Slow Sunday Stitching

 It’s a snowy Muskoka day today. A perfect day for staying inside, enjoying the wood stove and putting lots of stitches into slow projects. I finished my Anisia sweater this past week. I looked back through my blog, one of the reasons why I keep it up, in order to find when I started this sweater. I thought I’d been at it longer than this, but apparently I started it in October of 2021. So it took only 3 months to do. Somehow it seemed a lot longer than that. I love everything about this sweater. The detail in the design is fabulous. I love how the lace design at the neck forms little scallops. I will be doing more of her patterns for sure. Her name is Valentina Bogdanova. 

To give my knitting attention span a break, I started another pair of socks using yet more yarn left from another pair that I think ended up as a gift. With self striping yarn I often buy 2 balls of yarn. It’s easier to get them with the stripes matching that way. So there was enough of this yarn left for another pair. And if I do happen to run out before I get to the toes, I’ll patch in another colour.

I finally got myself sorted as to where I left off with my Harbour Village cross stitch yesterday and managed to put in a few stitches. The lighthouse is almost done. It needs some black outlining, but I think I’ll wait and do it all at the same time, since there is another lighthouse on the right hand side of this row. The lettering is done with one strand of floss over one thread of the linen, so it is going to take a while to get back into the swing of doing it.

I’m linking up with Kathy and the group of Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 My slow stitching is slow going. As most of us who are creatively bent, I have been working on Christmas gifts. The rest of the time I’ve been working on finishes for the Prayers and Squares group I belong to. My slow stitching time has been relegated to the evenings. And some of those evenings I have been so tired that all I can do is vanilla sock knitting, (a highly technical name for knitting plain no pattern
socks). We had a power outage here last weekend which meant knitting by candle light, not ideal conditions for knitting complicated lace sleeves on a sweater. Also not ideal conditions for finding full skeins of sock yarn. I did manage to find a couple of skeins of yarn that I had previously used for socks although I figured there wouldn’t be enough for a full sock. And there wasn’t, so I’ve added in some other yarn to do the toe.

 I think it works, and it has the added bonus of using up leftover yarns. I have enough of the yarn for the toes to do the second sock so the pair will match.

As for that sweater, I do have the first sleeve all finished now and the second sleeve has about 8 of the required 15 inches done so it’s almost there. 

I’ve got a couple of quilty finishes but I will try to do them in a separate post later this week. I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m continuing on with my current slow stitches, my Anisia Sweater and the Peppermint Purple 2021 stitch along. I had to set the sweater aside for a few days while I waited for the yarn shop up here to be open. I broke the needle size that I needed for the bottom ribbing on a Saturday evening and the shop was closed Sunday and Monday. And of course I couldn’t have nothing to knit on while I waited, so I started a pair of socks. I got to the store to buy the needles I needed and got the bottom ribbing done so it was then time to start the sleeves. And as much as I searched everywhere, I couldn’t find the needle sizes in double pointed that I needed for the sleeves. So back to the store I went for double pointed needles. I managed to find in my needle stash every size except for the ones I needed. I don’t know if I had them and lost them or never had them to begin with.  Anyhow, all is good again. I am thankful for a local yarn shop that is well stocked and only 5 minutes away. It is called Knitting Three Together. So here is the sweater with the sleeves started and the body finished. For the socks I grabbed a ball of wool from my stash that had all kinds of fun bright colours to counter act a bit the very dark grey days we’ve been having lately. And then the stitch along project is here. 

I have yet to do this week’s square. That is on my to do list for part of today’s stitching. I’d rather not fall behind again if I can help it.

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

I actually have some quilty stuff to talk about, but I’ll do a separate post about that later this week.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 The good thing about slow stitching is that it is slow and relaxing. The bad thing about slow stitching is that it is slow and progress from week to week can be difficult to see. I picked up my Peppermint Purple blackwork stitch along and am two weeks from being caught up. I love the looks of this and it will look fabulous framed and on my wall so I want to stick to it. Each week on Wednesday there is a new square or rectangle released. My plan from here on is to try and get it done each Wednesday rather than fall behind again. For the next two weeks I will do the new release and one of the squares from October. 

I am mostly concentrating on knitting this Anisia Sweater. 

It is a very challenging knit requiring quite a lot of concentration. I am enjoying the challenge, but at the same time I am looking forward to finishing the yoke and separating off the sleeves and doing some fast and easy stockinette stitch. According to the sweater pattern, part of the yoke design continues down the sleeves. I will decide when I get to the sleeves whether or not I will do that.

I have joined a small group of ladies up here in Muskoka who are forming a Prayers and Squares group. Thank you to Carol, who reads my blog and saw that we had moved here and suggested my name to them. It’s a small group and given my introverted nature, that is a good thing. They meet in a church which is a 30 minute drive from home here. What a glorious and beautiful drive it is too! Although I may change my mind about that should I end up caught in a snow squall sometime this winter. I took a couple of boxes of fabric with me last Monday, leftovers from my fussy cutting obsession from 5 or 6 years ago. The ladies had a grand time teasing me about turning perfectly good fabric into swiss cheese. I had a great time laughing along with them. I am looking forward to seeing those fabrics get new life into new quilts rather than being stuck in  boxes.

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