Tag Archives: work-in-progress

It’s the Week-End

Hello to you. How are you? Thank you for all the well wishes. ❤ You are wonderful and kind! It turns out I have a little infection which was causing my elevated temperature. My doctor prescribed an antiobiotic and I am feeling better. What a relief! My heart goes out to all those who are battling covid. It’s sure is scary.

Mid week I started writing a knitting pattern for a Little Darling’s striped ear flap hat. I am going to include a video link with the pattern that will help with certain steps such as picking up stitches for the ear flaps, the i-cord ties, changing colors for the stripes, making jogless stripes, etc.

Here is my first test piece from my messy notebook. I am writing the pattern and will knit another hat from that to make sure it is all correct. The stripes can be changed in height to the knitter’s liking. I have a page in the pattern with a shaped graph for coloring. 🙂

Yesterday, I started embroidering the above pink sweater coat. I started taking some video embroidering the bullion roses. I recorded how I start–motif placement and motif design. Still more to do with this.

Today I published a You Tube video showing how I embroidered the apples on Lucy’s blue mohair cardigan. I must say that embroidering this sweater was more ripping out than stitching–not so much the apples, but the blossoms. Sometimes those little embroidery fairies aren’t available to help me. (lol) This video is only about embroidering the apples. Future videos will show embroidering other motifs.

So, that’s been my week work-wise since Wednesday or so.

wiMy husband had a birthday this week. My daughter and I managed to find some gifts to order for hime online… and they arrived in time. Always a plus! We baked him a pumpkin cheesecake with a pecan crust–very yummy. We also did our first carry out meal since forever. I don’t even think I’ve eaten out before this this year–no lie!

Sending you happy wishes for a great weekend. ❤ What are you up to… or making? Please share if you’d like to.

The Past Couple of Weeks

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Hello! How are you? I hope you are doing well. All is well here with the days flying by at the speed of light.

I have started a couple of new ensembles for the Little Darlings–apple themed. I only have a small stash of apple fabrics, so had to pick from what I have used before, which is fine. I don’t mind using up what I have.

I am making a red sweater coat for the blue fabric and a mohair cardigan in blue (to match those cute little flowers) for the pink. I finished the red first and am glad I tried it on before sewing up the underarm seams and weaving in the ends. Look at how big it is on Alice! Is she shrinking? lol

I’ve heard this happening to knitters–your gauge changes over time. I guess mine did just that. I thought I noticed in my last two cardigans that they seemed a little roomier, but they still fit nice, so I didn’t think twice about it. It really shows up in this style though, and with this type of yarn. I first thought I’d need to find a bigger doll to wear the sweater coat, but then I thought I could save it by ripping out rows. It seems like the biggest size problem is in the length and not so much in the width. I’d think it’d be both. Anyone know why that is?

I’ll be working on these two ensembles this week and hope to have more progress to show you soon.

Other news… I received a couple of embroidery books for my birthday in July. They are both beautiful additions to my library! I love looking at floral embroidery–such beautiful hand made gems that make my heart sing.

If you need bullion stitch inspiration then “A-Z of Embroidered Motifs” is for you. It’s chock full of motifs created with this stitch. This is the stitch I use to create the roses on my cardigans. I have an album created on Flickr that contains all of my floral embroidered pieces in case you’d like to see them.

There are 28 pages dedicated to bullion roses in this book! In addition to detailed visual instructions for creating bullion stitches there are instructions for other flowers, foods, nursery motifs, animals, and Christmas motifs.

My second book is a newer book titled “Embroidered Country Gardens” by Lorna Bateman.

This book is dedicated to flower gardens using a multitude of embroidery stitches. She also includes instructions for garden gates, archways, baskets, birds, bird feeders, a birdbath, insects, gardening tools, watering can, old-fashioned lady gardener. She has a dozen projects as well as showing you how to build your own embroidered garden. If you love gardens you will find this book inspiring.

We visited the Chicago Botanic Gardens last weekend. It’s so wonderful to be able to visit again. We went once in July and again in August (last weekend). I took a ton of video on this visit and made a little movie in iMovie showcasing the sounds of water there. It’s not complete as we didn’t get to every garden, but it shows some of the water gardens and the relaxing sound found there. If I can figure out how to get it on You Tube I can share it with you. I will let you know.

Did you have a nice weekend? I hope so! It’s hard to believe it’s September! Thank you for visiting.

WordPress has changed their editor, so I apologize in advance for any weird things going on in this post. I have just now learned the bare minimum to get this post made. It’s so hard learning new things…*sigh*

First Week in August

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Happy Sunday to you from sunny, hot, and very humid northern Illinois.

I’ve kept busy this week, but not sure where it all went to, which is probably the norm for me–the weeks rush by. I had to look at my planner to see what it is that I happened to accomplish, or not accomplish this week. (I guess I did enough.) 🙂

I finished my blue ensemble for the Little Darlings. I am calling it “Summery Blue in the Garden”. Here are some photos I took of Gina modeling it. Thanks to all who helped me with my fabric choice. I think you all picked a winner!

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Another finished project this week–the second sock to complete a pair. I also started another second sock that will complete another pair. At one point I had four single socks completely knit (not much use to us). I have two complete pairs and two singles left to work on. My ‘four pairs of socks’ project is getting there. This yarn is so bright; there’s going to be some colorful feet walking around here soon.

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I also knit a shrug and beret for my next Little Darlings ensemble. The beret is knit from my beret pattern. The shrug (sorry, no pattern) is knit in a simple lace stitch pattern with a crocheted shell edging added once the underarm seams have been sewn up. I’ve made lots of these in the past for the Little Darlings and the MSD sized Kaye Wiggs girls. They seem to love them!

If you’d like to see more ensembles that feature shrugs here is the link that connects you to all my blog posts that were saved with the ‘shrug’ tag. FYI, there is a group of words in the right sidebar (scroll down past my pattern covers and social media icons) where you can click on a word and see all of the blog posts that were saved with that tag such as shrugs. The larger the word the more posts there are saved with that tag.

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We had a wedding in the family yesterday. My nephew married his college sweetheart. She is a sweet and beautiful girl whom we welcome into our family with open arms. We are so happy for them both!

I hope you’ve had a fantastic week and wishing you a great week ahead. Thank you so much for visiting with me today! How was your week? Any plans for the one coming up? ❤ ❤ ❤