Spring Making

 I have a feeling Blogger has changed a few times since I last updated:  truthfully I am not sure if this is even going to work.  However, I will give it a try.  I am feeling the need to document my makes again. It is probably because I still feel so isolated:  moving to a new place during a pandemic is not fun.   Youtube is good for a quick update every so often, but I so often debate whether I am going to continue making videos or not.  So anyway, for now, I am going to try to put my makes back on here as well.

April:  not the nicest month where I currently live.  Still no signs of Spring coming except for the huge flock of Canada Geese that have settled on the nearby pond.  We even had a blizzard on Saturday night.

To look at the bright side it gives me lots of time to craft.  

I set myself a couple of crochet challenges for this year:  one pair of socks and one cowl per month; plus four sweaters.  One sweater is complete; another on the hooks, and I have been keeping up with the socks and cowls.  This month I chose some cheerful yellow-peach yarn.  I purchased this at my last local yarn store from the clearance bin.  I wish I had bought more:  I love the gradiant colour changes,  and because the skein was divided by a strip of blue yarn it was easy to match each sock.

I finished a shrug for my birthday. Still not sure if I am a shrug person, but it was good to try something different.  

 The pattern is from this book:

I used Premiere Cotton Fair, a thicker yarn than what the designer called for, so it came out just a tad bigger.  I have started another one with a fingering weight yarn and will see how I like that size.

I had problems with the starting chain, both on the finished one and the one I am working on now.  I keep skipping stitches inadvertently and don't notice until the end.  Unfortunately that means I have to rip out all the way back and start over.  With a fingering weight yarn I find it very fiddly, so I plan to dig out every stitch marker I have and put them into the appropriate chain before I start the second row.  After that it is a breeze:  for my first shrug I worked one repeat per day for a nice, stress-free project.

I made great progress on my Celtic Spring cross stitch piece by Lavender and Lace over Lent this year.  When I first started cross stitching I would see ads in stitching magazines for these Celtic Ladies.  I thought if I ever got to the point where I could stitch one of them I would be a real, honest and true stitcher!  Really these are not difficult to stitch at all, but oh my, those borders have almost done me in!  Next time I will do the borders first to get them out of the way.  I have found multiple needles threaded in the colours I need is helping.

My goal is to have her completely stitched and the beading started by the end of April.  If I break the stitching up into little chunks I think I can make it.  

After the discipline of not starting anything new over Lent I was more than ready for a new start.  It also being my birthday I had grand plans of starting just about everything!  I wanted something small and quick at first:  I chose the April stockings by Blackbird Designs.  I actually had no intention of stitching all three this year, but I was having so much fun I just kept going.

All are stitched on 32 count Antique White Lugana with my own over-dyed threads.  I found the little butterfly beads in my stash and thought they would make a fun, Spring-time accent.  I also used beads in place of stitches on the umbrella stocking, though it is a bit hard to see here.

My other new start is more of a journey project.  I thought I would start this Dimensions Gold kit - "Wreath Of All Seasons" - and see how much of each seasonal part I could stitch in the three months of that corresponding season.  I made a very small start on the Spring section and think I will try to stitch on it one week per month.  I am definitely a seasonal stitcher so I thought it might be a fun way to make some progress on this gorgeous kit.

There we have it for now.  I think this took two hours to write up, so now I definitely remember the drawbacks to blogging!