It made my day when this....

......and these came today.  I wasn't expecting them until Monday. Precaffinated, I wound one into a cake.  My inner squirrel says cast on all the socks!   If there's enough needles, I will.

Grey's working on a couple of new projects.  This was today's progress on one before BEB chased him upstairs to go to bed, as he works tonight.  The blade is .0095"!  

I almost have a new pair of fingerless mitts.  Just need to weave in ends etc.

We dropped off our stuff at the art gallery on Wednesday, then started more yesterday.  I completely forgot to take photos.  If we go again next week, I'll take some then.

 

Happy Turkey Day!

 

Apart from weaving in the ends, the 1st fingerless mitt is finished.  I'm following the pattern I wrote for the first one, to see if there's any errors or omissions.  Found one for the thumb gusset.....repeat rounds 1 - 3 five times.  I hadn't written down what those rounds were!  Glad I found it now and not in the future.  

One of next year's BAPs is learning how to knit cables.  There's a cake of yarn in stash that's earmarked for a cabled scarf.  It's my motivation to finish the WIPs by the end of the year.

Are you ready for Thursday?  I did the last minute shopping today.  All I have to do now is make the pumpkin pie on Wednesday and put the ham in the oven on Thursday.  We're having a 7 layer salad with it, so that's easy.   Plus, yeast rolls.  Grey had looked for them at the shop a few times and couldn't find them.  I said I'd make them, but found some in the freezer section today.  Yay!  I don't mind making them, but if he's happy with shop bought, I'm happy not to make them.

Just after he left work this morning, he had a phone call from one of the ladies who works on his shift, asking if he'd left yet.  She rang to let him know there was a van at a nearby shopping center giving away hams.  Of course, BEB had to ask what the catch was and had they fallen off the back of a truck.  lol  Turns out it was a radio station promotion.  I'd got one last week, so now we have the one for Christmas, too.

The local Arts and Crafts Council asked Grey and I if we'd like to put anything in the gallery for Light Up Night.  It's on the 3rd December.  We have NOTHING in stock, so we've both been working like crazy for the last few days.

We stopped doing craft shows a few years ago when Grey started working weekend nights.  The last one we did was a couple of years ago at the Arts and Crafts Council.  Grey took the night off then, as he didn't want me to do it on my own because our booth was bursting.

We thought it was on again this year, but misread the message. It's held in a drafty, huge, old converted YMCA, so I was happy to set it up, run the booth and pack it up.   Then I had a think about it and am quite happy dropping our stuff off.  I'm fully vaccinated and wear a mask, but...... 

I'm sewing some dilly bags and whateverelse I can get made (thank goodness for stash!  lol) The pic is the first one.  I changed the style, so thought a trial run was a good idea before making the rest of them production style!

That's why I restarted the fingerless mitts.  I wanted a new pair to keep my hands warm.  

The first mitt is almost finished.  I'm writing my recipe down as I go along.  I always think I'll remember it, then have to work it out again! 

1, 2m 3.,,,,,,SQUIRREL!

The jumper and cardigan (which only needs the pieces sewn together, button band and buttons) have been tossed to one side for a fingerless mitts WIP. The yarn is DK, so knits up fairly quickly.  It's dark purple and is a black hole for light, so it's not quite as dark as it looks here.

This is the ball band with all the info.  The wool is buttery soft and just glorious to knit with.  

I dug through the knitting WIPs last night and there's not as many as I thought.  The list is:

1 jumper

1 cardigan

1 sock

1 hat

1 scarf, which was a mystery project until last night when I saw someone's Venezia shawl by Joji Locatelli.  

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Some may see rags.  I see the center of string blocks.  These are tan/yellow dyed strips which in a previous life were destined for a long forgotten quilt.   They were tucked away between yardage in the neutrals tub.  In the MIDDLE of the tub where they couldn't be seen.  I'm convinced the Quilt Fairy stashed them.  There's no other logical explanation.

The first half of Christmas Row by Bent Creek is almost finished..  seems I really don't know how to count.  The fabric isn't wide enough for the whole design.  Oops!  At least there's enough for the alphabet.

This is what it would have looked like.  There's some tiny Christmas buttons in stash, so I'll do something with them on either end.  

A finished sock.  It's my favorite sock recipe by The Yarn Harlot from her book Knitting Rules.  It's knit cuff down (mistake rib) with a heel flap and gusset.   The yarn is Djinni by Dragonfly Fibers and is merino, cashmere and polymide.  The colorway is Marilyn's Lips - all shades of gorgeous deep pinks.

It's my favorite sock yarn and was discontinued when the company changed hands.  There is one more hank in stash.  I could be sad about that (BEB says don't be a wimp) but I'm not, as I've had so much enjoyment out of knitting with the yarn and wearing the socks.  There's a few pairs, so I'll be wearing them for at least the next few years.

The second sock has been cast on.  It's going to be put on hold while I knit on the jumper again.   

Squirrel was this year's word of the year.  It was. In practice mode this year and will go into the consolidation phase for 2022. 😆

2022's word of the year is an acronym.... BAPs, which stands for Big Arse Projects.   It's open to interpretation.

The rest of the year will be finishing the small projects that are floating around.   There's enough variety to stop BEB getting bored.

 

This is the 7th (and final) cross stitch piece from the pile I posted about 13 days ago.  Six are finished.  I'm pretty chuffed! 😁

The cross stitch is being stitched down with #5 DMC perle cotton.  It just glides through the layers.  The background fabric is part of a piece I dyed a couple of blog posts ago. That will be echo quilted and most of the leftover fabric will be used to make the binding.

The cross stitch piece is stuck down with fusible webbing.  I had to get out my trusty left handed embroidery book, as I'd forgotten how to do blanket stitch.  I hadn't done any since getting that book and like any other stitch I've converted from right to left handed, it just flows.  Which makes perfect sense, as doing it right handed is the wrong way for me.

I need to go back through my blog, as I think the only FFO I blogged about was the needlecase.....until now.  Miss Mary Mack is a mini wall hanging.  The center is quilted in the ditch.  I sewed the hanger onto to back before the buttons, so just sewed those through the top layer of fabric, as I didn't want to unpick the sleeve and sew it back on again.

A random pic of Bailey I took the other night.  It had just gine dark, so he thought it was time to go to bed.  lol  

Aphrodite, who was previously known as Ares, peeking out of a log.  All three geckos were babies when we got them, so I just chose names which I thought suited them.  Heracles was the only one whose name I got right.  I chose his name, as he is the smallest.  When we realized Athena is a male, I changed his name to Hades and he has his own enclosure.  Grey calls him Big Head.  Apparently, having a big head is a desirable trait in crested geckos.

Corny was just starting to shed in this photo, so he looks quite dull.  Out of all five scaly babies, he's my favorite.  He's 4 feet 7 inches long and like all corn snakes, is wriggly!  

Time to start on Christmas/winter sewing.  Pulled these fabrics.  

Thinking about making something from one of these books.  There's a few cute elf and angel patterns in there, so they may be what I sew.  I need to sit down with a cup of tea and the books to decide.

Almost halfway through Snow White by Little House Needleworks.  It's on 14 count sparkly aida, stitched in Hunters Green.  The original pattern is white floss on green fabric.  

A dyeing oopsie from earlier in the week..  I've named it Nasty Surprise.  It was going to be a lovely shade of purple, except the blue didn't take properly.  The pink is so dark because I kept waiting for the blue to take.  The only thing I can think of is that I may have forgotten to add the mordent.

 It will be used for something....one day!  Probably small spring flower ornaments with white floss.

It should have been a similar color to this!  

This is the floss that was dyed at the same time.  There's always mottling on floss, so I'm happy with this color.

There's a bit of startitus happening, so I thought it would be a good idea to start something small.  This is Round Robin by Brenda Keyes.  The leaves are green, not the color of dead leaves...thank you rubbish lighting!  

It's on a scrap of 14 count aida, using DMC 310, 347, 730 and 839.

This is how it's finished in the book.  Mine will be finished as a biscornu.

It's from this book.....an oldie but a goodie (1993).

Back to sewing the string quilt.  Woohoo!  It may be lap quilt size or big enough for one of the beds.  I'll just keep going until the scrap bag is empty, then trim yardage that's not straight from cutting out appliqué pieces.  Anything too small will be cranked through the Sizzix for hexies.

I've been using the Decision Roulette app to choose colors and widths to keep it random, without having to put any thought into it.  I pin until the strips are too short for that round, sew and press.  Then back to pinning.   There's a pile of  20 something that are being sewn (I know, I said I was only going to do 3 at a time, but that began to feel like a chore.  We all know what happens then.)