Slow Sunday Stitching

 I am making quite satisfying progress on my Harbour Village cross stitch sampler. I’ve finished 2 more rows and have started on the large village scene near to the bottom of the sampler. The first row I finished was a dark blue wave feature underneath the light houses. The next was a pulled thread with hem stitching done in white at the top of the pulled threads to give the design. The village scene is likely to take quite a while to finish. But I’m enjoying it so that’s ok.

When my eyes give out after stitching over small threads, I take up my knitting. The sweater looks mostly the same, but longer. It’s measuring 13 inches from the underarm now. According to the pattern it needs to be 14 inches before the bottom ribbing. Then it will be onto the sleeves. I love the way the colours are pooling. I was a bit concerned about the orange being over powering when I was winding the skeins into balls, but it isn’t overpowering at all.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I seem to have gotten my cross stitching mojo back. If you were reading last week you’ll remember that I was talking about having a possible solution to the dreaded thread tangling issue and that, if it worked, I’d report back. Well it worked. Two or three years ago, when I was just getting back into embroidery, I made a portfolio folder type thing from a pattern from Crabapple Hill. It is pretty and I have used it a little bit, but never really put it to efficient use. Fast forward to last week. Here’s the outside of the folder. It folds into three parts. Here’s the inside with my solution to the tangling threads. I’ve pinned the thread drop to the top section of the folder and then tucked the threads into the pocket at the bottom. It will also hold the printed paper pattern of the section I am working on. With the threads all sorted and de-tangled I was able to get the finicky light houses done. I’m ready to move on to the next section of the sampler.

I’ve also been making good progress on my Grenadine sweater. The fade sections are done and I’m down to just using the blue/orange yarn. I’m happy with the ways the colours gradually got more intense. I also like the way the orange stripes look to be pooling and wrapping around. I’ll continue with this colour all the way to the bottom.

It’s a lovely sunny day out on this Father’s Day Sunday, but a bit too cool for sitting outside. Although it might be ok in a patch of sun. Whether I choose indoors or outdoors it will be spent enjoying the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees with a needle and thread in hand. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 It’s been raining a lot this week so I’ve had some more slow stitching time. That means I’ve made some good progress on this new Grenadine sweater. The yoke is finished and I’ve split off the sleeves. From here on until I get to the bottom it is straight knitting. I’ve started to add in the blue/orange yarn. Right now I’m doing two rounds of blue and then one round of blue/orange. I’ll continue this for another inch or two and then go down to alternating one round each and then go onto just the blue/orange towards the bottom of the sweater.

I’ve also pulled out my Harbour Village cross stitch. It’s been on time out because the lighthouses in the section I’m working on are fiddly and have lots of colour changes. I think I have figured out a way to handle keeping track of the threads for the colour changes. Right now all the threads for this piece are on thread drops that are on two rings. They keep getting tangled up and it is driving me crazy. I don’t mind the thread drops as opposed to thread bobbins, but the tangling is an issue for me. For reference sake                                     this is a thread bobbin                                                               and this is a thread drop.                                                         Here are some on the ring. You can see how tangled they are at the bottom. Going forward I am going to take the thread colours I need for each section and keep then separate from the rest that are on the rings. Hopefully that will restore my stitching mojo on this and future cross stitch projects. I really do want to get back to them. This is what the finished piece looks like. I’m halfway there. It still reminds me of the lakes and hills here in Muskoka.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before I start sorting the threads for this lighthouse section. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

 There isn’t a lot of slow stitching happening here right now, other than in the evenings while watching tv. The weather has turned lovely and there are gardens to be planted. I did finish my Ariya sweater.  Just in time for sweater weather to be mostly finished and to fold it and put away. However, because I do need to have something to occupy my hands while watching tv, I started another sweater. It is a pattern I have done before and is no where near as complex as the last couple of sweaters I’ve done. It is challenging enough to keep my hands occupied but simple enough that my brain doesn’t need to be fully engaged. This is quite possibly one of the softest yarns I’ve ever used. It is a combination of 56% super wash merino and 44% kid mohair. It is very very soft and cushy and pet-able. I have 2 skeins of this blue and 2 skeins of the blue and orange variegated. I’ll probably do a fade type technique to introduce the colour change. The blues are the same. I’m not sure how it will look, but that’s part of the fun of knitting or any other type of hand work project.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I hope everyone reading here has a great day today. As everyone should know it’s Mother’s Day, a great day to celebrate all the women in our lives. We don’t have any specific plans that I know of. It is a gorgeous spring day out today. Warm and sunny and too early in the season yet for the bugs to be bad, so I will be spending a lot of the day outdoors. We put in a large number of perennials across the front of the house this past week. So today I am going to slowly go to each one and give it a drink of root fertilizer to give them the best chance of surviving. Especially I am hoping that the dwarf lilac and the rose that we put in will survive. There are also a couple of clematis vines and then lots of different flowering perennials.

On Friday our son-in-law came home with the supplies to build 2 raised beds for vegetables, each measuring 4 feet by 8 feet by 24 inches tall. They are now built and in place and halfway filled with materials we found lying around the property.... rotting logs and pine needles and leaves. We are going to let that sit and settle for a week or two and then fill them the rest of the way with good growing soil. We are hoping to get lots of good vegetables out of them this summer.

In the meantime I have been slowly working away at my Ariya sweater. The second sleeve is almost finished down to the cuff design. Perhaps another week or two will finish it. I think my next knitting project is going to be much less complex. I’ve had enough of reading graphs for cables and lace to last me for quite a while. I don’t have a great picture of the whole sweater right now. It is currently partly inside out because the sleeves are worked inside out. But I can show a picture of the lovely sleeve bottom and a better picture of the top cabling. 

I’ll finish off this post now and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then I think I will head on back outside and continue giving the plants their root stimulants.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve made some progress on my Ariya sweater. The body is done and one of the sleeves is half way there. It continues to be the only slow stitching project I have going. I’ve got a close up of the cabling at the top and the detail at the hem line as well. Perhaps once it warms up outside I might pick up my cross stitching. Somehow cold weather and knitting seem to fit together. We’ve had a few warm days, but it is still a long way away from feeling like spring. The snow is almost entirely melted now, but there aren’t any signs of much growth on any plants yet. A few hosta spikes are beginning to show and that’s about it. I’m itching get out into the garden. We’ve started the outline of a new garden bed and found an old stump of a tree that we were able to move into it.  We are also researching the best way to do some raised beds for vegetable gardens. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday browsing through garden centre web sites dreaming of perennials and shrubs but it is still way too early here to be actually doing any of it. The ground is still frozen in spots. Patience has never been one of my strong characteristics. Once there is actually something to show, I will likely get pictures and have something more to post about other than the very slow progress on my knitting. 

In the meantime, I will link up with the other slow stitchers to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve added in some new type slow stitching lately. I’ve started back in to sewing my own clothes. The older I get, the harder it is to find clothes that fit. I’m short, and my top half and bottom half are different sizes. Unless I pay big money for specialized petite sizes, nothing fits properly. Within the last few years a  large number of pdf pattern companies have come out that have customization for sizing already built in to their patterns. I am in the process of making myself a dress that I can wear during the summer. It has some hand stitching in it, for the hems and the facings and the buttons. It took a while to figure out the button hole function on my sewing machine, but I think I’ve got it now.

I’m continuing on with my Aryia sweater. The sleeves are split off and I have about 7 inches of the body done now. 

I have to get to 10 3/4 inches before I start on the pattern for the bottom of the sweater. Another couple of evenings should get there.

I’ve also been working on the monthly UFO challenge a group of friends and I are doing. My goal for this month was to use up the nine patches I received in a swap hosted by the guild back in about 2012. I succeeded in that goal. I got 2 lap sized quilts out of them. This one is from a page ripped out of a magazine that I’ve had for ages. This second one was designed in the Electric quilt software. The edge border is from 2 inch squares that I have had hanging around in a box for years. Some of them are quite old, so it was time to move them out. Of course, there are lots of 2 inch squares still left to be leader/endered into something else eventually.

I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get back to cutting out a new top for me to wear whenever the weather warms up. The date may say spring, but it is still looking like winter out there, including the snow that is currently falling.