eat your heart out, anthropologie

These. Look. Awesome.

I nearly did not see this project through. I made a couple of pieces this spring and thought it was just too much work with the thin yarn and tiny hooks. Mom offered to pitch in and do a few, which gave me some extra oomph to get over the doldrums. We also found a few great artificial (non-yarn artificial...) succulents to add to the mix. I like that they both are bulky and take up space and add a different texture so the whole thing is not just fuzzy. They're also in shapes that I think would have been just ok with yarn but really look super in the plastic. 

I had some dense foam from something, making an ottoman top I think, that I used to fill in the bottom of the fixtures and the succulents are just kind of poked in (store-bought have stems) or perched and squished into place. It worked out surprisingly well and I think they turned out looking even better than I had imagined. They're a matched set in the stairwell and they make me smile every trip up and down the steps. 

quick zips

Mom and I did some color play with my fabric stash to make a couple of zippered pouches. One is for my niece, the other for my sister in law. I had to kind of remind myself how the assembly went, but once that was figured out they went very quickly. Note for next time so I don't have to look it up: if not doing tabs on the zipper ends, flip the zipper towards the lining when sewing together so it tucks in well. 

The first one I added a little tab to the side for a little something extra. There was much debate on whether that was the correct side to put it on or if it goes on the side with the zipper pull when it is closed. I would use it on either side to hold and pull, so we decided it didn't really matter. 

For this second one I skipped the tab, though it would have been cute in that bright green lining print, and instead opted to experiment with making a tassel for the zipper pull. It turned out very cute and I would do again. More bags in the future, no doubt. These are easy to make, satisfying to finish so quickly, and a good time playing with color combinations. 

something much less simple

It occurs to me that it's been a while since I started my Clint and I have not updated at all. This project is much more complicated than the shrug I just started, so I don't tend to pick it up unless I am craving focused knitting time. I have found a rhythm with it recently after it sat for a little bit while I worked on easier things. 

It's looking pretty good so far. I've made my peace with the fudging required to get the corners "close enough" to having pointy points (some slip stitches in the patterns make this less than automatic), and I'm ignoring the one intersection where I must have added a stitch or something because the alignment isn't particularly close. All that to say it's not joyful knitting right now, but it is pretty fun. I do find humor in the fact that I am knitting a quilt - that was in fact part of what drew me to this piece. I have just a few more additions to this middle panel, which will be two or three more good chunks of time I think, and then I believe things will simplify and start progressing at a speedier clip. My goal is to have this for a cozy fall. Around here there's no pressure on that until like November because we get some pretty hot weather in September and October (NOT at all great for this girl who loves cold crisp autumnal weather). So there's time. 

tiptoeing through the mushrooms

Mom brought a finished mushroom cross stitch. So, rather than hoop it or frame it, we decided to do a "collab" (is that what the kids call it these days??) and make a quilted pillow cover. 

It was fun to stash dive and pick out some appropriately woodsy fabrics to use. I love that these have all come from different places. The low volume print has been in my stash for a very long time and I find it satisfying how perfect it works here as the background. I also got to break out my little mushroom templates for some iron on appliqué! How cute is that? The HSTs in the patchwork are the leftovers from making the flying geese, so it was technically a "no waste" technique even though I just made them the traditional way, not four-at-a-time, to get the fabrics facing the way I wanted. 

  

We took a slight detour to a version that had a different border on it, but decided it was taking too much away from the actual piecing in the middle. It would have looked fine, but I much prefer the print background fabric as the border. Not sure yet how I will finish it, so it's still hanging up on the design wall, but this was a fun afternoon of stitching today. 

See, look, it turned out just like the sketch! 

something simple

Feeling festive and restive (see what I did there?), I started this around July 4 while my Agave was on the blocking boards. This will be a Blue Sky Fibers design called the Afton Shrug and boy is it easy. 

I bought the yarn on a recent LYS trip to get something entirely different - isn't that always how it goes? It looked like a simple project, and it is not disappointing in that department. It's just garter stitch for days, which means I don't have to think hard and can have conversations and easily pick up/put down as I move through the days over the next couple weeks with company over. 

Don't get me wrong, the Agave has been very fun too but this is like candy. The fabric is squishy, the color is great, and the progress is fast. As of this typing (but not that photo) I am already halfway through. 

some assembly required

That was fast! Just a few weeks of knitting and I'm already done with the front and back pieces. I blocked to measurements suggested in the pattern, and it's looking kind of odd at this point but I'm not worried about trusting the process. It is a delightfully drapey fabric so far, and I'm looking forward to popping it on sometime later this summer. 

Now that it's dried a bit I seamed it up and I'm on to knitting the sleeves. Sad that I thought I was done with flat knitting but the sleeves are also knitted flat. It's going to look so cool when it's done, or so I keep telling myself... wish me good purling. 

plant parents of the world unite

Wow, I finished the stitching on this just after Valentine's Day and I finally got it in a hoop! Goodness that's a lot of procrastination. This lovely thing is a design out of a library book called "Self Care Cross Stitch" and it made me giggle. I did not completely adhere to the called-for colors since I have a pretty decent stash of colors that were rather close. 

The time between last stitch and today was spent fretting about the "right" way to soak and block it (answer: just like my knitting, no big deal) and then having it be a bit wrinkly on the ironing board for literally weeks before I finally got some water in the iron for steam to smooth things out. It looks great now. The purple hoop is pretty awesome for it - a yard sale find - and I am looking forward to finding a fun spot on my wall for it to sass people as they pass.