Stitching Thursday: January 5, 2017

Trying to stick with my 2017 goal of reviving the blog a bit, I'm kicking off a new set of posts: Stitching Thursday, with details on the stitching projects I've got going right now.

I've set up a weekly rotation schedule that seems to be working fairly well for me - I spend a week (Sunday thru Saturday) working on a specific piece and then switch off to a different one.  I'm focusing on 4 projects per month (or close to that anyway) and a week seems to be a good amount of time.  I stay motivated and focused and get a fair amount done, but I don't get bored or burned out on any one thing.

Right now I've got the following going:

The Village of Hawk Run Hollow

• Pattern by Carriage House Samplings.
• Fabric is a 22-count Hardanger from Picture This Plus in the Legacy colorway.
• Called-for threads from DMC.

This was a new start on January 1, 2017 and I'm planning on working on a block (there are 12 in total) a month.  This is block 1 so far and what I'm working on for my January Week #1 rotation project.  I'm stitching this 1/1.

The Winter Garden

• Pattern by The Drawn Thread.
• Fabric is a 32-count linen in colorway Smokey Gray.
• I'm using Gentle Arts threads for this (my own conversion).

I've got the first page finished on this design.  I'm stitching this 1/2 and this will be up for Week #2 in January's rotation.

Decorating the Wreath

• Pattern by Heaven and Earth Designs with artwork by Scott Gustafson.
• Fabric is a 28-count undyed linen.
• Called-for threads from DMC.

I worked on this the last week of December and finished up a page (the upper right portion of the image) that included the little pinecone and the bow.  This will be my January Week #3 rotation piece. I'm stitching this 1/1.

Welcome SAL

• Pattern is a mystery SAL by Tempting Tangles.
• Fabric is a 32-count linen from Picture This Plus in the Wren colorway.
• I'm using Gentle Arts threads for this one (my own conversion from DMC).

This is currently through Clue #8.  Clue #9 came out the last weekend of December, and there'll be another clue released on the weekend of January 15th.  I'll get caught up with those 2 clues for my final week of January's rotation.  I'm stitching this 2/2.

I'm also planning to start the Under the Sea SAL from Lakeside Needlework.  I have the SAL fabric and the threads ready to go.  The first clue came out January 2nd, but I am planning on working the 2 SALs the same rotation week, so I'll be starting this one once I finish up the next 2 clues in the Welcome SAL.  I do have the DMC floss called for in the pattern, but I think I'm going to switch it up and use some handpainted cotton threads from Colour and Cotton instead.  At least for the first block, I've got all but maybe 1 color that'll match pretty closely to the original colors.  (And if I need to, I can sub back in the called-for DMC).  

WIP Wednesday: October 28, 2015

This week, I'm working on:

Sekret Knitting:

• The yarn for the next quick deadline project arrived yesterday, so that's wound and ready to cast on.  This will be my focus for the next few weeks, as I've got a November 20th deadline for the project.
• I have been making good progress on the DK-weight sweater project in Wooly Wonka Fibers Aeslin DK, but that'll take a back-burner to the new deadline project for a while. 

Personal Projects:  Nothing on the knitting front, but I did get the border squares pieced and sewn onto the outside of the Bertie's Year block I'm working on.  You can see in the top corner, I've started the embroidery that'll outline the diagonal lines around the outside border.  

I'm taking my time working on this - just doing it in bits and bobs as I have some free time, but it's lovely to have a NON-deadline project to work on too!

WIP Wednesday: October 14, 2015

Sekret Knitting:

• I'm just about done the lace sample piece - I have probably another evening's worth of knitting on it and then it'll be done!  Today's plan is to finalize my draft, get that and charts sent off to my TE and my tester, and that one can get put to bed for a while. 
• I did work a wee bit on the sweater piece while I was traveling to and from Austin, but only got a few rows of that one done, so I'll focus on that for a while until the yarn arrives for the next contract piece that I have on the deadline schedule.

Personal Knitting:  Nothing to report here.

Quilting Project(s):  For the Bertie project, I did get all the border pieces cut and sewn into patches - I need to sew those together and attach them to the main center square, which I'll probably work on this weekend - but not much to show in terms of pretty pictures.  More next week tho.... promise. :)

WIP Wednesday: October 7, 2015

Here's what I'm working on this week:

Sekret Knitting:

• Bumping up a lace project to the top of the list that has an early November deadline.  Nicely enough, it'll be the perfect travel project so that will go back and forth to Austin with me this weekend for the Austin Yarn Crawl.  I have started it and I'm just about done the first section. I'll get draft charts and text finished up today to take with me. 
• Also still working on my next sweater for the shop.  This one will be good down-time knitting so I'll probably take it with me in case (I'm doutbful this will happen, but you never know) I have time to knit while I'm meeting and greeting at The Happy Ewe over the weekend (or more likely, I'm too brain dead to knit much lace).

Personal Knitting:  None on the go right now, but how about an update on my sewing project instead?  (And this may be an ongoing addition to WIP Wednesday since it is a WIP).

Sewing/Quilting:  This week, I got the rest of the fusible applique pieces sewn onto the quilt block and I finished up most of the embroidery details.  Once the sewn/patchwork border blocks are sewn on, I've got some snowflakes to add to the entire thing, but I need to do those once the border is applied.  So the next step on this piece is to get the border blocks sewn and then attached to this larger center block.  

Some housekeeping, an update and (gasp!) some sewing

Do you follow the Celtic calendar at all?  I do to some extent and I like how the year ends at Halloween, moving into the darkness of the winter months as the new year, without waiting for January 1st.  In view of the "new year resolution" concept, I've got some housekeeping and other tidbits going on for this Thursday's post.

First off, many of you know that I work a lot - A LOT a lot - of hours between the dyeing I do for the shop and my clubs and shows and wholesale clients, and my design work, and this past year I've been doing photography and styling duties as half of the Stitch Definition team.  I also have continued to put in 28 hours a week at a day job - but I'm really happy to say that's coming to an end as of October 8th.   I put in my notice there and will work out my 2 weeks' worth of hours (which I've already made a dent in - today's the end of week 1).  I am sincerely hoping this will give me back some better balance of home/work/life in a way that doesn't have me tired and hoping for a nap pretty much all day long.   So a big thank-you to all of you who have, over the last several years, supported my yarn and fiber and design endeavors for finally helping me get to this place!

I'm hoping that will mean some more frequent shop updates and some more designs coming off the needles and to that end, while I will still certainly be posting things about knitting and designing here, I'm going to also plan on posting to the blog content section of the shop website with new releases and other business-related things.  I hope, if you enjoy reading about things here, you will also consider bookmarking that feed as well to keep on top of shop going-ons.

One of the things I would like to add back into my life is some sewing and in light of that, I've dug out a project I started under the radar a while back and haven't really made any progress on (see above - home/work/life) but I'm hoping that will change.  I cleaned off my sewing table, organized and put things into separate plastic bins so I can keep pieces straight, and decided I'd like to work a bit on the first month of Bertie's Year.  You can see all of the month's blocks here on Pinterest.

While I think I'd say this type of quilt isn't necessarily me, there's something about this little bird and his seasonal adventures that grabbed me - maybe it's because I can hear my Gram saying things about "little birds" in my head?  (She loved birds.  Loved having them outside her window and in her flower garden, and just adored their personalities.  Maybe that's the hook for me.)  At any rate, all the blocks are done with cotton flannel using a fusible web applique technique, which I hadn't done in this fashion before, but find I really like.

I've had the January block started and this week I fused on the little red hat and snowman's nose, which I'll get whip-stitched into place.  After that, there are a set of green leaves to add, and then the decorations of some embroidery and red buttons in place of holly berries.  I also plan to finish cutting the squares that form the triangular border if I have time.

I've been a bit on the fence about whether I wanted to do each block separately or put them all together as a larger wall-type square quilt, but I think I've settled on separate blocks, which I can then hang in 3 tiers together.  This will mean that I actually have something finished to show for my time and effort and I think having the smaller projects to finish will help me stay motivated to work on all the months.

Weekending

A little of this, a little of that this weekend.

I spent a lot of time in my studio getting ready for my September fiber shows in Salida, Colorado, and ABQ, plus working on a wholesale order.  I have a ways to go, but I did get most of the wholesale order dyed (waiting to be reskeined) and finished up a couple of the yarn bases I want to take to Salida.

I did a bit of "for fun" knitting on another pair of donation socks, but I also took several hours and enjoyed working on the anniversary quilt.  I have finished up block four, which is a cute little snowman and bird applique, and then pieced "snowballs" to frame it.  I have started block five, which is all applique, and I hope to get a bit of time to work on that this upcoming week one night.

I also played around with my machine a bit.  In the past, I've had very basic, sturdy, sew a ton of miles on kind of machines, but the new one I upgraded to a year or so ago has a bunch of decorative stitches, so I tried some of those out, and found one that looks a bit like a blanket stitch to use on the next little mini wall-hanging I'm working on (that is made with fusible applique).  It's quite fun and I can see myself using several of these to jazz up these smaller wall-hangings I want to make at some point.

Otherwise, I finished up the final sample (still have pattern grading to do) for The Book yesterday, and started on my next project, which is for Twist Collective's Winter 2014 collection.  Fun!

Weekending

This weekend, D had a 2-day event to attend down in ABQ, so we decided to make a weekend out of it, and I went down with him.  We puttered around on Friday afternoon, hit Barnes and Noble, went to dinner and made an early night of it, since he needed to be ready to go the next morning around 6:45.

Saturday, I had the day all to myself really.  I got up and spent a relaxing morning reading and knitting.  Then, I showered and popped over to Village Wools to look for some buttons for two of The Book projects.  I then decided to go to the quilt store that's literally right around the corner, to browse and look for some needles and maybe the backing for the applique quilt I'm working on.  (It's a really nice store - super helpful shop ladies and they have a fun selection of a lot of nontraditional fabrics.)

They had a great extra wide (108") fabric that I picked up for the backing.  I think it'll work nicely with the other wintery prints I'm using without overpowering anything.

And speaking of the quilt, I have 98% of the next block finished.  I need to add a few snowflake embroidery details to the applique portion of it, and this block will also have side sashing of pieced "snowballs" on either side.  So... almost there with it, and my plan is to finish that up this week.

Saturday night, D and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner out at Zinc, in Nob Hill.  The waiter was very attentive without being annoying, the food was delicious, and we had a great table upstairs where we could watch the open-air kitchen where the food was prepared.  Definitely one we'll put on the return trip list!

Weekending

We had a lovely weekend here - just about perfect late spring weather.  D and I did some yard clean-up jobs and I am hoping the last of the snow/cold weather is done around here.  (Last week's upper 20s and flurries were very unkind to several things in the veggie garden!)  I replanted my basil, which hadn't made it thru 2 cold snaps, and I picked up a few plants to pop into the boxes on the deck and a couple of other planters we have.

This past week also marked the end of a long-time job for me - my last day was Tuesday.  While I will still be working, it'll be a new company (which so far seems to be MUCH less likely to make me crazy to the level I had been with the old one), and I'm cutting back to 24 hours a week, which is ALSO much less likely to make me as crazy as I had been with the prior schedule.  D and I celebrated with a nice cookout kind of dinner and some wine on Friday night, which was a great way to kick off the weekend as well.

Since my work schedule is moving around a bit (I usually worked 5:30 to 2:00 every day, and now I'll be on 10-4 instead), my new schedule consists of getting up at the same early time, but now I make a cup of tea, sit and knit for an hour, then go to the dye studio for an hour or two, go for a run, hit the shower and then start work.  One trick that I've found works great for me is to allot a certain amount of time - 60 minutes, 2 hours, whatever - to a specific task and then set my phone alarm.  That way, I am not worrying about "Oh, I need to get up and go start X", and I can have a really focused "power hour" on something without distractions.

I'd been using that to good effect with my Book knitting - I've gotten the front and 2 sleeves done on a men's sweater and I'm ready to tackle the front now - plus most of the body of a shawl for The Book, AND started another lace shawl for an indie release in the last week.  This weekend, while I did do a lot of knitting, I also snuck in 90 minutes of sewing time, which felt absolutely great to be doing something just for fun!  I'm still holding out the hope I might have this pretty decorative winter quilt done in time for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in December of this year, so that's what I worked on.  I didn't feel like sitting and working on applique (of which there is a lot in this quilt), but I did get pieces for some flying geese patches cut and started sewing those.

Hope your weekend was great too!

Weekending: 03/31/2014

Monday came too early again this week.

I did a few food preparation things over the weekend - including making myself a really delicious berry crisp thing for either breakfast or snacks this week.  It needed a little bit of sweetener for the berries (I used frozen since there isn't much in season right now), but I think for summer fruits it'll be perfect.  A no-flour topping with toasted pecans and unsweetened coconut, and a bit of almond flour and butter to bind it together.  I also made a batch of yogurt for the week, and threw a chicken in the crockpot for broth and some extra to use for lunches.

I put in a lot of hours on my knitting pattern writing this weekend.  I got 3 smaller pieces ready to go to the book editor at the end of next month, and wrote up the pattern for the next small shawl release in my shop's Heroines clubs.  I also put in quite a bit of time working on samples - I've got a project for Jane Austen Knits 2014 that I'm working on that's just about 2/3rds finished, and I am oh-so-close on one big project for The Book as well.

Since I felt like I got a lot of other things accomplished, I allotted myself an hour or so to do something NOT deadline-related (for the first time in what seems like eons).  I've been working on a little quilted wallhanging for the month of January.  And yes, I know it's already the end of March, but that's kind of what my schedule is like these days - It'll be very early to hang up for NEXT January.

It's a new-to-me technique using fused applique with laser-cut pieces.  Pretty easy, pretty fast - comparatively speaking.  You still need to sew around the edges of all the pieces and work the embellishments.  This cute little guy is almost there - I need to add his nose and a band on his hat, plus a snowflake motif up in the upper right-hand corner.  I also need to add in some embroidery on the broom.

The piece has a little pieced pinwheel section that goes on the bottom to finish off the design.  I haven't decided yet what kind of quilting I'll do for it.  Probably fairly minimal and probably machine quilting, as I really would like a fighting chance of finishing this before January 2015.  It was a nice relaxing little break to do some hobby time for me for a change!