Friday Finishes

This week has been all about catching up, so here are some finishes... from February. 

I made these socks in February for my mom's birthday in March. I know I waited to post them until they arrived at her house, but I don't know why it's taken me almost two months after her birthday to get them on the blog. Oops. Anyway, Kroy sock yarn bought at Michael's. Used 2.75mm needles and 56 stitches. I think. Happy to report that my mom likes them and wears them.

Used the Fish Lips Kiss heel again. I still haven't made a pair of socks for myself with this heel. I hope to cast on a pair of socks for myself this month. I've been itching to knit a sock but I have plenty of other projects on the go.

I made 3 Hussifs in February as well. This was a free pattern, Sarah Fielke gave to all BOM 2017 participants in January (?), I think. I made one for myself, my sister-in-law and my sister (in that order above, in real life I made them in the opposite order). You can buy the pattern here.

Close-up of my sister's at the top and SIL's on the bottom. Mailed them both in February and they arrived safe and sound.

All three together. Mine is at the top and has been used a lot since I made it. It was a great pattern and I've been trying to figure out if there are more people in my life who need one.

Think I only have one more past finish to share (from November 2016!) and then I'll be caught up. Guess I need to start finishing some more stuff!

How about you? Are you avoiding Spring Startitis and finishing up some WIP's? Or are you starting all the things? I think I'm finishing up knitting WIP's but have quilt stratitis. Oh well.

WIP Wednesday - 5 Quilts and a bit of Knitting

It's been almost a month since my last WIP post and some of those WIP's don't look much different. I blame Camp NaNoWriMo for stopping my WIP's from becoming Friday Finishes. Now that my brain can fit something other than my novel into it, it is quickly filling up with all the crafts I want to make, and surprisingly a lot of those are quilts. 

I finished making the Spin Cycle quilt earlier this year. I picked the backing fabric which I need to cut and piece to fit (doing that today). I'd love to baste this today but making cookies for teacher appreciation week comes first. It wasn't until I looked at the selvedge of the backing fabric that I realized I am using Cluck Cluck Sew fabric, too. Fabric on the front is an assortment of fabrics that aren't Cluck Cluck Sew. Really dropped the ball there. This quilt is a gift for my son's preschool teacher. She also taught my two older children when they were preschoolers. She deserves a quilt. Her birthday is Sunday, but I'm aiming to gift her the quilt when preschool finishes at the end of this month. Have no idea how I'm going to quilt it. Ideas? ( I had one leftover block, which you can see. Using it on the back as a label and have all three kids sign their names, and maybe a little message, too.)

This fabric is for another Cluck Cluck Sew quilt pattern. My daughter and I fell in love with her Basketcase pattern. I bought it and some fabric and plan on making it for my daughter's birthday next month. Need to get busy cutting and sewing this one.

My Bento blocks have been ignored for weeks. I still need to iron these block halves. I think I got a little depressed about this project when I recounted and discovered I need to make 5 more block halves. It's hard keeping track of so many pieces - there are over 1,000 pieces cut - but in the end they will become 2 quilts for charity. Need to refocus and finish them.

This crazy collection of fabrics is for the Sarah Fielke 2017 BOM. I'm behind on this one too. Need to iron some fabric and then do some paper-piecing this month. I'm a little scared.

And this was a quick fabric pull this morning to make a Rin quilt. There's a QAL going on for this one that I saw on Instagram. And there was something about the pattern I couldn't resist. Not sure when I'll make time for this but the QAL doesn't start until May 17th, so I have time to finish up some other WIP's before then.

And here's the little bit of knitting that's keeping me busy. I'm about to start another test knit for Sarah of Imagined Landscapes.

And I've been working on my Duvessa cowlette. Above I am 2 rows shy of finishing chart B, with only chart C and the border left. The KAL ends on Friday but something was bothering me about the design.

The bump down from the garter section to the lace section. I didn't like it. I want to keep and wear this but that little design element had me thinking I was going to give it away. And that kind of pissed me off. There must be something I can do?

So I started over, working the first part in stockinette instead of garter.

But since I'm not sure I'll like it, or if it will even work this way, I haven't frogged the original. They're both still connected. Not sure I'll get either of them finished by Friday, but I'm going to try.

What have you been working on?

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What happened in April?

The blog was a little quiet last month. I'm kind of sorry, and kind of not. Life wasn't extra crazy and we weren't sick, but I put my focus towards something else for April. My writing. April is one of the Camp NaNoWriMo months. Writers can pick what they want to write and their word goal. You can write scripts, non-fiction, poetry. Or you can do what I did, which was edit. I gave myself the goal of editing and moving 60,000 words from a first draft into a second. I ended up having to rewrite several chapters so I probably ended up writing 30,000 words and editing 30,000. 

Yep, I did it. Finished just before 10 last night. I spent most of the weekend at my computer as I was about 11,000 words shy of my goal on Friday. A lot of new chapters, for the new ending, were written on Saturday and Sunday, and a lot of it wasn't very good. But now that the words are written down, I can edit them and make them better. In February, I started editing the first draft and I'd send a couple chapters a week to my sister-in-law to read. By the end of March I only had 11 of 30+ chapters done. It was taking too long and I'd lose momentum if I didn't edit everyday. So I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo, hoping I'd finish and I did. And I'm pretty thrilled about finishing. Winning for editing feels a lot better than winning for writing 50,000 words in November. I'll be rereading the whole thing starting Wednesday and then I'll be sending it out to some Beta-readers next week. Kind of scary but necessary. May's focus? Catching up on all the knitting and quilting that was ignored in April and researching agents and publishers to send my manuscript too (that's super scary). First up - this blog post and then mending my husband's shorts that have been sitting beside my sewing machine for two weeks.

I finished crocheting this afghan in April. (Ignore my face, I was probably yelling at the 3 year old who was outside with us and getting into trouble.) I used all 9 skeins of yarn I had and then did 3 rounds in blue for a border. Yarn was some acrylic stuff from Michael's that is perfect for afghans. It should hold up really well. And after washing became surprisingly soft.

Feels great wrapped around shoulders.

Got to love how colorful it is.

Back inside the 3 year old and I made sure it was good for snuggling under. It passed. The afghan will be a Christmas gift this year.

Other things that happened in April? My daughter and I marched for Science.

I crocheted a ton of button flowers. There are 72 in this picture if you're looking for an exact number. Only have 12 left to make!

And I have been slowly knitting my Duvessa cowlette. The KAL for this ends on Thursday so I have some knitting to do.

I'm halfway done chart A. Still need to knit charts B and C. So I will be doing that today and tomorrow.

I have several pictures waiting to get posted that I hope to do this week and next. It would be nice to feel caught up (does that ever really happen though?).What have you been up to?

An Old Finish for Friday

Just over 8 years ago, I made a quilt for my best friend and her husband's 10th anniversary. It was before I had a blog or instagram so it never got a proper photo shoot. I recently did some repairs on it and before I returned it, I took some pictures. Well, lots of pictures.

Here it is before I returned it. It's queen size and hard to hold up by myself.

Here are some pictures of what needed repaired. Several fabrics near the top of the quilt had torn.

And the binding at the top was also coming apart. I took all of the binding off and replaced it.

I cut the torn fabrics out.

I measured each space, cut fabric to fit, ironed down 1/4 inch on each side and hand-stitched them in place. I quilted over the new fabrics and put the new binding on.

Another finished pic. 

Here are some of the new fabrics along the bottom.

There were still some little rips, from fabrics wearing out and from cat claws. I put a safety pin in each little hole to mark them. Ended up needing 14 circles to cover them. I hand-stitched them in place, too and then free-motioned quilted over them. I tried to keep the new quilting similar to the old quilting.

I tried to get a picture of the quilting but it was kind of tricky. Hopefully you can see 3 lines of quilting. The smaller leaves (the two outside lines) were quilted 8 years ago, the bigger leaves, in the middle, are the new quilting. 

Used a bright blue for the binding.

And the back.

There were lots of catches on the back. It made me want to make them a new quilt

Quilting from the back. Old small leaves, new bigger ones.

Close up of one the circles with the quilting going over it.

Spread out on our bed. It's a bit big for our full size bed but fits their queen size much better.

It was hard letting this quilt go again, but they really love it, so I guess I'll let them keep it. Maybe I need to make a batik quilt for us. Especially since my husband really liked this quilt.

WIP Wednesday - A little bit of everything

I think it's been a few weeks since I've done a WIP Wednesday post. I've been working on a few things but haven't made enough progress on any one project to justify a blog post. This week I started several projects so here we go.

The Duvessa KAL started last Friday. Despite my best intentions I didn't get a chance to cast on until Sunday morning. I try to knit a few rows everyday. Hoping I finish by the time the KAL ends on May 5th.

And Shannon's Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL started on Monday. I decided to cast on a Seaboard tank at  almost midnight Monday. Only have 5 rows done. And it's lace weight yarn. Don't see myself finishing this up either but Shannon's ravelry group is so active it's fun to read along. Even if I rarely comment. This KAL goes until May 8th, but her KAL's often have extensions.

My first Super Stitchers Club kit arrived last week and immediately distracted me from everything else I needed/wanted to do. Megan had been showing sneak peeks of the design and had wrote a tutorial for turning it into 4 coasters on her blog. The white floss was sent along with the kit so it looked like traditional Sashiko, but I wanted something more colorful and picked the floss above from my stash.

I had the yellow and most of the green done the day it arrived. I finished the green and started the pink while watching tv, very late one night. 

Colours aren't as bright as I had hoped. Might take out the yellow for a brighter yellow. We'll see.

Been working on more crocheted button flowers for my mom. She has asked for 42 more of each (grey buttons with yellow flower, yellow buttons with grey flowers). I'm almost out of floss, so I need to go get some more. Had to order grey buttons on etsy as they are surprisingly hard to find. They should arrive next week. I'd like to have this project done by Mother's Day.

And I've made some progress on the BOM that Sarah Fielke is doing this year. All the flowers are now stitched to the background and the second border is sewn on. The green ring is only glued down so I still need to stitch it down and add some leaves this month. And then put the center circle on. I'm not really happy with how my flowers ended up. My pieced circle is bigger than most since I had to add 4 wedges to make it lie flat, which took up precious flower space. Tempted to redo it but think I will wait. Once the other borders are added, I'm sure I'll grow to like it. Or at least I hope so.

What have you been up to?

A Knitted Finish - The Cocoa Cardigan

Finished knitting my Cocoa Cardigan about two weeks ago. I love it and have worn it a lot. I probably could have gone down a size as it feels a little bulky when sitting but standing it's perfect. I like the extra space to move around and I'm not constantly readjusting it.

I had to alter the cardigan a little bit after finishing. I picked up the required number of stitches for my button/ buttonhole bands but there were too many stitches, causing it to be really wavy. I ripped out the buttonhole band and redid with the number of stitches for the smallest size. It was only 7 fewer stitches but it made a big difference. I didn't redo the button band so it is still a bit wavy. Might redo it someday but it's good enough for now. ( Ugh, I didn't know the bottom button was undone until I loaded the pictures to the blog. It stays done up when I wear it, I just forgot to do it for the pictures.)

There is slight waist shaping but it's definitely not fitted.

A closer look at the yoke. I forgot to ask my daughter to take a picture of the collar edge which I had to fix. The neck opening was too wide (for me). Luckily, I have some serious crochet skills and knew how to make it smaller. I did one round of single crochets all the way around the collar, decreasing every once in a while. I really didn't keep track. The second round I was more consistent. I did 6 single crochets, then a decrease. I did a third round of slip stitches to give it a finished look. It's not really noticeable but did the trick to make the neck opening the right size for me.

Each cuff has four buttons. I really doubted this part of the design and almost ripped back and knit ribbing instead (no buttons) but I've come to really like the cuffs. I can pull them up easily to wash my hands or check my watch for the time.  Glad I kept to the original design.

Yarn used is Cascade Venzina Worsted in the Denim colourway. I originally bought mine on clearance at The Yarn Underground in Idaho but they don't seem to sell yarn online. You can find it on Craftsy, here or elsewhere.

And this lovely yarn arrived this week - Walla Walla by Into the Whirled. It will be made into a Duvessa. A KAL for the shawlette starts today. Time for me to go cast-on.