Not a Confident Crocheter

I have started crocheting a Hobbes - a stuffie for Skip. It's a free pattern on Ravelry.

There were several patterns to choose from, including a couple of knitted ones, but the instructions for this one seemed the most decipherable. I had to do some research on joining ends of rounds so as not to have a jog when changing colours. I also am quite challenged when deciding what chain to go into at the beginning of a round. However, I persevered and so far have the head and body knit. I started the tail last night. It requires 13 stripes of each colour. 

The ears will be crocheted as well as the belly and muzzle, otherwise the eyes and nose will be felt. I may embroider the nose along with the mouth. This is my first attempt at amigurumi-style crochet. It's mostly single crochet so not too taxing, stitch-wise.

I rounded up some scrap white yarn for the muzzle, belly, and tips of paws. I'm pretty slow at this. Crocheting with black yarn at night with only a floor lamp beside me is another deterrent to speed. However, I think I could have this done by the end of the weekend. 

I put the clothesline out today. I've hung out the first load of the season. With the sun and the breeze today, they should dry in a jiffy and will smell great.

While out there, I noted the daffodils actually bloomed! I thought they were goners after the snow we had last week. I did have to tie them up a bit as they were quite droopy but they put on a lovely display.

They're in a sunny spot all morning and the warmth from the brick wall encouraged them to bloom early. The daffs in the other areas of the garden have a long way to go. Tulips are up. I have a cage around the ones in the front yard to thwart marauding rabbits.

I had a real urge to do some painting last week after watching a YouTube video on how to paint daffodils. 

I was very pleased with the results. I must make time to do more of my little paintings. I got the ceramic dish for mixing my colours at a thrift shop for under $1. Having never had a formal painting lesson in my life, I've really enjoyed the step by step tutorials online. 

A couple of the jigsaw puzzles I worked on recently didn't get completed. I really don't like dark areas with no distinguishing features other than the shape of the pieces. I lack patience for that so back in their respective boxes they went and will be returned to the owners. I did, however, complete one of the $5 puzzles I bought at Giant Tiger a couple of weeks ago. It went as well as I thought it would with the door being the last element I finished. It was quite bright and had some shading so I knew it would be more enjoyable.

I know it's not hard to believe I actually have a photo folder on my laptop for puzzles.

Skip has a CT scan this afternoon; we'll have the results next week. Fingers are crossed the tumour has not grown. 

Scooter is coming for a visit on Easter Sunday. Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Finally Finished the Fringe

While watching TV last night I finally finished twisting the fringe on my scrappy worsted Excavation blanket.

For the fringe, I took both yarns of one colour and both of the colour beside, using two clips of my fringe twister. 

I counted the number of twists to keep the angle of twist on each fringe the same. Holding all 4 strands together tied a knot at 3" and trimmed. The two colours then twist together in the other direction. Any bumps get smoothed out by pulling.

It is a lovely, squishy blanket measuring 39" x 47" excluding the fringe.

I'll add it to the pile of Excavation blankets I've knit. This is my 5th, I believe. This was an excellent way to use up a bunch of ends of worsted weight yarn. Knitting it is a breeze while watching TV as it's all garter stitch. It's primary benefit was reducing the pile of random balls of worsted weight yarn in my stash.

I deviate a bit from the pattern (free on Ravelry). Here's how I do it. **At the beginning of each colour I leave a 6" tail, knit into the front and back of the first stitch, and knit across the row, then turn. With yarn in front (wyif) I slip the first stitch, move yarn to the back and knit into the front and back (kfb) of the second stitch, then knit across the row. Leaving a 6" tail I tie the two yarns together and pick up the next colour. then repeat from **. 

Once the blanket is at the desired width, Knit a second triangle and graft the two triangles together. This creates a square blanket.

If a rectangular blanket is desired, once the blanket is at the desired width, ^^start a new yarn (no more fringe), slip the first stitch wyif then move to the back and knit the next two stitches together , then knit across the row. So you are decreasing at the beginning of the right side. At the beginning of the return row, slip the first st wyif, then kfb into the second stitch and knit across the row. You will increase at the beginning of the wrong side. Cut the yarn, start another yarn and repeat from ^^. It's a good idea to work your ends in as you go so you don't have to do it after. The diagonal growth of the blanket is maintained. Continue this until the desired length of the blanket is reached. Then knit the second triangle and graft to the lengthened piece. When you graft the two together you won't see this yarn as it will be in the 'ditch' of the garter stitch.

Another tip... to make the blanket nice and squishy go up a couple of needle sizes from the largest size on a ball band. In this case I used a 5mm needle. On the fingering weight/sock yarn blankets I used a 3mm needle. I also try to use a contrasting yarn on every subsequent row - usually light then dark then light then dark. I even used variegated yarn. I didn't worry about how it would turn out. Yarns from my late mother-in-law's stash were used as well as some DK yarns. 

A Day of Sloth

Yesterday was a PJ Day. I'd had an upset stomach in the middle of the night and slept late. I didn't have any errands to run so completely took it easy. Of course, I completed another puzzle.

It was very enjoyable because each cupcake was a little puzzle on its own. I sorted by colour as it came out of the box. One pile for edge pieces and other piles for each colour. There were only about 40 brown pieces (table top) to figure out at the end.

The previous couple of days I worked on a 1000 piece puzzle that I had purchased at Giant Tiger. It was of Cinque Terre in Italy but the picture on the box was only about 8" x 8" so it was really frustrating trying to match puzzle pieces with the microscopic photo. I completed the sky, then the water, then all the buildings. I gave up trying to do the green hillside and put it all away. I don't even think I'll donate it as it would frustrate anyone else as well. The 500 piece puzzle from the same company was much more manageable.

Then I cooked a delicious HelloFresh meal which we ate before I took any photos. I forget the actual title but it was roasted porkchops with a glaze of apricot and mustard on spring mix with clementines, radishes, seeds (pumpkin, sesame) and goat cheese with a vinaigrette dressing.  I would definitely make this recipe again.

After supper I did some work on the model I'm stitching for Pansy Patch Quilting and Stitchery. It's #6 in the Houses on Wisteria Lane series. I'll be doing #7 as soon as she finishes the design. They'll be released in June. Lori had exciting news when she dropped off the kit - she's going to be one of the featured designers at the Jingle Ball (a fun, festive, online stitching retreat) this December! We had a good chat about her Market experience near Nashville at the beginning of March.

I have been doing quite a bit of fill-in on my Live on Little while watching TV at night. I got most of the water around the mermaid done.

I got the basic vine of the border done down the left side.

There's still the big sailboat and all the water around it to do in that big open space on the lower left (above the mermaid and whales). 

Today I got out of sloth mode and did some overdue housework. I'm itching to get back to stitching.

Happy Pi Day, y'all! 

I'm Obsessed!

Marilyn loaned me her Frank Lloyd Wright jigsaw puzzle.

I liked that the one side was a mirror image of the other. I was easily able to match motifs to their mirror images. When I sorted, I, of course, pulled out the edge pieces, then isolated any with the small parallelograms, and colours with colours. I also liked that the skinny tabs were up and down and the wide tabs were on the sides. It really helped with orientation of the pieces.

Now being totally obsessed, I found a sale at Giant Tiger from a Facebook ad (those algorithms are eerie) and beetled over there and found a puzzle that looked fun for $5. It was only 500 pieces.

It was like solving 15 small puzzles with the doors being quite distinctive. When I sorted, I made a pile of yellow pieces, and another pile of green pieces. Then started solving individual doors after assembling most of the border. 

At the one Giant Tiger, I didn't see a 1000 piece puzzle that I liked so my excursion today will be to head to another one and see what they have.

I am so hooked! I think the satisfying thing about puzzles is the feeling of accomplishment in a micro sense - finding the exact spot for each individual piece. I also like the 'snap' of the pieces going into place. The door puzzle pieces weren't as thick as the previous ones, but they held together quite well once put together.

I have abandoned the crochet checkerboard blanket for now. I may rip it out and just do rows of double crochet just to use up more my stash. As crocheting really eats up yarn, I feared having to purchase more yarn (defeating the purpose of stash busting) to maintain the checkerboards. 

Last night I worked on the sampler while watching the Bob Marley documentary with Skip. I got the mermaid stitched except for her eyes plus a couple of fish. I can now fill in the ocean around her.

 

Next time I'm able to concentrate on counting, I'll complete the vine/floral border on the left.

Decisions still need to be made about what colour to do the whale's tummies and blowholes as well as selecting the mortar colour for the house. I guess I could outline the flag as it would be good for mindless filling in during social stitching.

The weather has been awesome. Our snow removal folks asked if I still needed them this month and I decided I could probably handle things on my own. I thanked them very much for their good work. They did only have to come 3 times but the peace of mind was worth the megabucks we shelled out. I also asked them to put us on the list for next winter. I was surprised at their response to my comments saying they'd cover our snow clearing this month if we gave them a 5-star review on Google. I had no problem doing that so we are covered this month if we do get any snow over 5cm.

Other than puzzling and stitching I haven't done much. Housework always is there for me to do. I have, however, continued with my Hello Fresh subscription. I am getting spoiled now and really don't feel like planning, shopping for, and cooking any suppers. We do have lots of bits of leftovers in the freezer so tonight will be an attempt at clearing out some of that stuff.

I Changed My Mind

I was going to crochet the checkerboard blanket in strips then sew the strips together but Jennifer at my Tuesday evening craft group mentioned she hated to sew in ends. I'm not a big fan of that either. I then recalled watching a video on attaching along the side as you crochet and decided I would pursue that option.

My technique varies from the video because I don't mind a gap between squares. 

Basically I attach the bottom of each row to the bottom of the corresponding row with a single crochet. Then I chain two and attach to the top of the adjacent row with a single crochet and then crochet the row. It may not be as aesthetically pleasing but I won't have a lot of ends to weave in as I do them as I go.

At stitching on Monday morning, I cleverly left my threads at home except for the dark blue. So I spent the time finishing the blue waves and started to outline the rest of the 'ocean'.

I haven't touched it since then. However, this arrived in the mail the other day.

I got it from a Facebook cross stitch destash group for a very good price. However, the shipping was almost three times what I paid for the chart. So annoyed. I would have been OK with just having it sent in a manila envelope because postage rates with tracking from the US is costly. Next time, I'll tell the sender to find a less expensive method.

I haven't decided how I will do it. Ideally a light, medium, and dark fabric would work. Perhaps a white, medium blue and a navy?  I'll take it to the guild's free stitching day tomorrow and see what other folks suggest. I also may or may not use buttons either.

I have become obsessed with doing jigsaw puzzles. I only did a couple during COVID and somehow didn't get hooked then. Many of my friends were doing them and swapping them but I wasn't that interested - probably because I didn't have a good setup for them in front of the TV in the family room.

I don't even remember what got me interested in doing one last week but I tried a 500 piece puzzle I already had. That went well. I started another one but the pieces were so thin they didn't interlock very well so I abandoned it. I ordered a couple of Springbok puzzles from Amazon and finished them in fairly short order. I also bought one at Value Village for a tenth of what Amazon charged me but once it was assembled, it was missing three pieces. Oh well. I enjoyed the process. 

I then decided to try for a 1000 piece puzzle and had one in my stash. I rolled out my yoga mat on the dining room table and spread everything out on that. If I needed to put it away before it was finished I could just roll it up in my yoga mat for safe keeping.

I started it yesterday and finished it a little while ago.

Although it had a lot of pieces, there were a lot of motifs which made sorting and grouping much easier. There was even one piece left over which must have been from another puzzle. Oh well.

Also this week I had another delivery from HelloFresh. This was the crusted chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and sautéed snap peas. Yum-mo!

It was very easy and I will easily be able to replicate it for another meal. I like that the meals are easy to prepare, the ingredients provided are very fresh. the instructions are very clear (if I can learn to read and follow them properly) and include photos, the portions are generous, and I don't have to think what to eat on those nights I prepare one. Sometimes there is more than enough for Skip and I to eat so we get leftovers - yay!

One perplexing thing that occurred today was a change in how I load photos into this blog. The change must have occurred when I recently updated my laptop. Before, I could easily add photos to the text by clicking the icon on the task bar. It won't work now. Instead, I have to go to my photo files and copy and paste the photo into the body of the text. I sure hope Blogger continues to be available for me to use and doesn't disappear. I realize there are other platforms but having used Blogger for this blog for almost 18 years, I'm very familiar with its features. I'm having a similar problem with adding photos in Gmail as well - grrrr.