Starting a Couple of New Projects

In preparation for the arrival of my yarn for the Persian Tiles project, I thought I'd practice crocheting a granny square with scrap yarn just to get the hang of the stitches. 

It turned out OK. Much easier than when I'll have to change yarn colours every round and work in the ends so I don't have thousands to weave in when I'm done. I do need to improve my transition from the centre 4 sets of double crochets to the next round.

This light DK yarn worked well with the recommended hook size. There is a whole set of videos on the techniques for this project which were very helpful. I found this other video that shows how to weave in the tails as you go so will probably use it as Janie Crow's leaves the tails loose to be woven in at the end - hundreds of them.

Barb and Poppy are almost as giddy as I am about starting this project. I was able to make the one granny square in over an hour. Of course, changing colours every round will take longer. 

I also started practicing to make one of the octagons and I got as far as round eight.

Janie's photo

My challenge for the octagons will be to remember to change hook sizes when required. I'm going to be crocheting from the pattern and then referring to Lucia Dunn's colour changes for every row. I may have to do a spreadsheet to keep it all straight.

The other project I'm starting today is a sashiko project/stitch along. Poppy is also going to do it. I happened upon a video this morning before heading off to stitching and got as far as preparing the fabric for drawing the grid. The live lesson will take place in about an hour via Zoom. There are over 500 of us participating this afternoon and about that many this morning in those time zones.

I'm more of a holistic thinker so am not that comfortable being fed steps without seeing the end product but I think it will be very similar to the stitching I did for the triangular needlebook. 

Today at stitching at Judy's, I took some pics of her lovely stitched pieces hanging in her kitchen.

I love these two. I have done the top one (Hello from Liz Mathews' 'Token of Fall')  myself and I was Teresa Kogut's model stitcher for the bottom one, Kindred Spirits.

I may do Home of a Needleworker at some point. I have a spot in the kitchen that would be perfect for it.

This photo of Teresa Kogut's 'Come to the Garden' does not do it justice. The frame is just perfect for it.

In consultation with Google Lens, this is called 'Beloved' by Running with Needles & Scissors. 

Google also tells me this is 'Egyptian Tower' from the Vickery Collection.

Judy has some other stunning, framed stitchery pieces in other areas of her home. I'll get some shots of them sometime.

Also at stitching this morning, I got more done on Clovis the Badger. 

I have the legs and feet to do and all the dots on the dress. I'd like to do them (not sure if Clovis is a he or a she or non-binary) as a standup and have Miss Hazel 

still to do that way plus the Autumn Cat I stitched after last year's Pastime Pieces retreat. 

I have a vast number of projects that need fully finishing. I will probably never get them all done but will commit to finishing one per month - if only to show at the guild's Show and Share segment of their monthly meetings.

A little later...

I just sat in on the Zoom meeting with the designer of the sashiko project. Most of the information was sent as .pdfs in emails so the Zoom meeting was just an opportunity for folks to ask questions. Many folks hadn't seen the setup video linked in the earlier email so there was quite a bit of confusion. Also the stating of the dimensions wasn't consistent. Some folks were confused about what the final product of today's work would look like. Fortunately I have a wee bit of previous experience so I was able to extrapolate the salient details from all the kerfuffle. 

I had cut and seamed the fabric and turned it inside out so during the Zoom meeting I drew the reference lines:

This is what the front will look like when we're done:

Because we're stitching through two layers of fabric, this is what the back will look like:

These embroidered cloths are found in traditional Japanese households and can be used as placemats, covering teacups, drying vegetables and storing them in the fridge, extending freshness. Our project is a mini Japanese flower cloth.

I'm glad I had all the required materials on hand and was able to get started right away. Hopefully tomorrow we'll start stitching - my guess will be the horizontal and vertical dashes creating boxes.