Friday Finishes!

Lot of finishes to share today! Get comfy and let's get started!

First up is the test-knit I made last month. The pattern, Little Bit Nostalgia, is up on ravelry. Used a gradient yarn that I've shown pictures of on here before. 

Lovely lace pattern. You change needle sizes about half way through which makes the cowl come in a bit at the top.

Sits nice around the neck.

And is quite long.

During the holidays, my job is going to require me to work a couple late nights. With my husband now in England for work, I wanted to give our youngest, Floyd, a little something special to cuddle with at night when I'm not here. I suggested a stuffed animal of some kind. He asked for a rainbow heart. I bought an acrylic yarn and used this pattern. Crocheted up pretty quick.

I think he likes it.

Finished another cowl. Yarn bought from work and is Malabrigo, Caracol in the Diana colourway. Pattern is Waltz Through the Forest. A quick knit that I was able to make during down time at work over the course of a couple days. 

It was quite long after washing. I laid it flat to dry for a bit, then put it in the dryer which helped a lot.

Got to love the colours in this yarn. It reminded me of a stained glass window. Resistance was futile.

And I finally finished a pair of socks! And they're for me! Realized I have been using the Fish Lips Kiss heel for socks for a year now and this is the first pair I've kept for myself.  And they are the same length. Must not have pulled the one up all the way for the picture. 

Very colorful. And very comfy. Yarn was from JoAnn's and I can't remember exactly what it is. Need to find the ball band.

A Barley hat, pattern by Tin Can Knits and my first sample for my job. Used two yarns held together, one of them being mohair - Sugar Bush Bliss and Drizzle. Hat is super soft. I might need to make one of these for me to keep.

Fits great. But taking selfies on a rainy day is hard.

And I got my sewing machine out! Made a quick Halloween table runner.

But since I didn't have Halloween fabric for the back, I decided to make the back a second Fall themed table runner making it reversible.

I used orange for the top thread and the bobbin for the quilting. Orange goes through the black squares on the Halloween side. And through the orange squares on the Fall side. Think the Fall side needs some appliqué but it's good enough to use now.

And one last little finish. This is actually one of seven Poppies that I made. Above is one of two I made using this pattern. I made five more using this pattern, version 5. They're smaller and have the four classic petals.

One of the things I missed while living in the States (which I didn't expect to miss), was wearing Poppies in November and Remembrance Day. The Veterans Day sales kind of piss me off. Here, it is a solemn day, time to remember the dead, not get a great deal at a store. Okay, stepping off soap box now.

What did you finish this week? I'll have more to share next week as I finished another cowl last night and blocked it. Still need to take pictures. Maybe I'll get some more WIP's finished to share. Fingers crossed.

Friday Finishes - 2 Quilts!

Finished the two Scrappy Bento Box quilts I was making for charity. Took some pictures of them this week off my parents backyard deck. Glad to have them done. Now mom can donate them.

Here's the first one. I started doing free-motion stippling on this one when my sewing machine decided it didn't want to do that anymore. Couldn't get the tension right and spent a couple hours ripping out the quilting I had done. Parts of the quilting weren't too bad but when I discovered I could keep tension with straight-line quilting, I ripped out all the free-motion quilting and did diagonal lines across the whole quilt.

A closer picture of the quilting - and all those quilt pieces! There are 700 pieces in each quilt.

Another detail shot.

I'm running out of yardage to make scrappy backs.

Here's the second quilt.

Did horizontal and vertical straight lines on this one. Much quicker.

Slightly closer look.

And the scrappy back.

Did you have any finishes this week? Linking up at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday and Kat & Cat Quilts.

WIP Wednesday

A few WIP's to share this Wednesday, a couple almost done and one little finish.

I've spent the past few days quilting and quilting and was able to finish quilting the two Scrappy Bento Box quilts. Above they are trimmed and awaiting binding, which I hope to attach this afternoon.

Finished 4 spools of thread doing all that quilting. Time to go buy some more.

I started a sock almost 2 weeks ago. Getting ready to do the heel in a couple rows. 

And I hope you can tell this has grown. It's the Hello, Hello shawl and I'm halfway done the eyelet section (it's doubled in size since the last time I showed it). Hope to make more progress on it this week.

And I've slowly been plugging away at my Sarah Fielke, 2017 BOM, Down the Rabbit Hole. Since the last time it was on the blog, I have sewn down the green bias around the centre and sewed down the brown circle in the middle. I have also cut out and glued down all the leaves and have started to stitch them down. I think I slowed down on this project when the April clue came out - paper-piecing! My plan is to face my fear next month and get the paper-pieced houses done. 

Yarn ready for July Camp Loopy project. It will become an Old Growth cardigan. 

And my one little finish is this Sashiko embroidery that was part of the Studio MME's Super Stitcher's Club. I don't remember which month this was from. It came with white floss but I changed it up a bit and added some pink. I had it done in four different colours but decided I didn't like it and ripped it all out. Think I like this better.

What have you been working on this week?

WIP Wednesday

Another week has flown by and I did make a lot of progress on a couple projects, but forgot to take pictures along the way. Now they're at a step that is kind of hard to take pictures of but I still wanted to share.

Bamptom shawl is blocked! Took the blocking wires and pins out about an hour ago. Still need to do it's final, modeled shoot but I had to share how lovely the lace looks after blocking. Totally worth it. 

The knitting project I've been focused on this week has been my Salita shrug. I have three things waiting to be cast on that have to wait until this is finished. Because when you finish one thing, casting on three new ones makes sense. Except two of them require the same size needle. Anyway, back to the Salita shrug - I am 57 rows away from being finished! Not too worried yet that I will run out of yarn, although my daughter thinks I will. We'll see.

Had to add another close-up of the lace. This is going to be amazing after blocking, as well.

And here is a terrible picture of what I have been focusing on most of this week. Monday, I pieced all 70 Scrappy Bento Box blocks into two twin size quilts (they finish at 60 x 84). Did I take a picture of the finished quilt tops? Nope. Tuesday, I ironed and pieced fabric to make the backs and then pieced batting for one of them. I had a big enough piece for the other. Then I basted both quilts (with too much help from my four year old) and rolled them up to await quilting. Which I hope to start tomorrow. Fingers crossed I should have one finished next week to share. I'd like both done by the end of the month so I can give them to my mom when I see her in a couple weeks. She will be donating them to charity.

And my yarn for July's Camp Loopy arrived this week. Plus a little but extra. This isn't all of it. I bought a sweater's quantity in the green AND the black. The green will be my July project and will become an Old Growth cardigan (a birthday present for my best friend). The black will become a Harvest cardigan (a Christmas present). I wasn't sure which one I wanted to tackle for July so I bought yarn for both. The variegated yarn on the right is the special Camp Loopy yarn and I will be knitting it into another Prairie Hills shawl for myself (I test knit this shawl last year and have been waiting for the right yarn to make another).  My kids are looking forward to the winding party for all this yarn. This is their last week of school and winding all 13 hanks should keep us busy for a little bit once they are home all day, every day.

What have you been working on this week?

WIP Wednesday

Last Wednesday I had WIP pictures taken but ran out of hours in the day to post them. So today you get double the WIP's. A nice comparison of what I was actually able to get done in a week. 

Last week's progress of my Salita shrug. This is after one pattern repeat.

And here it is this week, with another pattern repeat done. There are suppose to be five pattern repeats, each 40 rows.  It's a surprisingly fun, quick, addictive knit.

Close-up of the lace pattern.

This is the only WIP from last week that I haven't worked on at all this week, so it hasn't changed. This is the beginning of a Hello, Hello shawl.

My daughter really liked the brain hats we saw at the March for Science in April. I finally started making her one, aiming for her birthday (which is tomorrow) but won't get it done in time. Here's where I was last Wednesday.

My I-cord Brains.

Made some progress this week.

Last week I had 26 Scrappy Bento Blocks done.

This week, I have all 70 done. Time to start putting them into rows. They will become 2 quilts for charity.

Last week I had ironed and cut fabrics for my Rin quilt. Since I was using fabrics from stash, I didn't have enough of some and cut smaller squares and discovered I can still use the templates. The brown cut is from a 12 inch square.

This week I've folded and ironed all the squares. Still need to decide what shapes I'm going to cut. Maybe this week. There is a Rin quilt-along going on which you can read about here and here.

However, this week I got distracted and cut some other fabrics to make some single Rin blocks. This one uses a Canada themed fabric for the background. And I hand-basted for the first time. Not too shabby.

I hand appliqued the inside edge and my circle was a little off. Undid the stitching and the basting and redid it.

Much better. And if you can't notice the difference, please don't tell me.

I'll be adding a circle to the middle. I'm almost done appliquéing the outer edge on the big circle.

And I cut this very Canadian themed block, as well. I'll be tackling it next. Something to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday on July 1st.

I think that's everything. The youngest is now on summer vacation and we have 3 weeks to get into a routine before the older kids join us. Hoping my crafty time doesn't suffer too much this summer.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Camp Loopy. I'll be joining in the fun again this year. Tomorrow I'll share my yarn and the pattern I'll be knitting.