Works in Progress

 As summer gets into full swing the craft projects are moving along. First there's my second Wheel of the Year embroidery. I have all eight plants laid out, and I'm preparing to add words and the finishing touches.

I finally took the step that I should have done first. Seriously, before everything else. Lesson learned. I kept making marks to outline the work area, and they kept rubbing off while I worked. So I took some sewing thread and basted down a circle that will be easy to remove when I'm done. Doing this made me realize that I was a bit off center, so now I'll be adding more to some of the plants so they extend to the edge. *Sigh*

If I don't start my next project by putting in guide lines someone please shoot me.

 I of course also made a smaller offering piece. This was a bouquet of all the flowers in the wall hanging, scaled down. I finished just in time to run off to the ritual, and didn't get a picture first. That's a strange sinking feeling that must not have plagued our ancestors "Well, it's burning now. No chance to take a photo I guess."

My less flammable project is a granny square blanket. I've used an entire bin of hand-dyed yarns in assorted (read - not matching at all) colors. Each square is a unique mix of colors, and I used nearly every scrap of most of the colors too! I'll be finding a suitable yarn to pull the whole thing together (probably gray, the only thing that might not clash with all these bright colors.)

I'm going to trim each square and sew them together, which should give me a 60" x 30" blanket, perfect for a baby gift.

What are you working on? Let the stash bust continue!

Stash Bust 2013 - Cowls

 In my organization of my yarn stash I found several balls of this great variegated bouclé yarn -  "Que Linda" from the 70s. It was a bit moth-eaten (who knows if that was recent damage, or old news), So I plyed each with left-overs to give it some strength.

With a small amount of each I decided on some small projects, these simple cowls. I was able to cast on and simply knit until the yarn was gone! The two balls of yellow and brown were close enough to use together, and they made a fairly warm tight autumnal cowl. The green is great colors, but more suited to summer, so I made it looser and more decorative.

 I didn't want to use a simple knit stitch, so I came up with two simple repetitive patterns to give a little texture. Both alternate with simple knit rows, and the work went quite quickly.

 These bouncy bouclés made nice colorful pieces. It pays sometimes to salvage the damaged bits! What have you been making?

The Great Stash bust of 2013

Greetings folks in blog land, sorry for the paucity of post. This Crafty Bitch got pulled under by a chest cold and an avalanche of school work. This means I've been bringing simple mindless knitting with me to class...

This is my progress so far on stash bustin'. Three scarves in bright colors for wearing and gifting. Not that impressive, but it's yarn out of the closet! Ok, only theoretically out of the closet, since my bin of gift knits is also in the closet. Well, can't win them all...

Anyone else making progress on Resolutions? How do you show off fancy yarns?