You know what the awful thing about data caps is? When you reach your limit, you can't use the Internet without paying extra. Yes, I am a little grumpy about this but it's a new month which means we're reset, weee~
Here's my sad progress on the Flower of the Month SAL hosted by
Alyssa at Brownie's Chair. I am still not in love with this pattern though I do like it a bit more as it takes shape. But because I'm not loving it, progress is very slow.
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| before |
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Even though there's not a lot of progress cross-stitching, I have not been completely idle! In the world of crochet, I have randomly found a cute
Christmas CAL last week that I'm attempting to complete. I have the first square done and you can find it on her blog (linked above) or
here on Ravelry. So far, five squares have been released: Santa, a Christmas tree, a snowman, a sleigh, and an elf.
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| sorry for the weird angle |
Santa! :D These squares are all done using corner-to-corner (C2C) crochet which makes for a kinda neat texture... and a heavy one. This will definitely be a warm blanket. These are done in half-double (US terms) instead of the double crochet C2C is normally done in and my square wound up to be a stretchy 14" (pattern says 15"). I haven't
quiiiite figured out the color changes to prevent the strange little joins. Some are okay, others not so much. I'm trying to be creative with the tails to kind of hide the pointy bits. On the blog, it says to put a single crochet border around but I haven't done that yet. I am not sure exactly how this is going to become an afghan/throw so I don't know how many stitches will be needed (or if that will even matter). But oh, the tails.
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| *cry* |
Can you feel my pain? I can feel my pain. In fact, I can feel my pain down here in the basement and Santa is upstairs, in my yarn bag, haunting me. I can only take so much weaving before I get bored so I do a little here and there. I have his beard and part of his hat done. I am trying not to think about his face. Or that I'll have to do this on all the other patterns. I think I will try to do two skeins of the background color in the next one though, to see if that helps to eliminate some ends. It's hard to carry over stitches when working diagonal! I'll get it eventually. Maybe before the last one is released. :)
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| so tiny |
I have also decided to learn tatting and knitting. Thanks to
Preeti and
Aurelia for their tatting site suggestions, I can now do a double stitch! Sort of! My first impression is that tatting is Very Difficult. I am having the same problem as I do with crochet -- tension. Wrapping the thread around my fingers and then working with them is like, oh, I dunno, octopus in spaghetti! Another issue is that the shuttle I have might be too large for my hands. I never thought that I had small hands but I cannot weave the shuttle over/under the thread fully. Or perhaps I am not yet used to the movement.
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| practice makes perfect! |
Knitting is also difficult for me, especially as I cannot watch YouTube videos often (inconsistent speed and data usage, buuuu) so I am trying to learn from written tutorials and books. I can cast on! I think! There is a local knitting group that I have wormed my way into recently (with crochet lol) and they are all sweet ladies. Their expert opinions were that my cast on stitches looked good so I will defer to their wisdom in such matters. I think the thing that draws me to knitting is sweaters. I love sweaters. Crochet can make
some pretty tops, they just don't compare to knitted beauties. I'm a long way from a sweater though! Maybe I'll start with a scarf or potholder, just like crochet. :) But first I better get the knit stitch mastered...
Hooray for new brain wrinkles! :D My Ravelry library is going to explode with patterns at this rate. Thank you for reading and sharing my "string" adventures! And before I forget,
Santa Nancy is getting started early (or maybe she never stops haha) with the giveaways since she has the wonderful new floss box sets. I entered
Mother's Flower Garden and the
Halloween giveaways.
