It's WOOFA Time!

Linking up with Cheryll for WOOFA.  A few UFOs were binned, craft books I don't use were donated and a tub of craft "stuff" was sorted.  I had intended to sort one tub a day, but it's more likely to be one a week.  There's no time limit.

My dpn collection is tidy now, too.  Sixteen pouches was a bit of a chore, but worth it.

All the non-interchangable circular needles have a new home.   Much easier than rummaging.

In Harmony had about four hundred stitches put in it.  

The Flowers Grew was stitched at every opportunity.  Not going to jinx myself by saying it will be an FFO by the end of the week.  Here's hoping it will be.

1632 had a little attention.  

Fifth time is a charm for this cowl.  It's being knitted in twisted rib and it's my final stitch choice.....maybe! lol

I began to question whether making another 15 dpn pouches was a good idea or not when I  made the others last night.  I was so sick of them by the end, I just shoved the needles in and put them away.  On the bright side, they are finished and the needles are not laid out on the mud room bench.   

I have a lovely collection of cross stitch patterns and enjoy stitching from stash.  The exception is when I run out of floss for a project (I'm a DMC gal).  There's no trip planned to the Big Smoke over the next few weeks, so when I realized I had run out of 5 colors for In Harmony that can't be substituted.  

The only practical solution was to order online.  The postage was more than the floss and you know any supplies we order can't travel alone, so to make it worthwhile, I ordered a couple of patterns, too.  

This one looks like an easy stitch, so may be part of a spring display (not saying which year!)

I have a basket of cross stitch pillows which I put out each July.  This one will make a nice addition.  

I have 16 sets of double pointed needles which have been stored in toothbrush holders or the original packets.  Neither has been particularly satisfactory.  

I made a "test" pouch using stash  fabric (any excuse to fondle stash fabric lol), as I want them to be matching and wrote the metric size with frixion pen.  Which is a good thing, as I only wrote the metric size....again.  it's  an easy fix.  Just wet it and it disappears.

I think it's going to work.  The rest are ready to be pinned and sewn, so they're well on their way.  Velcro dots under the flaps and sizes written on the front will finish them off.  I just have to remember to write both metric and US sizes!

This project has been on my to do list for a very long time.  The fabric were out of the scrap box, which didn't put a dent in it at all.  lol

Each slot has the needle size written on it using a Frixion pen.  I'm glad I did that, because it's written in centimeters and I need to add US sizing, so I don't need to look up the conversion.  Just grab and go!

Of course, I had to test it out to see how easy it was to find needles. 😉  I dived deep into a yarn tub and pulled out a bag with four cakes of Jawoll Magic.  Purple is my favorite color and I didn't have a hat cast on, so it was an easy choice.  The needles were found at a glance, instead of flipping through packets looking for the right size and length. The yarn was already caked up, which gave me the illusion of being super organized.  Next organizing project is double pointed needle cases.

I dug out the fq bundle of William Morris fabrics for the Theoretical Quilt.

The pics don't show the colors all that well.  The fabrics on the left are gorgeous blues.

The fabrics were all petted, then put back in the tub until it's time to press and cut.

I'm thinking of cutting the coins 18in × 6in to get the most out of the designs.  Meanwhile, the hunt is on for a suitable William Morris fabric for the background.

There's about 3 400 to go on In Harmony, so The Rain Fell is a simple project to stitch on for a few hours at a time for a bit of a break from 16 count  dark blue.  I won't say it's a simple stitch, as I can't count to 19.  The dress has an extra stitch, so a bit of picking and reverse stitching is in order.  

I ran out of yarn on my practice crochet piece.  It's wobbly, but I can see how much my hooking has improved.  On to the Crobot, which has increases and decreases.  

DH turns 60 in late December.  Today I'll start planning the coin quilt I'm going to make for him.  

Crobots by Nelly Pailloux has been floating around in my stash since it came out in 2009.   Time to crack it open and start making some.

This pic is from the book and the first project.  It's called Dogbot.  I'd like to build my skills with different stitches.

I was gifted a couple of these a while ago and I think it's a close enough match for Jenny, our blue heeler, so that will be the first one I will make.

If make the ears a round or two longer, sew them on so they're pointed downwards, make an i-cord tail and fray the end a little, add a blue collar, it'll be 

a crochet version of Bailey.

I asked Jenny what she thought and as you can see, she's totally unimpressed. lol

DH and I forged a meat flipper yesterday from the top of a garden stake. We're both really happy with it.  DH is looking forward to testing it out in the summer.

We'll make a ring and hook for it sometime, too.

This mini hangs on the pantry door during February.  The red fabric is fossil fern.  It's my all time favorite fabric and there's always some of it in my stash.

We needed a walking chisel, so decided to make one.  It needed to be made of harden steel.  This car spring was perfect for what we wanted.

I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to sparks flying when DH is cutting metal and I usually take off to a safe spot (the other end of the basement lol). Not this time!  I had to hold one end of the spring, so DH could cut a piece from the other.  It was a very long 30 seconds or so, as the sparks were flying higher and wider than in this photo.  

In this pic, DH was cutting a piece of steel for one of the key fobs below.

This is the chisel and it works great!

We were mucking about with the chisel and tried a pineapple twist.  We like the twist, but doesn't suit a key fob, as for the pattern to really show, the piece of metal needs to be longer.

We also tried an alligator twist.  As above, it needs to be worked on a longer piece of metal and it needs to be thicker, too, to make the pattern show.

Bad choice:  not cutting off joining knot in yarn and weaving in ends.

Good choice: put in a lifeline and rip back past where the knot came undone.

Good choice:   choice to tink (undo knitting one stitch at a time) back past a lumpy hole.  

Good choice:  Pull the project off the needles to start again.

Good choice:  Drop the lot in the bin after the project was ripped, as the twist constantly unravelled itself as it was being rewound.

Best choice:  Put the knitting needles away and practice crochet.

Ripping and unpicking seems to be the the current theme!  lol. The dress has been unpicked and redone a few times.  The first couple of color choices just blended into the background.  One of them was in silk, too and just looked peculiar.  It was a variegated color, so I decided to have a go at stitching diagonally, just for something different.  I didn't enjoy that, so it's back to stitching half stitches across a row and back again.  Purple is my favorite color, so I'm happy there was one in my stash that looks good on the background.

Making progress on In Harmony.  I stitch on this at the kitchen table, using an OTT light overhead, so I can see the holes.  The hoops is an oldie, but is great for two handed stitching.

Knitted dishcloths in the kitchen are getting low, so it's time to make some more.  I've made a ton using Grandmother's Favorite pattern and am tired of using it.  It turned into the knitter's version of Goldilocks!  lol.  For the first one, I cast on 50 stitches.  That was too big!  That one was ripped back and 25 stitches were cast on.  That one's too small!  It was finished anyway.  The third one has thirty stitches, which is just right! lol

Magnus Mouse (an Arne and Carlos design) has the beginning of a head.  It's being knit in dk,  as I'm still practicing knitted dolls.  I find it a bit easier than fingering weight.... which is my goal, eventually.

Still making progress on the cardigan.  It's up to the shoulder on the left front.  No price today, as it's just a big grey curled up blob, being stocking stitch. lol

This rabbit is a other Arne and Carlos design, which I knit last year.  I knitted her a little dress, rather than a jumper and trousers.  The flowers on the bottom of her dress were crocheted.  That took 3 crochet books (I had to look up everything and they all had different info lol) and patience, but I'm happy with it, as it was the first serious attempt at crochet.

• I'm still plugging away at practicing crochet.  I've been going back and forth in dc.  The tension is wobbly and I've managed to decrease the stitches by half, that's what I get for not counting.  The hook is larger than recommended, as it's the only way I could see the stitches at first.   I'm getting there, slowly, which is fine. 😊

Friday morning we made a necklace with a piece of quarter inch square stock.  We used the same technique as the key fob in my last post.  The design needs a bit of tweaking, but it's well on the way.  

My quilting mojo has flown out the window.  Hopefully, it will be back soon.   There has been some progress on the wolf cross stitch.  A few hundred stitches in, with about 3, 000 to go!  

On the knitting front, there's been a lot of casting on, then ripping back, as I look for the right pattern.  Last night I cast on some Mad Tosh fingering weight on AU size 5 1/2 needles in linen stitch for a scarf.  That looked odd, so needs to be ripped back.  A hat in some Ella Rae acrylic/alpaca blend was cast on, too, but it needs a smaller needle.  I did see that it's very fuzzy, so will be knit plain.  I thought about taking pics post-ripping.  Progress pics are on the way.....maybe! lol

2/7/20

Yesterday we started with an 18 inch long piece of steel, which is 1/2 inch square.

We made it into a key fob.  

This mini was hung up yesterday.  It's the second quilt I made and is over 20 years old.  The fabric is fossil fern, which is still my favorite fabric line.  I had no idea at the time that I was on my way down the quilting rabbit hole!

The hearts and stars were appliqued by hand in buttonhole stitch.  My love of fusible webbing was born!

The backing fabric is a Debbie Mumm design.  There's still some of her other lines from back then in my stash.  One of the great things about fabric is, it doesn't go off!