Friday Stitch Day update: October 8, 2021
Well, somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I had a couple half-done knitting projects kicking around somewhere and sure enough, they turned up when I was cleaning out the spare room closet.
First up, “Interlude” by Shannon Dunbabin, knit with some handspun yarn I bought a few years back at a show/sale from the local spinners & weavers, guild (Tzouhalem Spinners & Weavers Guild):
Apparently I left off in the middle of a row, so I need to figure out where the Hell I am in which of the 3 or 4 charts so I can finish the row without screwing up when I re-start.
FYI: I probably bought this in 2017 or 2018, so I don’t know if Marie Sullivan is still selling yarn. Just posting the tag to show who made it, same as when I put pics of commercial yarn.
The other partially done project is a scarf, also by Shannon Dunbabin, called Blue Rondo Scarf, which I’m doing in Drops Air (and I realized I forgot some of the cable repeats so now I’m doing that deliberately here and there so it looks intentional):
I also found a nearly finished shawl that just needs me to sit down and weave in the various ends and then wash and block it. I didn’t remember what pattern it was, but I had a vague idea which website it was from, and sure enough, I found it: “Pretty Maids” by Joyce Fassbender:
I’m not sure what yarn I used, but, considering when I vaguely recall I was working on this, it was probably Patons Classic Wool Merino.
So… shit I need to finish.
As for this week’s knitting, I got a couple rows added to the Wassailing Stole by Courtney Spainhower:
Not a huge difference from the last time, but oh well.
I got a bit further on Nori, though… well, probably fewer stitches done than I did on the Wassailing Stole, but the rows are shorter thus far so it felt like more progress versus last week:
Moving on… I also found some more undyed aida when tidying and purging in the family room/craft room, so I fixed that right away:
They of course dry lighter. And I ironed them to set the dye and remove the worst of the wrinkling.
While at the ironing board, I pressed the half of the 100 log cabin blocks I mentioned last week that weren’t pressed yet:
I still haven’t decided whether to leave them as-is or to add to them. I do think, though, that if I make them bigger, I won’t bother with another log-cabin round but rather I’ll add a strip of a red fabric to one side and a strip of blue to another so it will function as a sort of sashing. We’ll see.
Lastly, the stitching:
Friday’s “flora & fauna” theme is currently represented by “The Birds & the Bees” by Carriage House Samplings, and I got some stitches in on the trunk and started a couple more branches:
Saturday’s theme is “stars & stripes” and I got another letter added to Tiny Modernist‘s “Land of the Free“:
“Sampler Sunday” saw me continuing on the pillar in Moira Blackburn Samplers’ “Don’t Worry Spiders“:
“Merry Monday” saw me finishing the current bit of Lizzie Kate‘s “Tiny Tidings XXII“:
So now I have 3 out of the 5 designs done. Two more to go, but I felt like a change so I dug in my WIPs basket and hauled out the big Ziploc baggie of Prairie Schooler Santas. I have 4 I started 2 or 3 summers ago, and I figured the 2018 Santa one was the furthest along, so that’s what I worked on:
It’s stitched on 22 count aida that I hand-dyed. I don’t normally go so plain in the fabric color but then I figured I might as well stay sorta close to the more neutral background pictured… when I get more of the Santa patterns I’ll have to remember to keep whatever I dye the new fabric low-key to match.
The idea is to eventually do a ton of cross-stitch Santas to have on a Christmas tree that would be fairly woodland-ish in color scheme. That might be a long time coming, though.
Anyway, Tuesday’s “trivial” theme got me back to The Primitive Hare‘s “Imbolc“, which is also on more neutral fabric (I dyed one large piece for the whole series, so I won’t have to try to match it later):
So I added the white flowers on the snowdrops and then for the sheep I decided I wanted her a little less bright. I didn’t have any floss that exactly matched my vision, so I ended up going tweedy with one strand of DMC B5200 white and one strand of DMC 4145 and it came out just right.
“Witchy Wednesday” had me chugging along on one of the upper motifs in Lila’s Studio‘s “Halloween Quaker“:
Lastly, yesterday for “Tropical Thursday” I put some more into By The Bay Needleart‘s “Blue Hawaiian Garden“:
So, I did get one thing finished this week. I think what I’ll do is basically always put one strand of floss into the daily theme’s current piece and then if I have time, work on whatever is closest to being finished. In theory, then, I should be able to finish “Imbolc” this coming week since I just have some snowflakes and lettering to do.
Also in theory, I should get the ends woven in on that “Pretty Maids” shawl and get it blocked this week… of course, weaving ends and blocking is the least fun part of knitting for me, lol…
So… we’ll see what I have to report next Friday.
