It took an hour, and 210 blocking pins, but the shawl is blocking on the guest room floor. I finished sewing up the purple wool sweater. I felted the bag, and it came out great – for some reason, though, the bottom popped open, so I still need to sew that up and sew the straps on.
Pictures tonight! :)
New projects soon!
…there’s even a knitted swimsuit for those more adventurous than I am!
OK, so I forgot how long it takes to darn in ends. Oh, well. I did finish the Icelandic Lace Shawl, and I just need to run to the craft store to buy rust-proof pins to block it out.
I managed to sew the raglan seams on the purple sweater…just the side seams and a million ends to hide. (I really should start doing them as I go along!)
The third project? I started a felted bag not last fall, but the fall before. I almost finished it probably about a month after I’d started it. All I have left to do is (take a guess) hide the ends, and felt it. I dragged it out of the craft closet to make the attempt, but got tied up with the ends of the shawl.
So, this week I’m going to try to finish hiding ends on everything, blocking the shawl, and felting the bag. I promise not to start anything new until those things are done!
If the rain keeps up, and we can’t get any outdoor work done this weekend (…must…open…pool…) there is the potential for me to finish not one, not two, but three projects! Wish me luck! (I can’t believe I’m hoping for more rain.)
I’m in trouble now – I’ve discovered a wonderful yarn shop less than 10 minutes from my house. I had actually passed by New York Knits before, and assumed, as tiny as it was, that it was a clothing shop. How wrong I was.
I did buy yarn for another project, which of course I had to swatch, but that doesn’t count as starting a new one, right? ;) At least I managed to only buy yarn for one new project!
Between this place, and the new quilting shop that’s walking distance from my house, I’m going to have a hard time not collecting projects…as if I don’t have enough already.
I’ve been busy updating my craft pages! I’m finally documenting all of my craft projects, in an effort to guilt myself into finishing some of them. (Actually, I figured out that I don’t have a problem finishing things that are gifts for other people – I’m actually pretty good when I have deadlines – it’s when I’m making something for me that I don’t finish things.)
Of course, the whole concept of writing about all of these projects is a project in itself…so we’ll see if I ever manage to finish it.
Right now, there are pages for all of my fairly current projects. I think. But, at least the purple sweater that only needs blocking and seaming, the christening gift for my godson, and my sock obsession have pages. When I have some more time, I’ll find some of the older in-progress projects. I think I might have a few that are more than a decade old. Those might just have to stay buried!
I was supposed to do the May Day Project today…but I forgot. So, instead, I’ll just show you pictures I took of the embarassingly large amount of yarn I bought today!
Remember the shawl I was working on? Well, here’s how far I’ve gotten so far:
(Notice the tiny little ball of gray left to finish that section? Keep your fingers crossed for me – I’m not sure if it will work or not!) I was going to add peach yarn to this, but decided I like the colors it is right now. So, instead of returning the peach yarn and getting more of the colors I’m using, I got more of the colors I’m using, and more peaches, reds and naturals – guess what my mom is getting for mother’s day?
Of course, there’s also 5 pairs of socks worth of sock yarn in that mix. It’s a really good thing that the local yarn shop is a bit of a drive for me!
Also, I made these for my mom, grandmother and godmother (shhh, don’t tell!) I didn’t get a picture of the one for my other grandmother, since I had to wrap it up and send it not long after I’d made it.
(The little pink bracelet is for my soloist from church, who’s birthday is tomorrow).
So, you see, even though I haven’t been blogging much, I’ve been busy, busy, busy!
One really funny thing I did this weekend was watch a couple of episodes of Fraggle Rock on video. One of those episodes was called “The Great Radish Famine”, and the Doozers, those little green construction guys, couldn’t build anything (I guess they built things out of radishes?) and so they ended up knitting. Event though they didn’t like knitting, by the end of the episode all of the little Doozers were wearing little knitted things. Very cute!
You knew there had to be a next project, right? Ta-da! Presenting the “Icelandic Lace Shawl” from Piecework Magazine, I think the Jul/Aug ’96 issue. Only, I’m doing it in spring colors instead of the natural wool colors it calls for.
I was even almost well-enough behaved to wait until I was done with the flower sweaters…I only cast on and did the first couple of rows before finishing up the embroidery and buttons on the sweaters… You can see the first bits of it on the needles – I’ve actually managed to add quite a bit to that since I took the picture. It’s going a lot faster than I’d expected, considering I had to cast on 339 stitches (I’m not even going to tell you how many times I had to count them – wait, was that stitch 267 or 276…?)
These are the little sweaters that I’ve been trying to avoid mentioning – they’re not being given to my nieces until next Saturday (a few weeks early for their 2nd birthdays) – but I had to post pictures. I can’t believe I finally finished them! Size 2 needles. Yarn that splits. Seed stitch. No wonder it took me five months to make them. (Of course, I put them down for at least two of those months and did other projects, so those shouldn’t count!)
For all my complaining, I’m very pleased with the way they turned out. There was some debate about the buttons being all different colors or all the same. I think they looked best all different colors, even though they aren’t all quite the same sizes.
There are more pictures in my crafts pages…