Heart In The Garden by Ewe & Eye & Friends has had a piece of 14 coint aida sitting ready to be stitched on since Hekate was a girl....or at least since 2002, when it was released.

Since it is Startitus Sunday, I did a floss toss and chose these colors.  They are more muted than in the pic, but you get the idea.

  

We have three eastern redbuds in flower just now, which was my inspiration for the color of the flowers.

This morning I woke up thinking about knitting.  

This is Magnus Mouse.  He's one of Arne and Carlos' creations.  He needs a snout, ears, tail, eyes, jumper and pants.  

This is a scarf made with some Miss Babs fingering weight merino.  The twist on it is tight, which I really like for lace knitting.  The pattern is Old Shale.  The plan is to keep knitting pattern repeats until the yarn runs out, then give it a bath and block it.  Knitting lace is magical.  When it's on the needles, it looks scrunched up, then after it's has a bath and blocked, it turns into something beautiful.  The colors are dark, with no pink!  

There's always a sock on the needles.  This is Dragonfly Fibers Djinni.  It's merino, cashmere and whatever they add to sock yarn to make it stronger!  It's my favorite sock yarn and feels like I'm walking on clouds.

It's knit cuff down, with a 2 x 2 rib, which is measured on my middle finger (technical, I know), about 8 inches of stocking stitch for the leg, (eye of partridge pattern) heel flap and gusset, then on to the heel, foot and toe, which is kitchener stitched closed.  It's perfect to show off the variegated yarn.  

I can't remember knitting this.  It must have been the knitting fairies.  I found it in a random knitting bag.  It's a front for my cardigan.  It's going to be frogged, as there are already two fronts and half a sleeve.  The yarn is Berocco Vintage.  It's an acrylic and wool blend.  It's soft and the drape is lovely.  

There's a ton of different colors and I'll be using it again to knit more cardigans and jumpers.  I chose grey for this one, as I wanted a color that would go with anything.

There's a ton of different hash tags on social media for cross stitch.  Here's mine, just for fun and those times when I'm stuck and don't really know what I want to stitch.

Startitus Sunday - new starts.  There could be 52 new starts a year!

Motif and Monogram Monday - any motifs or letters.  All those naked altoid tins need some love.

Time Capsule Tuesday - old WIPs or patterns.  This covers most of my stash and WIPS.

Washington Wednesday - patriotic.  I have a basket of patriotic smalls.  One or two are added each year.

Thralling Thursday - must stitch.  Covers everything.

Freaky Friday - Halloween.  There's always somerhing Halloween in the WIP pile.

Seasonal Saturday.  Spring - bunnies/Easter.  Summer - home and garden.  Fall - pumpkins and Halloween.  Winter - snowmen and Christmas.

Beginning to think "this isn't the right color" is an actual color!

Thursday

Some stitching, more knitting.  Enjoying this one immensely!

Trick Or Treat by La-D-Da has sat in the WIP pile for 5 months.  It's been calling to me for over a week.  I had to give in.   I added about 15 stitches to the boot last night and the letters today.

It's from the 2008 Halloween edition of Just Crossstitch.  The fabric is 25 count hardanger from stash and is the perfect Halloween green.  You will just have to imagine that!  lol

These CDs are my go to for Christmas and Halloween ornaments.  The Christmas one is just ornaments.  The Halloween CD also has fall projects.  Smell My Feet is from the Halloween CD.

This is one that mysteriously appeared in my stash late last year.  Something I like about samplers is being able to take a motif and not necessarily stitch the whole sampler.

Made a start on the second block.  I'm tryng not to make minuscule stitches on this one.  It's been a few years since I did any back stitching and I'm out of practice.  That's fine, as there will be plenty with these.  There's a good chance that each of the blocks will be finished as little pinnies to go in a display bowl, as I'm not really feeling it for a quilt finish.  Whatever they become, it will be cute.  

Meanwhile, Bailey contemplates future career choices.  Here, he is tossing up between a knitwear supermodel or the caterpillar from Alice In Wonderland. 

I enjoy reading history and learning about other cultures.  If quilts are thrown into the mix, I'm in heaven!  I started reading this book again today and there was something that made me smile (besides all of the above). 

 We make jokes about the Quilt Police when we "break" self-imposed quilting "rules".   During the 1700's in The Netherlands, there were quilt guilds which had strict rules about how quilts had to be made.  If guild members strayed, they could be prosecuted.  There's evidence of this in the Bruges city archives.  Be wary of following quilting "rules", or you may get a visit from the ghostly Quilt Police!  😉

Finished the first embroidery.

Found this yesterday.  It's by Shepherd's Bush from one of the Just Cross Stitch magazine Christmas editions.  I also found another 8 of their ornaments that had been started.  Doing a happy dance, as I thought they had been thrown away.

This an oviraptor egg, because of the elongated shape.  If a rabbit can deliver chocolate eggs, this can be any kind of egg I choose it to be.  lol. The shape may change a bit after a tumble in the dryer with a damp cloth, but that's pretty doubtful.  Oh, well.  On to the next one.  

Happy National Quilting/World Wide Quilting Day.  To celebrate, I've started a stitched block  from the book Simple Pleasures by Anni Downs.  I have a few of her books and the designs are always fun.  The hardest thing to do is choosing one to stitch.  

I had to start when I remembered there were some calico strips in my scrap bags that were about 3 1/2 inches wide.  The design was stitched with a frixion pen using a light box.  I like these pens for tracing, as there's very little drag and it's easy to erase if i make a mistake.

This pic is from the book.  I like the layout, so will probably finish it in a similar way.  There's only 12 pieces to stitch, which means it will be finished and ready to hang in the summer.  (Not saying which summer lol)

Crescent Angel and I are not on speaking terms at the moment.  It only has two colors and I managed to stitch half of last night with the wrong one.  It was frogged and restitched last night.  It was tempting to put it back in the WIP pile and replace it with Miss Mary Mack.  I'll get back to it again tonight.

Do you listen to audio books or podcasts?  I recently discovered the app Stitcher.  It has all kinds of interesting things to listen to.  LeVar Burton Reads is one I started listening to this morning.  He reads short stories and it's been running since 2017.  His voice is easy on the ear and the stories he reads sound like they could be interesting.  It felt a bit odd listening to him for the first few minutes, as the only other thing I knew about him, was that he played Geordie in Star Trek: Next Generation, which I listen to when on the sewing machine.  It's one of my favorite TV series and I've watched it so many times that I don't need to look at the TV screen to follow it.  lol

I also have Audible and am listening to Dune by Frank Herbert.  I often finish books before the month is up, but not this one.  I first read it in the 80's and read the series every couple of years or so since then.  The Audible version has a great narrator.  There's background music and some parts of it are read by other actors, which makes it interesting to listen to.

   

I dug out Crescent Angel from the Halloween WIP bag last night.  I'm in the mood for finishing and this one won't take that long, if I don't get distracted by anything else!

It's being stitched on 14 count grey Aida from my stash with DMC.  It's a simple pattern, so I decided to do all half stitches following the pattern, then just zoom back.  Apart from the crescent moon.  That will be stitched row by row. All the half stitches were completed last night and this morning.  I woke up about 5am, so an early stitching session was in order.

Knitting one of Arne and Carlos' Easter eggs.  They're fun to knit and fairly quick, too.  The colored yarn is sock leftovers.

These are a few more Easter eggs I knit last year.  All the colors were dyed with Kool-aid.  I'd like to knit about 20 altogether, as there's a metal tree in the Pit Of Doom (basement) which will be perfect for hanging the eggs.

There going to be more knitting and cross stitch in the near future, as it's uncomfortable sitting at the sewing machine due to shin splints.  I overdid it exercisung a couple of weeks ago.  Lesson learned!  I will be preparing a couple or twenty appliqué quilts.  That way I'll get my fabric petting fix!

Woo-hoo!  The stitching is finished.  Next is interfacing, batting, hanging sleeve and binding.  

Back to stitching  In Harmony.  

One of the problems with ordering floss online is mismatched colors.  I wasn't going to travel an hour each way for 3 skeins of floss.  None of them match particularly well.  Checkerboarding the old and new floss, graduating towards the new, will help.  Besides, if you don't tell anyone, I won't! 😉  

Still happily knitting away on the Jo Sharpe fitted cardigan.  There was a few hours bonus knitting time today, so a decent chunk of the left front was completed.  

I lost the battle to startitus hit last night.  (I wasn't fighting back lol)  A small project seemed to be the way to go.  I rummaged in my yarn stash (I nearly always pick the yarn first and then either pick a pattern or make something up.)  where I found a few small balls of leftover sock yarn.  They are all stripes or variegated, so one of Arne and Carlos' Easter eggs from their book Easter Knits was just the ticket.  

This is how far I knit before falling asleep.  The 2mm needles are from Hobby Lobby and seem to be working.  I prefer metal needles to wooden when they are this thin.  I have to admit I groaned a bit at the thought of digging through and finding a suitable size.  It was a pleasant surprise to find them all bagged up in the pouches I'd made recently....which I had buried the memory of making forgotten about.  It felt like a chore at the time, but I'm so glad I stuck with it.

Cooking and baking are a lot of fun.  This is the second time I've made these no bake granola bars.  I tweaked the recipe a little, adding dried fruit, seeds and nuts from the pantry and some white chocolate drops. They're delicious!

When they were made, I was still in a cooking mood, so raided the spice cupboard and made a batch of Chaat Masala.  It was added to a can each of tomatoes, black eyed peas, coconut milk and a fried onion.  Until it all rendered down and the flavors melded, it tasted pretty awful.  I wasn't using a recipe, but in the end, it turned out really tasty!  It was super quick and easy to make.  Next time, I'm going to make it in the instapot and add the coconut milk after it's cooked, just in case it curdles or sticks and triggersthe burn message.  That way, it will be even easier to make, as I won't have to remember to stir the pot to stop it sticking.  (I'm putting this here, in case I forget what I've done!)

The stitching on The Rain Fell is almost finished. It is a fun stitch and I enjoyed changing the colors.  The pins help me not lose count when finding the middle to add the two borders.  I'll start in the middle and work my way out....after removing the pins. lol. I usually use the tiny quilt pins, but since I'm in the middle of tidying up The Den Of Inequity, they're nowhere to be found....at least not on my sewing table.

The knitted cowl is back in the yarn box.  After weighing the yarn, I worked out that there wasn't enough yarn to make a cowl that would be a tight fit.  I don't like things that are tight around my neck, so it will become "something else"....some day. lol

This is Bloom from the book Garden Song by Art To Heart.  I'm in the mood for a new start, but nothing large. This will be a pillow.  A dig through the stash is in order, as I'm pretty sure I have some fabric in spring colors!

This stitching hangs in the mud room/laundry.  It's cross stitched on a high count fabric.. I lost count after 40 stitches a few times, then gave up, as it's difficult to see the individual threads.  It was stitched by DH's mum or grandma.  He's not sure which.  It's getting some age spots on it, although we're clueless as to how many years old it actually is.  Very old will just have to do! 😉

We were overdue for new phones, so took a trip to the Kind Of Big Smoke yesterday.  DH suggested I get the one with a good camera.  He said "think about the great pictures you will be able to get for your blog."  That was all it took.  

It has a 100x zoom, which I had to have a play with yesterday.  We have squirrels in the yard.  In the winter, we can see their dreys.  Since they're 20+ feet up in the air, it's hard to see details.  Until yesterday, when I took this pic from across the yard.  I think I'm going to have fun with the camera phone.  Remember when a phone was just that?  lol

Spring is on the way.  The yard is full of violets in different shades of purple.  The zoom on the camera is awesome.  This pic was snapped at waist height.  I was thinking of these when I chose purple for the flowers in The Rain Fell.

Sorting and tidying The Den Of Inequity continues.  Crates with tools etc.  have been gone through.....ruthlessly.  Things I'm never going to use have either been tossed or are bagged up for donation.  Refolding fabric is next.   Then back to the other boxes to rearrange and label them.    

A few minutes here and there has really added up and I feel like I'm on the home stretch.  There wasn't enough green to stitch the vines all the way across, so I made a design modification.  It just needed something to fill in the gap.

There’s no pics for the rest of  this post.   One front on Jo Sharp’s fitted cardigan is finished.   It was knit flat and is curled up into a tube, as it is stocking stitch.  I’m sure you can imagine what it looks like….a long, grey knitted tube.  It’s sibling Is on the way.  It would have been an almost finished cardigan if I had not:

A.  Knit two of the same front 
B.   Forgot I had ripped back the second (wrong)  front and frogged the BACK, thinking it was the offending front, which meant I was back at square one…..yarn balled up and ready to start the cardigan….again!

Lesson learned (maybe)….label finished pieces and check before frogging!  Lol  I’m not bothered about it, just putting it down to experience.

The twisted rib scarf is coming along slowly, which is fine, as it is a car knitting project.  Sometimes it’s enough just to have needles and a project in my hands.

Little Genius received some love today.  It’s been sitting in the wip box for a few months and it’s become my quilt group project, where I need something easy to sew in between chatting.  It was the first time I’ve been to this group and it was great fun.  Looking forward to going to the next meeting.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Managed to squeeze in a few hours stitching this weekend.  This project is an easy one to pick up for a few minutes at a time.  Perfect for the busy week ahead.