Keeping me engaged..

While I may not have been using floss and a needle to occupy my time this summer, I have not been idle.  I've just been using different needles.

I started another pair of socks a while back and these photos are from the first sock.  I started them back in April and I have finished one and am working on the 2nd.  These are Escher Socks from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn by Carol J. Sulcoski.

The pattern is a little fiddly so I try not to knit these when around others as it's easy to get distracted and off pattern. 

The yarn was gifted to me quite a few years ago and I'm happy to have had it in my stash.  It's a really pretty blue/green/purple combo from Jojoland.  Thanks Kathy!

They are going to be too small for me but I think I've found a home for them in a young lady entering 8th grade.

They have taken a back seat to a project I started at the beginning of July and hope to finish before the end of this month. 

It's the Lotus Blossom Tank from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits magazine issue.  I fell in love with the top when I first saw it and attempted to start it back then but my skills just weren't up to it at the time.  Those pesky yarn overs had me stumped.

My skills have grown from knitting socks so I figured it was time to tackle this again and I'm really pleased with my progress.  I've completed the front and begun working on the back.  Hopefully, I will be showing you an FO in the near future.

Resurfacing

Summer is sliding towards a close and I'm finally updating this blog.  I guess I lost my stitching mojo after working for so long on my CHS Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow because I've barely picked up a needle to stitch in the last three months. 

I wasn't sure what to start so I picked up Plum Street Samplers "Mary's Sampler" from last year and finally got that finished.
I think I will finish it as a flat fold or large cube for display this holiday season.

It's been a great summer here in Maine and I've taken advantage of it with lots of trips to the beach. This has been my view many a weekend morning since early June and I'm actually sporting quite a bit of tan these days.

In July I spent a weekend in Boston visiting my oldest niece who is finishing up her nursing program by taking extra classes this summer.  She will be getting pinned in December and starting on her Masters to become a Nurse Practitioner.  We had a really great visit, ending with a visit to the SoWa (South Washington) market.  We were both huge fans of the food trucks!

I had lunch from the ramen truck and it was delish - along with a Thai basil limeade from a different truck.  My niece had crepes and the photo above was the Roxy's Grilled Cheese truck.  There were 7 or 8 different trucks and it was hard to choose!

The market covers three separate areas in the arts district and includes this food truck lot, a farmers market and a crafters market.  Some of the artist studios are also open and several of the local shops including a bead and yarn store, a sewists, letter press printer and other unique vendors.  It's only on Sunday's but it's worth a visit if you're in Boston.

I also finally went on a "booze" cruise as it's called which is really the sunset cruise around the Portland harbor.  We went on the 12th and the weather was absolutely perfect.  We got to witness the totally amazing moon rise over one of the many islands.

I'm just back from a few days on the Cape which were lovely.  The weekend started out rainy but improved greatly so that we could get in a good beach day.  For the first time ever, we had a house with a pool and that was the absolute best thing ever.  Lots of fun, laughter and cannon balls. 

I've got a few days left and I'm planning to play in my craft room, do some "beachin" and reading before starting back to work again on Monday.

I hope your summer has been equally enjoyable.  I'm going to be making the blog rounds to try and catch up with what's been happening and maybe gain some inspiration to jump start me back to cross stitching.

Oh Happy Day!

Yesterday, I put the last stitches into Block 12 of my Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow.  Block 10 had been finished on Easter Sunday but I never took a picture until today.

I decided not to stitch Block 12 exactly as charted as after all of the hard work of stitching I wanted to include my own name and not  Mary Crow's.  Plus the angel holding the tree was kind of freaky looking so I took the tree motif and stitched it alone, trying to balance out the medallion on the left.

Then I used the space between for stitching my name.  I did not chart my name out prior to starting to stitch, just put in the letters as I went along.  As you can see, there was not enough room for the last k in my name so I took a page from some of the school girl samplers of old and fit it in.

I could have ripped out the tree or my last name and started over but I like the imperfection of it, so it's going to stay as is.

Here is block 10 completed as well.  I will work to get better pictures with a regular camera over the next few days.  These were taken quickly with my iPhone and I'm too tired to fuss to get them better.

I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to move on to something else!  Wahoooo.....

I can't put my needle down!

After finishing Block 11, I was afraid to lose momentum so I immediately started Block 10 and have been cruising along.  Here is where it was before Saturday stitching commenced.

And here's where it is after stitching most of the weekend away.  I did accomplish a few things and devoted some time to knitting but I really hate to put this down as I'm so close to being done!

This was the first block I saw when Kathy began posting photos and it is the one that made me fall in love with and purchase the piece.  Cardinals are my favorite bird and I love hearing them all year round here in New England.

Gotta run!  This piece is calling my name.....

Finally docked!

Today at 8:05am, my ship reached harbor and has been officially docked! 

Two more blocks to go and this project is history!  I can't wait for that day!

Continuing to catch the wind!

I was able to make some more progress on C@HRH over my long weekend and here is where the block stands as of this afternoon.  If I have the energy, I'm going to try and get the green fill done on the last sail but I'm leaning towards just vegging so we'll see.

I also started a new pair of socks to keep my momentum going.  These are called Escher Socks and they are found in the book "Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn".  There is a cable row every 6th repeat that changes directions and I'm finding it a bit fiddly. 

I think part of my issue is that the needles are not 5" dpns and the extra length makes it hard to maneuver the stitches without losing the stitch/dropping the cable needle/getting the yarn in the right position.  But it's a really gorgeous yarn and I think they will be pretty once they are done.

Thank you for your encouragement!

I am so appreciative of your encouragement as I work to complete my Christmas@HRH.  It's a wonder you keep coming back to see what I'm up to considering it's been about the only thing I've been posting about for what seems like forever.  I am really yearning to be done with this one folks!

That said, I have a progress photo to show from Friday.  I took Friday and today off because I needed to get some personal errands done like registering the car, inspection and some medical appointments so I've had extra time this weekend to spend working on this in between other things.

I've completed about 2/3rds of the last sail and hope to get a photo of that tomorrow when they are forecasting some sunshine.  It's been quite blustery the last few days so I spent a lot of time indoors.

I also managed to finish the pair of socks I started in January.  They will be the start of what I hope is a pile for Christmas.  I cast on for a new pair that I think will be quite pretty so I will get a photo of those tomorrow too.  I could not get the photo anywhere close to the true colors unfortunately.

I hope your March came to a "lamb-y" ending and that April brings all of us longing for spring like weather some relief.  Our March didn't go out like a lamb at all in my opinion!

Setting Sail....

I was able to fit in a little bit of stitching this weekend and am close to being done with the first sail on the boat.  I'm hoping to get some more done over this coming weekend.  If all goes well, I'm hoping to get this block completed by the end of the month.

Slow Motion Fireworks

I meant to post these photos all week but just never made it to opening Blogger.  Last Saturday morning, the time change hadn't yet made it dark again in the mornings and I was up early. 

I poured a cup of Morning Joe and sat down in my office/craft room to stitch with the early morning sun streaming over my shoulder.  As of 7:30, I had finished all of the black background-YEAH!

By 9:30 I had filled in the gold part of the fireworks display and put it down to get some chores started.

Between errands I was able to complete the fireworks on my current C@HRH block and move onto filling in the rest of the piece.  Here is the progress at 2:00pm.

The Happy New Year words are done and I hope to get more time with this piece over the weekend.

I'm off to answer phones for our local Waban Projects Telethon which is always held the Saturday before St. Patti's day. 

This is my third year being involved as a volunteer and it's so much fun to help out an amazing organization in addition to making a donation.  Happy Saturday!

Quiet but not idle!

I didn't mean to stay away from blogging for so long but it's amazing how quickly the days add up when you tell yourself you'll write that blog post "tomorrow" multiple times.  It's been a productive two and a half weeks though so at least I have something to show you.

First up is my progress on Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow.  I have not been doing much stitching in the evenings the last few weeks but I was able to get quite a few lengths of thread in on the weekends so I'm still moving along fairly well.  Or should I say "sailing" along? 

This weekend is a three day weekend so I hope to get more time into this this afternoon, evening and tomorrow before it's back to the work routine. 

I also completed the baby sweater I started back in December.  This will be for the baby girl my neighbors across the hall are going to welcome any day now.  I made to 0 to 6 months size so hopefully she will be able to get some wear out of it.

Once it's done blocking, I'll add buttons and then I would really like to find a little dress to go underneath it.  The pattern is Cradle Cardigan by Hannah Fettig using Quince & Company yarn.

This was a great pattern and I adore Quince yarn so it was a great project over all.  The only thing that gave me trouble was remembering to stitch to knit stitches for the wrong side of the edge section.

And not having something on the needles made my fingers itchy so I did a stash dive and started a pair of socks that have the potential to be a Christmas gift.

I am using Spunky Eclectic sport weight in a really pretty earthtoned colorway I've had in my stash for a long time and the pattern is one of my go to patterns, Classic Socks by Yankee Knitter Designs.  This was the first pattern I learned for knitting socks and it's easy to follow that it continues to be one I reach for.

I'm doing a K3 P1 rib and since it's sport weight, it is moving along quickly.  At night when I'm too tired to stitch, this has been getting attention.

I hope you are having a great weekend and making lots of stitchy progress.  It's wicked windy outside so I'm planning to hunker down and watch some Olympics coverage and get stitching!

Sunday Stitching Day

I was going to title this post "International Travel Without Ever Leaving Maine" because on Sunday, I drove to Belfast, passing through China and Palermo on the way.  In three hours, I theoretically visited three countries all while in the geographic borders of Maine! 

Did you know that you could also visit Denmark, Mexico and Oxford? LOL  I always wonder if people were homesick or just not creative when they started naming towns in Maine.

I drove to Belfast to meet up with PJ at the Co-Op and spent a wonderful few hours stitching and getting to know another Maine stitcher.  Unfortunately, Barbara wasn't able to join us with everything going on but I hope the three of us can get together sometime soon.


Both PJ and I are stitching Christmas t Hawk Run Hollow although somehow I missed the fact that she was stitching hers over one on 40 ct.  We took a photo of our two pieces together and the size difference is kind of funny.  Her piece is just so fabulous over one.

Aren't the little skaters adorable?  They are so tiny.  This is going to be so wonderful when it's done.

Here's the progress I made on Sunday.  I'm really pleased with how much I've gotten done since finishing Block 9.  I want to keep that momentum going so I can finish off this piece and move on to something new.

 It was so wonderful to get to know PJ and she surprised me with a wonderful gift bag full of goodies. 

Barbara will have to wait a bit longer to get hers!  I wish I had been so thoughtful. Next time I will be better prepared.  We missed you Barbara!

Snowy Saturday Stitching

After I ran a few errands on Saturday morning, the snow that was forecasted started up around 1pm or so.  I watched some old episodes of Masterpiece Theatre's Sherlock on my pc and stitched away on Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow. 

The framing is completed and I started right away on Block 11.  I decided to tackle this block first because it is totally filled with stitching and I was afraid I would get bogged down/bored by all that black. 

I decided to work down in columns of 10 which doesn't make it seem so overwhelming.  Unfortunately, I realized after I got to the bottom that I had forgotten to mark out the framed row so I'm now one over than I should be. 

However I was not ripping out all of that stitching so I will just have to fudge the other side and hope it looks balanced!

Block 9 Completed!

Over Saturday morning coffee, last backstitching completed.  Immediately started stitching outlines for last 3 blocks.  Too tired to write more.  Happy.

Focused Attention

We've had way too much of this lately.

But the bright spot is that I've been able to devote a lot of time to this and I'm really pleased with my progress.

I'm really hoping to be able to complete this block by the end of the week.

To combat the winter weather effect, I bought these at the grocery store on Saturday. They were a bit travel weary and cold but they warmed up nicely in the house and they are such a lovely bright spot.  I'm looking forward to seeing some daffodils but those might be a ways off.

I hope you had something to brighten up your winter weather where ever you are!

2013 WIPocolypse Recap

I see that many are recapping all their stitching accomplishments.  I don't really feel like I accomplished all that much in the way of finishes.  I was able to complete one project on my 2013 WIPocolypse list which was Nora Corbett's Halloween Fairy.

The WIP project that got the most attention in 2013 was CHS Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow although I was unable to finish it during the year as I had really hoped.  Here's what it looked like in January:

And as of yesterday.  I was able to complete two blocks and 2/3rds of a 3rd.  Given that there were 365 days in the year, it really feels like I should have completed much more when I look at the whole project. But there's only 3 and 1/3 blocks left to complete so I'm quite sure I will finish this thing in 2014.  I'd better!

Next on the list was my HAED Storey Keeper and this doesn't show much visual progress either considering the number of stitches that go into completing each 10x10 square!  I think this will turn out to be some kind of 10 year piece - if not longer!  Here it was in January,

And where it was at 12.31.13

Poor Ann Sandles really got no attention for the year.  I had to restart the piece and quite honestly I'm thinking of scrapping it all together.  I think I should have ordered the original fabric because I'm not that jazzed with it how it looks on the fabric I found in my stash.  This photo was from May and the one below from yesterday.  Such a little bit of progress to show....

And the final project on the list was my CHS Alphabet.  It's the same dismal story as with Ann Sandles.  This is another project that's been linger way to long and it might be my focus after C@HRH.  We'll see!

This was the photo when I pulled it out in February and where it stands now.  Two and 1/4 blocks completed with a whole lot more left to go.

I added a 2014 tab and the current projects are carry overs from 2013 but I may edit it some more.  I would really like to add some new projects this year and definitely do some dedicated Halloween stitching this year. 

I hope your year is off to a great stitching start!