Friday Stitch Day Update: December 10, 2021

We have a finish!

That being “Refuse to Sink” by Hands On Design:

The fabric is 18-count aida that I hand-dyed with Rit. There were many substitutions in the floss (left to right: the fancy floss recommended in the patter, the DMC conversion given in the pattern, and the DMC I actually used):

I hadn’t intended to swap as much as I did, but I wanted to use this aida, and some of the floss like “Sea Spray” was simply too light to show up.

With that one finished, I did spend a bit of attention on Blackbird Designs“It’s Spring Fever”:

The stack of finished cross-stitch is starting to grow. I should start to get ’em laced onto boards in preparation for finally finishing them into ornaments and plaques and the like.

Meh… eventually… some day…

Moving on to knitting: I did finish the main body of one of the “Art Deco Mittens” from 60 More Quick Knits):

Sigh… It’s too damn big. (And it’s not a tension issue, my gauge is bang on for what the patter specifies.)

Here’s my hand lined up for where the thumb will be:

I’m not sure if I can fix that in blocking because it’s a pretty significant amount I’d need to shrink. I might be able to shrink it in felting, but it’s also easy to really screw that up and make it too small. Especially because I normally do the cuffs with tight tension and a smaller needle size to make sure they’re a good seal when the weather’s cold enough to warrant mittens, so to shrink the tops but not shrink the cuffs is a bitch.

In other knitting, I’ve resumed work on the Wassailing Stole by Courtney Spainhower:

I’d say I’ve added about an inch to it this week.

Lastly, I mentioned having made an ogham set and that I was going to make a bag to hold them. However, I remembered there was a matching cotton bag for the two pillowcases I dyed a few weeks back.

So, I simply dyed that bag and my ogham set fits perfectly:

I figured since ogham is an Irish thing, I might as well go with orange and green.