Winter's Eve Day 4

Here's the latest picture of my Winter's Eve, the weekly SAL with Nicki. I'm still on part 1 and this week I started working on the specialty stitches. I've got quite a bunch of the white berries still to do and I think I might also bead as I go, so there's still some work to do before I can move on to part 2.

A little and a lot

All my current projects seem to take a long time to show any progress, so I thought I'd share with you today some little things I've done lately but not yet shown.


Well, this first thing isn't something I've done, but I thought some of you might want to see a better picture of the beautiful humbug Nicki gave me.


For Valentine's Day I finished this and made it into a card for my DH. The design is from the very first issue of The Gift of Stitching magazine and is designed by Marie-Chantal Lord.


I also did these small stuffed hearts for Valentine's Day. I made them the weekend before and placed them in the bowl and then put the bowl back into the cupboard and promptly forgot it there. I only noticed them a few days after Valentine's Day... We've been enjoying them for a while now, but I just put them away for next year (or actually, these would make nice Anniversary decorations as well!).

Now I'm working on Mystery X, knitting the leg warmers (almost done) and the lace scarf and today I will stitch on Winter's Eve. I had to skip the Christmas Ornament SAL this past weekend as I wasn't home for most of it. Oh, and I've also started a little decoration project in the hallway. Here's a little peak:

Another surprise

Just yesterday I wrote about the wonderful gift I got from Christine and today I got another lovely surprise in the mail! Nicki sent me humbug that she had made (look how beautiful it is!) and two lovely magazines. An Australian knitting magazine and a decorating magazine from New Zealand! Thank you so much, Nicki!

Winter's Eve, Day 3

Thanks for all the comments on Sampler II!

Here's a photo of my progress on Winter's Eve. The SAL (with Nicki) was on Monday, but I've only now managed to get a picture of it.



I received a wonderful surprise gift on my birthday from Christine (who is having her birthday this Friday!). She gave me a gift certificate to Silkweaver's. I've been trying to choose what project I'll start next and at the moment I think it is My Lady's Garden from Mirabilia. There are so many wonderful fabrics available that choosings is going to be very difficult. Needless to say, I've already spent some time playing around on the Fabric Viewer :)

Tadaa!

First I want to thank you all for the birthday wishes! I did have a fantastic day! We started watching North and South in the evening and finished it on Sunday. I had seen it before on TV, but it was even better than I remembered, so I would definitely recommend it :)
***


If I knew how to add a fanfare here, I would, because...


... I have finished Sampler Mystery II! I put the last stitch on it on Sunday evening.


The design, of course, is by Martina Weber. I used the recommended threads (Dinky Dies and Thread Gatherer) but went with the cotton option instead of silk. I've left out some back stitching and some beads here and there. I also had a crystal heart in my kit, but don't even know where it is supposed to go. I'm sure the information is there somewhere in the instructions, but I will leave it now nevertheless.

A Year Older Today

Happy Birthday to me!! :)


I'm having a nice, quiet day (no parties) with lots of cake and other treats to eat (DH brought home a large plastic bag full of things, but I'm not allowed to peak). The jelly roll "cake" that I made again contains raspberries (I like them too, Christine!) :)


I got some great DVDs as a present from DH and I think I'll start watching them this evening.

Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day yesterday! Here in Finland it has traditionally been celebrated as a Friendship Day, but lately (and increasingly) it is also celebrated in the true sense of Valentine's Day, as the day of celebrating love. I, never a one to miss a reason to celebrate, chose to do both :) I made and send cards to my friends and then cooked a feast for my dear husband. I thought this was a great opportunity to practice photographing food, so I'll share it with you in pictures :)

Ravioli to soup to start with...


A turkey roll for the main course...


...with tomata and mozzarella salad...


And raspberry pavlovas for dessert...


These were really really good, by the way (recipe in the February Martha Stewart Living)!

SAL 2

Here's the after SAL picture:



I feel like I got nothing done... Oh, well. There's always next week :)

Last week, after the SAL I didn't put Sampler II back on, but instead chose to do Mystery X (as I know have some of the threads). Here's my progress on both part 1 and part 2:



Now, it's definitely back to Sampler II and I hope I'll have a finish to show you by the end of the week!

The problems with the scarf

So, the lace scarf I'm making is Trellis from last spring's Interweave Knits. It has a stitch where you knit 7 stitches together, do a yarn over, knit the same seven stitches again, yarn over and knit the 7 stitches one more time. Thus turning seven stitches into five. It looks like this:



Beautiful, right? Well, it's a pain-in-the-&¤# to do! It took me minutes each time to do it, I was cursing and generally just not enjoying myself. And when, once while trying to pull the yarn through, it broke (!!), I had had enough. If I was going to finish this scarf, I would have to find an alternative. So, how do I get seven stitches into one? Well, how about if I slip one stitch, knit four and then knit two together and then pass the slipped stitch over these?



No. Doesn't look that good does it? So how about I just knit two together knit three and knit two together again.



Simple, yes. But pretty? No. This pattern clearly needs the "pull-it-together" effect the original stitch type provided. So, I try one more thing, before giving up. Slip two stitches knitwise, knit five and pass both slipped stitches over them. Seven into five.



And it works! It looks (relatively) pretty and it has enough of that "pulling-together" power for the pattern as a whole to work. I'm so happy and so relieved. I can knit on this scarf without swearing, or being afraid of breaking the yarn :)

I'm the laziest knitter in the world. I rarely frog. And so it is with this scarf. All the mistakes, all the try-outs are still there (gasp!). Even the part where the yarn broke off and I tied the ends to a knot and several stitches dropped down (double gasp!). All of it. Maybe they'll be visible to others when it's done and I'm wearing it, maybe they won't. I don't care. It'll be mine and it'll be something I've conquered and remind me of the things I've learned :)

Winter's Eve Day 1

Here's my start on Winter's Eve. It seems like it'll be lots of fun to stitch :)

Nicki had already started hers prior to our SAL. She's over half-way done. After this we're doing Mystery VIII (Evening in the Park) and I'm further along on that, so hopefully I'll be able to finish this while she catches up on that :) We chose these two projects because we both had all the materials for them already. It's nice to be able to work from your stash and on your (neglected) WIPs every now and then :)

Current WIPs

Yesterday's post about February goals revealed that I have some new WIPs. I started a new knitting project, one that I've been wanting to do for ever.

This will grow to be a lace scarf. And I'm soon going to give it a post all of it's own as I've had some problems with it... But it's lovely and so very delicate even in its infant stage :)


I love knitting the lace scarf, but it's a project I need to do without any distractions. That means no TV watching at the same time. After a few nights of just lace, I was craving for something simpler to knit while watching TV and movies. And so I started these leg warmers. Some time ago somewhere on the world wide web I saw a picture of pink leg warmers that started just below the knee and that had a satin ribbon bow on them. (Yes, they were from a Japanese magazine or a book.) And I've been thinking about them ever since. I don't have a pattern for these, I don't even have the picture anywhere, but I have an idea :) And this is lovely mindless knitting. Just an endless amount of knit stitches (now that the rib and the ribbon holes are done).


I'm also stitching away on Sampler II and it's so nearly done I can almost taste it!
Today, however, I'll begin a new project. A new SAL with Nicki. This time we're doing Winter's Eve by Martina Weber.

February goals

My January goals were:

Finish the dress I've started -Done!
Stitch Mystery X part 1 -Well, as much as I was able to.. I still haven't got most of the threads...
Finish stitching Sampler II part 5 -Oh yes :) Done!
Stitch the January square on an French freebie thing I found years ago -I started, but didn't finish as I wanted to keep on stitching Sampler II
Participate in the Ornament SAL -Done :)
Stitch on Strawberry Garden on Mondays -Done and finished!
Finish the cardi I'm knitting now -Done!
Finish knitting Sunrise Circle Jacket -Done!
Participate in tie one on if I like the theme -I like the theme but it was for two months, so I'll do it in Feb
Participate in Sew Retro if I like the theme -there was no theme

I did pretty well, I think :) On to the February goals:

Stitch part 1 and 2 on Mystery X
Stitch January and February squares
Finish Sampler II
Knit leg warmers
Knit a lace scarf
Do Valentine's Day cards
And stuffed hearts for decorations
Stitch on Winter's Eve on Monday (a new SAL for Nicki and me)

Links

Rowan and RYC have released lots of new pattern books and magazines today!

Rowan's Bamboo Collection and the newest magazine went straight to my wishlist as did RYC's Calssic Nature.


Isn't this bag cute? I probably won't ever make it, as I just wouldn't have any use for it, but it's so darn cute :)

Here are some of my other favourites from the new books, that I would love to knit:




And there were many more... It's great to get new patterns, but I just wish I had time to do everything I want. My "I want to knit for this spring and summer" -list is already large enough. I'll have to learn how to prioritize.