Martine Hat
2/14/2018

I have 3 priority projects that I work on each day and I think 3 projects is a good number for me.  I can generally do a little bit every day on each project.  I know if I was monogamous I would get a lot done on one project and do it faster but I get bored working that long on one project.  So I get a bit done on each and I don’t get bored.  Right now those projects are:

  • March Socks

Derive Socks
Knitting Expat
Wanderlust Sock Club
March, 2018

  • Kayla’s Weasley Sweater

Kayla’s Weasley Sweater
2/28/18

  • Land of Sweets Cowl

Land of Sweets Cowl
2/28/2018

I have prioritized 3 projects to work on each day because I have a lot of knitting WIPs and I want to get them done. I’m not very good at working on one project at a time so I try to do a little bit every day on 3 main projects.  The socks is my number one project as I’m part of a KAL (Knit A Long) and need to get the pairs of socks done within the month to enter it in a drawing.  But like I said I don’t have the wherewithal to work on just the socks so I know where I should be at each week of the month in order for me to be finished by month end.  The sweater doesn’t have a deadline but I want to get it done as I’m going to be making a Weasley sweater for each of us (my family).  I have this insane idea of taking our holiday pictures in our Weasley sweaters.  I think it will be so cute and the hubby is willing to go along with it.  I do not think that I’ll get it done for this Christmas but I’m hoping that it will be done in the next few Christmas’.  Anyway, so I need to keep working a bit on these each day and one day they will be done.  The cowl is the same in that I do not have a deadline other than I want to get it done and pushing it to #3 on my priority list means that it will get worked on regularly and it will be done one day soon.

~Happy Knitting!

~Melanie

 

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