Aloha, friendly readers~ I hope you all are enjoying your worldly weather. We've had a huge snowfall for our neck of the woods. It has been many years since the area has seen this much. It was
wonderful. I restocked our snow ice cream for when we forget what winter is like in the midst of summer. We shoveled snow (a lot of it). Luckily my shoulder has healed nicely. Last week was the first week it felt "normal" so it was good timing, and the shoveling of the snow didn't do anything other than make us sleep really well. :)
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| scale in inches |
Of course, now they're threatening the same thing could happen this coming weekend! I wonder how much of this current snow will melt before then. Certainly not the mountains of shoveled stuff! Oh well, I love it all! :D This was a lovely atmospheric gift which segues nicely into the next item of interest, January's Gifted Gorgeousness!
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| click for more info! |
First up, I made my first ever shawl! It's a shame I couldn't get better pictures of it; this red just seems impossible. It was made to match
this hat, gifted to my husband's grandmother back in September. I spent quite a while looking for a pattern to try! I wanted it to have shells (like the hat) but still have somewhat open stitches so as not to be overly warm.
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| didn't mean to match the carpet |
Technical Details- "Tranquil Tea Wrap", crochet, freebie pattern by Lion Brand Yarn found here (ravelry).
- My ravelry project page here.
- 10mm (N/P) hook.
- Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in autumn red.
- Started: October 17, 2018, Finished: October 21, 2018, unknown hours.
As you may notice, this was a blazing fast finish (for me) at only four days! I think the gigantic hook helped though it felt odd using one so large. Plus the sitting around at grandma's house made for excellent crafting time. I made a few modifications, namely doing another repeat of the pattern to make the shawl longer. I also did not do the edging as the pattern indicated, instead opting to keep the scalloped edge of the shells as the last part. Afterwards, it received the spa treatment of a gentle wash and then a light blocking. I don't much care for blocking acrylic but it opens up the shells and spacings so nicely.
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| assembly in progress |
Next up, yes, finally the husband cube, and finally a cube~! I had fun with this...mostly. I used iron-on interfacing to give the rather floppy jobelan some stiffness and to close up the holes in the fabric weave so stuffing wouldn't leak out. Also it helped with this very fray-some fabric! I outlined each of the glyphs in DMC 310 and then went insane and joined them together with
gold metallic floss because I enjoy suffering, apparently. I wanted to do it this way to mimic the logo of the series which is in black and gold. I then braided a small loop of black and gold crochet thread which must (must!) have something wrong with it as it is incredibly fragile. I may at some point go back and make another, sturdier loop of something else but for now, I'm waiting to see if it's okay as-is.
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| assembly complete! |
I rather like how it turned out, though it is much bigger than originally anticipated. I don't think he'll be taking it to work after all, so it is proudly displayed atop our media cabinet where most of our video game consoles live. As I was stitching it up, I had to laugh at myself. I was stitching it on the closed top of the sewing machine. Wouldn't that have made quick work of the cube!
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| what a crazy floss toss |
For Christmas, my husband got me the remainder of the "old" floss colors of the DMC collection! I would be complete now if it weren't for those silly new colors. :) I greatly look forward to bobbinating these but I've run out of plastic storage containers. It's so hard to find them in colors other than pink, blue, purple, and clear. There used to be a whole bunch of options available! Even eBay has failed me. I'd really love a yellow one but alas, I'll probably just wind up with another clear one.
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| a year of giveaways! |
Lastly, I've been toying around with this idea for a while. I have a small pile of patterns I've picked up in various thrift stores so I wanted to try a Year of Giveaways! Each GG post in 2019 I will have one chart up for grabs, and I will announce the winner in my random end of/beginning of the month post. Since these are all thrifted designs, some might have some markings on them. I will make note of the ones that do in their individual posts. Here is the first chart!
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| PFC #14 |
This is an older Homespun Elegance stitch from the Plain & Fancy Collection called "Snowmen - Tall & Small". This a totally clean (was it ever stitched?) chart. They're really cute and I love the idea of having a twig broom embellishment! No fancy extras will be included in this giveaway to cut down on shipping costs so you will have to source your own twig haha. I will ship the pattern worldwide though!
Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway Guidelines- Be a
minion follower (upper right corner of my blog)! Feedly, bloglovin', etc. do not count as there is no way to show it! I am sorry; blame blogger for this one.
- Comment and tell me you would like to be included in the drawing!
- Open worldwide!
- No winning twice in a row (example: the winner of March's drawing would not be eligible for April's).
- Closing date: January 29th, 2019 23:59 CST.
Thanks for reading this edition of Ishkabibble Babble and good luck to anyone entering! \:D/
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| what to do after it snows? |
