Saturday 30 April 2016

A Rainbow Blanket CAL - Part 1

In my last post I teased my new crochet project, now I can tell (and show) you what it is :) The story behind it is a bit sad, though...
Last week, I read in a German knitting blog I follow that an other, pretty well known knitting blogger had died after fighting cancer for three years. I didn't follow her blog, but checked it out after, and I really regret not getting there earlier - she was wonderfully creative, with tones of ideas and projects, knit alongs and crochet alongs and from her posts and the way people talk about her now, she was a great person as well. One of the projects on her blog was a Rainbow Baby Blanket Crochet Along from a few years back, and that's what I'm doing now - for the sister of a friend of Felix, who's pregnant with her second child, but in honour of Jessica from schoenstricken, a woman I wish I'd known.

The CAL was in thirteen parts, each about ten rows in different colours and stitches, so like a crochet band sampler of sorts. There are the first ten rows, already using all eight colours - I didn't use the kit provided but picked them myself among the Schachenmayr Catania brand. The orange is a bit lighter than I'd like, but they still look pretty nice together I think :)

I won't continue before all the lose ends are weaved in though, I don't want to face like 300 of them in the end. But so far I'm having a lot of fun and I've already had a look at the next part and it looks like even more fun.

I also realized I forgot to show you my newst sock project; another pair for the coworker who loved the first one. I really love the colours on them (Austermann Step Summer Stripes 277) so I'm calling them my watermelon socks :) I saw these knitted on gemachtmitliebe.de a while back and just had to make them as well:



Wednesday 27 April 2016

April WIPocalypse

So as promised, it's time for the belated WIPocalypse post, and I have a few new things to show, so I hope it was worth the wait. But first, for this month's WIPocalypse question, which is What do you listen to while stitching? I'm personally not a big fan of audio books - I've tried, and there's a few books for which it works nicely, mostly funny ones or one's with accents - but most of the time I just don't get that great feeling of reading, so I stick to printed books (or e-inked ones ;) ). While stitching, I prefer watching TV shows on amazon prime. It's easier with shows that have more talking and less action, but Felix is trained well and will explain to me what's happening when I can't watch for a moment. Sometimes I also listen to online lectures on coursera or udemy, they have very interesting stuff for free :)

Now I promised you pictures, and pictures you shall have! Felix and I did a bit of framing over the weekend. He did Link, which didnt fit in the frame I bought for it, but was perfect in a different frame I got for cheap a while back, and he did a really great job of it. And I finally finished framing the Stacy's Mystery Band Sampler I stitched last year - I started framing it last year but couldn't get it to be perfectly straight, so I put it aside, but after revisiting I think I can live with how it looks, so I only need to find a place to hang it now :)


Of course I also did some stitching. I added about 1.000 stitches to Dark Forces since I picked it up again - the first column had a ton of different colours and took quite a while to stitch, the second one is going much smoother. I really enjoy stitching on this again, although the stitches (2 over one on 22ct Hardanger fabric) are looking much messier than the 1 over 1 on Kitsune. But the coverage is great and drom two steps away noone can see it :D

 


   I also stitched some more on A perfectly kept House and finished the writing at the top. I started the first of four band at the bottom but just realized I misscounted on the red flowers, so I will have to redo them, then hopefully finish quickly.

I also worked on some knitting. I stalked Ravelry a lot, planning new stuff, but first there was one I had to finish, another pair of wrist warmers for my grandma from the remaining floss I had from the socks I recently did. I'm not sure I ever mentioned what yarn I used, but it's Lana Grossa 'Meilenweit' in Neon, Colourway 4108.

I was actually planning a new start, but since apparently I can't even get the most basic crochet supplies (like some nice cotton yarn in decent colours) on a Saturday afternoon, I had to order again and only got my supplies today. I'll tell you about it next time, but what I can tell you is it's colourful, fun and also a bit sad - have a sneak preview below ;)



Oh and then I also got some very happy mail yesterday - last week I won Jo's GGG (Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway) for the beautiful 'Strawberries' Chart by Eileen Bennett, which I can't wait to stitch, I just need to get the perle thread first :) Thank you very much, Jo!

Saturday 23 April 2016

April IHSW & Gifted Gorgeousness

Oh my, I just realized I haven't blogged in almost a month...I'm terribly sorry! At first, there wasn't a lot to show, then I fell into the trap of 'Almost done I'll post when I have a finish to show' and then there was suddenly too much to show - very bad planning on my part! I'll do better now, though, and I won't even include WIPocalypse in this post, so I *have* to do another post after the weekend ;)

So, I did quite a bit of stitching during my time off and after, and some of it even qualifies for Gifted Gorgeousness, but to keep things chronological I'll have to mix it with some stuff that doesn't.  One thing that I did finish and that does qualify is page 2 of Kitsune. Quite a bit more of her tails is visible now, which also means quite a bit more confetti when stitching, but that's okay when it is so pretty :) Kitsune was a gift from my friend Carla, but I'll put her away for a while now to work on the next page of Dark Forces which I haven't touched in almost a year.


I've also been working on Link quite a bit, and finally finished him last weekend. I'm actually a bit saf now I didn't get to show him growing here, but I did have a *lot* of fun stitching him, especially the letters. I hope to get him framed this weekend so I can enter him in the stitching pirates gamer's delight contest ^_^ He's also one of the rare things I finished for myself, so he doesn't qualify for GG, but I still love him.


We also had two weekends at Felix' parents, so I took Lady & the Tramps with me to work on and made some decent progress as well. I've finished more than half of the page now and I moved the grid to the second half, so I hope I can work on her again soon. This was a gift from my grandparents a few years back, so another GG piece here.






I finished Link early on IHSW, so for the video hangout with my girls - the first one for me in ages, and the very first time for us to all be there at the same time, it was a lot of fun - I pulled out 'A perfectly kept house', a small Lizzie*Kate I started before Christmas but didn't finished due to other deadline stitching. Now I thought I might as well finish it before I get back to my next bigger project. I added the flowers, the bird and the text block on the left. It's just two more lines of text on top and a few band at the very bottom, so it should be a quick finish. I'm still counting this for GG, even though after missing the original occasion has passed I'm not sure if I will still make this a gift (it was supposed to be a housewarming gift for two friends we had planned to visit on New Year's Eve).


So for this weekend, my plan is to finish A perfectly kept house, and I'm also working on Dark Forces and on getting Link framed. I also have a few knitting an crochet projects either on the go or planned, so hopefully I can show some progress there as well. For know I'm just happy to be caught up here :)