No Coal!

 

BEB feels like she is on a roll.  This is the 2nd year I bought a Lion Brand Santa Sack and it was full of yarn....not coal.  lol

(The pic is Lion Brand's)

It's a grab bag for $20.  There's 3 balls of 3 different yarns.  This one is super bulky. 😲  It's the first time I've used this weight yarn.

I made a cowl on 9mm/US 15 needles.  The pattern is mistake rib (just cast on an odd number of stitches and just  knit 2x2  rib, plus the extra stitch in pattern.

It stands up by itself!  That's perfect, as I intend to wear it pulled up over my face if it ever gets cold this winter when I take Bailey out.

It was knit flat for 24 inches and then joined with double crochet.  I like the design element (a real one, not fudging a mistake haha) with the dc.  It knit up super fast being so thick.  

This is Sunset Shawlette by Universal Yarns (their pic).  I think it will look lovely in.....

.....Mandala Watercolors (Icy Grape colorway).  It's 75% acrylic, 15% wool and 10% nylon.  I'll knit just under 1 1/2 balls for the increases, then start on the decreases.  The recommended needles size is 6.5mm/10.5 US.  

It's being started today, as in 2022, I'll be going to knitting WIPs only for a while.  I'll 

let you know more about that in my next post.

Better Late Than Never!

 

Jim Shaw snow people and the cart Grey made.  It gets decorated every season.

A couple more Jim Shaw snow people, ornaments which were inhereted by Grey, a stained glass angel Grey made.  I just realized I haven't decorated the grape vine wreath.  Oops!

Shepherd's Bush cross stitch pillows.

Reindeer Grey inherited.  These were made by his dad 

More cross stitch and what I imagine Rudolph looks like the day after Christmas....plus I only half followed the instructions.  

More inherited ornaments made by Grey's dad.

It's a mystery why some of the snowmen are pink.  IMHO there's never enough Snowmen, so I'll be stitching more.

Christmas sheep are fun.

This staandup looked better in my head.  lol

More cross stitch.  Cardinals are one of my favorite birds, so more cardinal stitching is in order!

The top right cross stitch bird is an emu...an Australian flightless bird.  When I lived in Ravensthorpe, one of them was a regular front yard visitor.

There's four more ornaments to be finished and I have no idea where I'll put them, but I'll find somewhere!

The stitched ornaments all come from Just Cross Stitch magazines.  They're fun to stitch.  2022 will be a Santa stitching year.  The patterns are picked out already.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas Day yesterday.  I think I slept through most of it.  lol

Merry Christmas!

 

Christmas 3

 

The tree sits between the hallway and The Pit of Doom. 

 It has Arne and Carlos Christmas Balls on each side.  There's 64.

The house is long and narrow, which makes finding a place we won't fight with the tree every time we walk past a bit difficult.  The only drawback is, every time we walk into the hall, we get startled, as just for a second it looks like someone or something sinister is looming.  lol

 

They've been knit with everything from fingering weight to bulky.  The small size is my favorite.

Christmas 2

 Jim Shaw cats.

Christmas 1

 Christmas past.

 

Grey's latest creation is a silver, copper and brass pendant.  I polished it by hand to a mirror finish.  That shows in the reflections on all 3 pieces.  Grey's really pleased with it.  As he should be.

 

This is the first quilt I'll be making from Kim Delhi's Whatnots 2 book.  I kept changing my mind during the week about the fabric.  Sometime in the next couple of days, I'll dye some homespun.  The background will be dyed red.  The small tongue, blue.  The large one will be plain homespun.  That will give me until July to get it finished.  The outside lozenges will be blue and plain homespun.  The background will be red.

The Little Quilts book arrived yesterday.  This is the first quilt I'll be making from that book.  As soon as I saw it, I knew the fabric I want to use.

I'm horribly out of practice at hand appliqué, so both quilts will be perfect for that.  This will be a spring wall hanging.

Painted the box with white acrylic paint and attached the cross stitch.  I used Sarah Fielke's tutorial as a guide.  It's for quilt fabric, not aida but still worked.  

 

Round Robin by Brenda Keyes is well on the way to being finished.  One more side to go, then on to the borders for making it a biscornu.  It will be a winter ornament, since it's English robins.  It went into time out for a day or two later night after making the same mistake a few times.

Stitching on Snow White by Little House Needleworks instead.

Most of the cross stitch WIPs are small and only need a few days of stitching to finish.  Christmas Row is up next to be FFOed.  I'm thinking about painting a piece of wood, sttetching the cross stitch around some foam core board and mounting it.  It's not something I want to frame or make into a pillow.

More happy mail arrived yesterday.  The previous Clover needle threader wore out and I don't want to deal with small eyes and fuzzy cotton ends.

The knitting needle gague has metric, which most of my needles are.  There's a couple more needle sizes than US.  The ruler will come in handy with the red line for measuring gague swatches, too.

The stitching on Christmas Row by Bent Creek is finished.   Seems I need a measuring lesson.  I cut the fabric too short width wise, so left off the birds.  It's a design element. lol

On the way to being finished.  One piece of batting on the cardboard circle looks a bit flat.  I'll add another one and see how it looks.  It doesn't need to be super floofy, just not flat.  The side of the box and lid will be painted white.  Then see if there's any suitable ribbon in the finishing box to go around the box.

We went to Light Up Night at the Arts Council last night.  The lighting on this is all wrong!  lol  It was happening to everyone.  Glad it wasn't just me.  Part of the property the Arts Council is on was a blanket factory.  The quilt inegrass the background was made with sateen(?) that goes around the edges of blankets.  It's red and green with beautiful hand quilting.  

Always love seeing the Red Hots.  They play toe tapping bluegrass.  Our friend Joe is 2nd from the left.  

There's all kind of treasures from the blanket factory around the Arts Council.

I always think of Rumplestiltskin when I see this spinning wheel.

Gotta support local businesses, right?

They were delicious as well as cute.  Had a great time.

I was waiting for the iron to warm up yesterday and made a tiny start on a new scrap quilt.  

When the mail arrived today, there was a package that felt like a book.  I'd not been expecting it for a couple of weeks.  I ordered it from Biblio.com.  It's second hand, but it looks like it has never been opened.  I will be changing that soon. 😁

Wash, rinse, repeat....this one will be coming from Biblio.com soon.

I'm posting on the run, so this is a rubbish photo.  lol. I'm still in the mood for stitching WIPs.  This one will be finished soon.

I was pinned down by Bailey.  He had a case of FOMO when Corny was draped over my opposite shoulder the other night.