A Year of Projects: Feb 18- Mar 3

Saturday morning sunrise at the beach.

Took a quick trip out to the coast for a few days. We’ve been in NC since 2019 and this is our first beach trip since we’re here. (We’ve been back to NY beaches, just haven’t experienced NC beaches.)

We don’t like crowds, or swimming in the ocean so this was a perfect time for us to go. Weather was about 60 degrees F while we were here. Of course it rained on our planned “beach day”. So we just switched things up a bit. I plan to do a full post on our weekend so I’ll come back and link it here if anyone is interested in reading about it.

Socks

Some progress has been made on current projects, and I started a new pair. Had to get some plain vanilla mindless knitting on the needles for our trip to the coast.

Crochet

Still working on the granny squares. I’m about halfway through the skein. I have to decide what project I will be making with them.

The granny shawl is growing slowly. A few more rows and I think I’ll be done. Just taking my time so I don’t have to deal with wrist pain. (March 2 update: it’s finished.)

Sweet Shop Blanket

More squares have been added. I’m really enjoying working on this in the evening. This week I added grams of colored yarn to the blanket. On Feb 29th I’ll total the natural color and add it to my count.

Gardening

Started some tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds on Saturday (2/24). Hopefully I can grow some starts that aren’t too leggy.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Hopefully this week I’ll get back to the normal Sunday post. 🙂

Happy Crafting!

A Year of Projects Feb 11 – Feb 17

It was a busy week of activities over here. We went Geocaching twice, bringing our current total to 12 out of 50 caches found. Our first outing took us to a Greenway we’ve never explored. We pass it weekly, but it’s off a main road and we’ve just never stopped. Both caches were pretty straight forward. The hardest part of the day was safely crossing the main road to get to the opposite side of the greenway. There’s a crosswalk with flashing lights… but some people just don’t care. It’s sad. The second outing took us to a park. Three families from our homeschool group went, none of us knew the park existed previous to this event. We walked the hiking trail and found the three caches. It was nice but super muddy.

On Tuesday I had a class at the library to make a cross stitch heart. It was a great program! The librarian used the laser printer to cutout wood heart templates. We were allowed to chose up to 3 colors of yarn, given instructions for the back stitch and cross stitch and left to see what we could come up with. Mine is below. I also spoke to the librarian and will be getting some templates made up to do the craft with our homeschool group.

My daughter had her sewing class this week. She is almost finished with her cloak. She did not get the sewing gene from me, lol. If she’s at a point that’s good for a photo I’ll try and get one posted. (She’s working on the neck binding right now, so not a good time for photos with all the needles.) *She said I can get a photo when it’s finished.

Socks

It’s been a slow week for the socks. At night I’ve been working on my Sweet Shop Blanket. I’ve added a few rows to each sock, but not really enough to talk about.

Crochet

I’ve been working on the granny shawl for about 10 minutes a day with no issues. So I figured I’d press my luck… A while back I picked up a skein of the Red Heart Granny Square yarn to see what it was all about. I have had no issues with my wrist crocheting these up. I think my wrist issues are from the weight of the shawl and the way I’m holding it. It has been fun making the squares. A bit fiddly at first, but I’ve figured out the gauge I need and have been able to get it with just a little bit of fiddling at times. The concept of this yarn is awesome. Colorful grannies without all the ends. Win-Win! I have not decided what I will do with the squares. Each skein makes 14 squares. Not sure if I’m going to grab another skein and make a bag or mix the squares with some solid colored grannies to make a vest.

Sweet Shop Blanket

This blanket has been what’s bringing me joy this week. Such a fun knit! I’m enjoying using the yarns from my Advent and watching it grow!

I’ve added 27 grams of yarn for the colored parts of the squares this week. I’ll be added the colored yarn to my More Out Than In number weekly. I’ll be calculating the natural color at the end of the month. This will help me be more organized/not forget to add it in.

That’s about all I’ve got going on here.

Happy Crafting!

A Year of Projects: Feb 4 – Feb 10

I feel like it was a pretty quiet crafting week, but now that I’ve written this out I see I’ve gotten more done than I first thought.

We went out geocaching with friends this week and found two more caches. That brings our current total to 5/50. One was a super sneaky hide. It took 4 of us a long time to find.

Socks

Finished up one of the striped vanilla socks. I’m trying something new, so it’s a bit off from my usual sock. Decided to try a slip stitch section on the ball of the foot. It’s where I usually see signs of wear on my socks. I’m going to try the slip stitch on the two pairs I’m currently knitting to see how I like it. No pattern for that, just messing around a bit.

Most recent pix

Pattern: Vanilla Socks on 9 inch circulars. Project Page: Vanilla Stripes Needles: size 0 9 inch circulars. Yarn: Lion Brand Sock Ease Mai Tai. Start date: 1/26/24. Finish date:

Also finished up one of the Felici socks. This is the other pair I’m trying the slip stitch on the foot.

Slip stitch section near the toe. (too close, started it earlier on the other pair).

Pattern: Vanilla Socks. Project Page: Felici Plain vanilla Needles: size 1 circulars. Yarn: Knit Picks Felici. Start date: 12/23. Finish date:

Granny Shawl

Trying to get back to this. 15 minutes once a day has been working without straining my wrist. I’m thinking it has to do with the way I hold the shawl and the weight of it. I’m going to stick to 15 minutes a few times a week until I get this done.

Quick progress photo. It’s growing!

Pebble Beach Shawl

Added a few rows this week.

Hard to photograph this one as it wants to come off the needles.

Pattern: Pebble Beach Shawl Project Page: PJ’s Pebble Beach Shawl Needles: US 6 4mm circulars. Yarn: Madeline Tosh. Start date: unknown, after 2016(??) Hudson Valley Yarn Crawl is my best guess.

The Sweet Shop Blanket

Pulled this back out and figured out how I’m going to document it for the “More Out than In” Challenge. I’ve got a starting weight, and will weigh the new colors I’m using before I start. When I finish knitting the color in I’ll weigh again to see how much I’ve used. This way I can knit on it and add the yardage used to my monthly count. Otherwise it would be sitting around.

Long term project: Sweet Shop Blanket

Starting blanket weight (Feb): 97 grams. Striped mini weighs 12 grams before knitting, grams after. Natural weighs 166grams, will weigh this again at the end of February for total grams used in February.

Pattern Name: Sweet Shop Blanket. Project Page: PJ’s Sweet Shop Blanket Yarn: Regia Sock for hand dyeing for the natural. First set of Minis are from an Advent with friends – 2023. Needles: Start Date:

That’s all I’ve got this week. It was pretty quiet baking and gardening wise. Lots of running around. Next week is looking better as far as getting things done at home. Here’s hoping it works out as planned.

Happy Crafting!

A Year of Projects: Jan 28 – Feb 3

It has been a busy week of running around! Babygirl had classes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and our regular meetup on Friday.

Most classes were through the library. The library system here is amazing! We no longer live in the library district, but we are able to pay to keep our access. My husband and I often say it’s the best bill we pay each year.

On Wednesday we had a Makerspace appointment and made some shirts and Christmas gifts. Yes, already! I needed something to store my “Friends Advent” gifts in for the swap we’re doing again this year so I decided to make it. Now I can start picking up/making the little goodies for my packages and have a place to store everything.

Our shirts. Left is mine, other 2 are Babygirl’s.

Socks

Mostly worked on these this week. Turned the heel and started the foot. My goal is to have this finished this week.

Pattern: Vanilla Socks on 9 inch circulars. Project Page: Vanilla Stripes Needles: size 0 9 inch circulars. Yarn: Lion Brand Sock Ease Mai Tai. Start date: 1/26/24. Finish date:

Pulled this sock out for Frog It or Finish It 2024 and turned the heel. This will be my other focus for the week.

Stash Enhancement

First yarn purchase of the year:

Queen City Yarn was having a sale, and I love the mystery sock sets. There was only one set left, so I got an extra skein. I order the mystery sets to play with new colors because I tend to get stuck on a color palette for myself. This way someone else decides and I get to play with new colors. I never would have purchased the pink for myself, but the color is great and goes so well with the purple.

I’m participating in the Queen City Year Long MAL and will be using this yarn for this month’s project. This will be my first month participating in the project/Zoom.

As for stash, I’ve decided to participate in the More Out Than In challenge. For me, this is a more reasonable goal. Going cold sheep just doesn’t work. This year I’m hoping to use more than I bring in! I did well with January. I used 325 grams, and gained 220 grams.

Geocache Charlotte

For the next few months Babygirl and I will be participating in Geocache Charlotte 2024. It began Saturday, Feb. 3. We attended the kickoff event, logged 4.5 miles of walking and found 3 geocaches. There are 50 in all. We’ll see how many we can find before the challenge ends in April.

Our favorite container of the day.

Happy Crafting!

January Recap

Sometimes I feel like I don’t get much done. So, for the time being, I’ve decided to start tracking some of the things we do. Looking at it I’m happy with what we’ve done this month. Definitely more than I thought.

Gardening

At the beginning of the month I planted garlic and some seeds outside. The seeds were a total experiment. We’re new to gardening in this climate and I recently started following a localish gardener on you tube. He was talking about things that could be planted in our zone in January. On January 2 I planted the garlic, plus spinach, dill, and snow peas. The only thing that hasn’t sprouted is the dill.

January 27th I started some seeds indoors. Purple cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, beet, leek, and cilantro seeds went into the tray. We’ve already got some broccoli sprouting.

Late December we took a ride to a nursery and purchased some citrus trees. They have all been repotted to larger pots with a citrus soil mix. Eventually they will be planted outside.

Baking

It’s been mostly about sourdough around here. We’re working on a new sourdough starter so we’ve been baking a lot of recipes with the discard. My favorite has been the pretzels!

In addition, my husband has started making bagels. They are pretty amazing!

Flagel

Crafting

This month I finished 3 projects and started one new project.

Dyed some yarn with yellow onion skins:

Made some tshirts with Babygirl:

Stash enhancement:

And maybe this isn’t exactly crafting, but I needed to put it somewhere. It took us a while to find exactly what we were looking for!

put together our coffee bar!

Looking forward to seeing what February brings! Hopefully lots of garden stuff 🙂