foxy progress

This weekend I picked up my foxy embroidery again. I was sitting on the front porch with some friends and felt I wanted a relaxing thing to do with my hands. I actually have not worked on this in quite a while, but it has been on a side table in my bedroom waiting patiently. I think I haven't wanted to approach working on filling in that fox. Ugh. But I didn't have a knitting project started, and the hand quilting project was just way too big to bring down so I grabbed this project bag and ended up enjoying the return. 

I continued this evening while watching some Missouri Star YouTube. They had Anna Maria Parry on, my favorite fabric designer, so a must-see for me. I enjoyed the projects I saw and her way of teaching and on-camera personality did not disappoint. I puttered around doing some of the finishing on the flowers - even some French knots! I have now gotten to the point where my only things left are the brown accents on the flowers, which use colors that also accent and appear in the fox, and a cloud of lime green French knots at the top. I'm not sure which I will do first, the fox or the knots, but it's a toss up which one I will grit my teeth through more. 

I think I'll stick with the floral finishing touches for now! 

brambles, finished

Monday's photoshoot also included this lovely finish. I've mentioned the story before, but to recap, I started this piece as a simple (mostly) garter stitch project that I could take to knit night at my local yarn store, figuring I could split my attention between talking and this with little consequence. The yarn is a gray wool I got at the King's Mountain Art Fair at some point and a beautiful variegated cotton that I got from my brother's family for a birthday (along with the cake that turned into my North Sea Ombre wrap. The variegated yarn was over 1000 yards and demanded a great project to showcase the shades. 

I chose a Melanie Berg design from her book Colorwork Shawls that made use of two gradient yarns and just decided the gray was enough as it was. Soooo glad I did! The pattern was perfect for this combination. Well, nearly. I was hoping to use up every last bit of the gradient yarn cake but I have a bit of the darkest purple left. I did consider doing an extra repeat of the lace edge but just couldn't face more lace by the time I was done with the repeats as written. 

I chose not to block it - I don't think it needs it. I'm loving that it's mostly cotton which gives the fabric a great drape and weight and will mean I can likely wear this without itching too much. I do love to knit and wear shawls but so often I end up with red and irritated skin on my neck. It's got quite a wingspan. I have not measured my piece, but the pattern states 7.5 feet along the edge and just about 3 feet deep. I'd say I have that here, and these wonderfully big sizes are a hallmark of all of the Melanie Berg patterns I have made. They take me a long time but end up being such wonderfully architectural pieces that I find it rewarding to finish and I get a kick every time I pull one out to wear. 

Pattern: Grellow is a State of Mind, by Melanie Berg (my Ravelry page) 

Needle: US 3

Yarn: Scheepjes Whirl in 'brambleberry' and Serendipidye King's Mountain Sock in 'smoke' 

shift cowl, finished

I got some great photos of my mom's Shift cowl today. The bright colors were a pleasure to work with through the winter and spring and are now popping in the summer garden. Mom has always had a knack for choosing great colors. We bought these on her trip out here in November. I took her to the local yarn store, which was I think my first time meeting the new owner Kristi who is delightful. In fact much of this was stitched at the Wednesday evening knit group at the shop that I took a leap and started going to this winter - a fun and encouraging group of ladies! I digress. Mom and I saw a sample worked up at the shop and the construction plus the combination of variegated yarns caught both of our eyes.

Mom chose just one variegated yarn, which actually had its own surprise way of working up here. It started out with a lot of fuchsia and turquoise and morphed into that bright blue you see down at the end. So interesting! The other two colors she picked were solids, a bright lime green and a soft toned light purple. They ended up looking quite eye catching together, even if the light purple gets a little lost in the photos. It shows up in person, promise. 

The construction on this piece was pretty creative. It's worked diagonally from a tiny start to a long finish and then seamed up the back to make kind of a bandana shape. You pop it over your head and voila, instant wrapped scarf look without the pesky ends and without worrying about it coming undone as you move about your day. Honestly the seam wasn't that stellar on mine, there was a bit of fudging, but it turned out looking fine. 

We picked out all cotton yarns and I have to say I really like the weight that gives the piece. It will also mean it won't be itchy, and perhaps may even be wearable in the warmer months in Chicago. I could definitely see this peeking out of a winter coat as a fun accessory. 

Pattern: The Shift, by Andrea Mowry (my Ravelry page) 

Yarn: Berroco Modern Cotton DK in 'bristol' (lavender) and '1659' (lime green) and Urth Uneek Cotton in 1074 (purple and blue variegated) 

Needle: US 5 (3.75 mm)

a hand quilting adventure

Yesterday felt like the day to start hand quilting this quilt. Watching a recent video from Pin, Cut, Sew on YouTube got me over the activation barrier and back to thinking "how hard can it be to freehand Baptist fans, anyway?" She does make it look so easy. This may take a while, but I think it will be fun and that I will like the end result a lot more than I would have liked any kind of machine quilting, especially any that I would have been able to attempt on my machine given how large this thing is. 

Pretty tickled that I found a hand quilting thread color that so closely coordinates with the colors. I hesitated a bit thinking the bright blue would be distracting across all the purple sections, but that fear was misplaced. The thread is thin enough that it really doesn't 'pop' the same way pearl cotton would. I'm not doing tiny tiny stitches, but they are close enough together that the pleasant pucker of hand quilting shows up. I am also taking advantage of the structure of the blocks to help me gauge my arcs in a semi-regular manner. Each arc is the width of that HST in the bottom right corner of the churn dash block. Those blocks have geometry where it's easy to see the next arc, and for the other blocks I have fashioned a marking tool using a compass and a knitting needle. The knitting needle marks the fabric with grooves, more like a Hera marker would, and it fits nicely in the pencil holder fixture on the compass. For the wider arcs it's a bit of an imperfect science because the compass is actually too small to open wide enough from the "origin" corner, but I have figured out a work around and the tool does the job much nicer than my eyeballing would. 

So far I am happy with this decision and confident it will look good. Will see in a few weeks if I still feel the same way! It would be nice to have this done by the end of the year, but I won't hold myself to it. I am very pleased to have this stage started, though. 

brambles off the needles!

You guys. I just finished binding off the edge of my "Grellow is a State of Mind" shawl by Melanie Berg. I last updated on this in March when the gradient went from blue to an exciting hint of purple. These projects are huge and have always been a long haul whenever I've cast on. This was no exception - just over 6 months to get it done. I've called it Brambles after the name of the gradient yarn, which is Brambleberry, a Scheepjes Whirl cake. 

This wonky shot is the best I could do for a quick photo to share with the knitting group I'm in, and it's a passable show of the beautiful gradient of the main yarn. Improved photos to come, also including my finished and seamed Shift cowl that's been sitting around waiting for glamour shots. But hooray for a finish!

cross stitchin' away

I started this sometime in early May, just around the time of horse show distraction I think, and haven't shared it yet. I'm in the midst of a fun and sassy cross stitch project that I found in one of the books I checked out of the library this Spring. Most of the stitching has been in the latter half of June. 

Getting through the lettering and one complete plant feels like I am no in the homestretch. The problem is that whenever I want to work on it, it's evening, and I can't see the stitching as well as I can during the day. I used to wonder at my mom when she said "I can't do light colors at night". Ummmmm. I get it now. Darn.

blocking shift

Some of the sections felt like they would never end, but it's finally off the needles! 

I am blocking it to the measurements in the pattern, which looks a bit long in the point to me, but I'm going to not deviate from what I'm told. It should all work out in the end. Given the cotton yarn, I don't think doing the seam up after this is dry is going to be too much trouble. I think the pattern even tells you what technique to use, which is a bonus. 

Now to wait for it to dry!