All the Pretty Poppies

 The majority of my time in recent weeks has been spent here:

Pookie in the Outdoor Studio West

Or here...

Outdoor Studio East -- in "The Grove"

And sometimes, here...

Yet another stitchy spot - moving with the sun

We've had a pretty nice summer -- though, truth be told, it's been far too dry, and often, far too hot, resulting in an inordinate number of wildfires all over the country, and precipitating an agricultural crisis here on the prairies.

Today it's chilly, damp and grey, with overcast skies that have yet to make good on their threat to drop much-longed-for rain.

A perfect day to catch up in a blog post!

As the title of this post implies, once they recovered from the frying, drying heat wave we had in June, my gardens have been coming along nicely.  Under the big double willow in The Meadow, I scattered poppy seeds -- a gift from my neighbour -- with abandon in the spring, and they've not disappointed:

First double poppy under the willows

All the pretty baby poppies under the willow

My first bird-planted daylily in the Grove

As a result I've been doing well with my stitching endeavours, making good progress since my last post.

"Here Be Dragons" from Modern Folk Embroidery, is finished -- and needs a frame:

A Dragon in the Sunshine! 😉

I've just finished a little red sampler from Thames Path Samplers on Etsy.  Note: I got this as a PDF download; I'm not certain, however, that it's still available.  Sorry.

Modification: replaced part of the bottom border
with my initials and the year.

I really enjoy monochromatic stitching; I've kitted up a few more of these -- and the next one, I think, will be done in variegated blues on a tan or caramel-coloured background.  I set aside Thursdays for these, so stay tuned...

My current Sunday Stitch is "Keziah Campbell 1796", which I'm personalizing to memorialize my father's family, descended from the Rennies of Kilsyth, Scotland.  I've moved down to the house and lawn, full of -- as Brenda of Brenda and the Serial Starter would say -- "the damned grass!" 😉😆

Given the adjustments I had to make to fit in the initials of my father's immediate family, there have been more tweaks made in the spacing but it's all working out.  And yes, that's a cat you see next to the lady in red, as befitting my status as a Certified Cat Person!

In other progress, "Shalom" -- a Hanukkah/anniversary gift for friends -- is coming along nicely (though I haven't an updated photo to show you!)  And I made some progress on "Nevermore" -- but am now waiting for more floss.  That's what happens when you fail to read that you need two skeins of something and order only one...sigh...

Since this photo was taken, I've finished that second motif, and have found a third that I can do with the floss I have on hand...but it will require serious counting and concentration, so I've left it for now.

In my July 2nd post, I showed my progress on "Barnabee's Quest - Part I" -- a 22-year old pattern from Just Nan Designs.  I've now finished it, except for the beads and charm, and have dug out Part II, which I want to stitch on the same piece of fabric.  (These are teeny-tiny!)  I erred and did the verse in black instead of bright purple, but I like the effect so I'm going to be consistent and use black for the verse in each of the three pieces:

Last week I spent a few days with friends south of Calgary -- both very fond of textile arts.  One's current focus is hooking rugs and art "mats" and the other's current love is black work so we spent some time sorting their stash and sharing supplies.  I made some progress on my canola scene which is my first attempt at my own design:

I began by updating the colour of the grain bins to a more accurate silvery-grey, and the fence posts to a more solid brown.  I then finished the grass in the foreground.  Now I need to tackle the sky, for which I'm using this photo I took locally some years ago:

I'm procrastinating a bit...so I must take courage and just get on with it! LOL!

On the knitting front, I finished the Balvraid hap and gave it to my friend Anne, who loves it!  Here she is modelling it...

You can tell by her outfit that the hap suits her colours!

I also finished a simple hat for the giving box...and have put the last bit of this green yarn into my rug hooking stash (it's also in the grass in the landscape shown above).

With all the wildfires going on here -- the latest being the evacuations in the NWT (Northwest Territories) and B.C. (especially Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley) -- I've started another hat, the fourth in this batch, and am determined to also add to my pile of comfort quilt tops, in the hopes of getting them finished and sent to where they're likely to be needed as the fall and winter approach. So many people have lost everything.  I have more stash than cash, so am doing what I can and live in hope that it will be of use.  

I was horrified by the wildfire that took most of Maui, but am unable to manage to send fully quilted quilts that far away, so have decided to try to help those closer to home.

This new hat is the "Morning Coffee" pattern, free on Ravelry; I'm making it from more Paton's Classic Wool Worsted, and have omitted the rolled brim:

As today is rather cold and gloomy -- still no rain and now the air is smelling smoky -- it's just right for heading into the Indoor Studio for some time working on my scrappy Butter Churn blocks.  I've finished 69 of a desired 80, and that would make -- with borders -- a perfect comfort quilt to add to the pile.  These are small enough I can sandwich, baste and quilt them myself, and so make them available when needed.

I continue to have an art quilt idea percolating...but am not "there" yet -- that point at which it wants to be brought into the world.  Time will tell!

I'll leave you with a link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday -- wherein this week she's reminiscing about publications and blogs gone by.  Do you have favourite blogs that you miss?  Favourite websites that are now a thing of the past?  Check out what she misses, and take a walk down memory lane.

Blessings for the waning days of summer and until we meet again here on this page... a bientôt! 

Everything's Growing

 I seem to be able to manage a post only once a month...but that may be due, at least in part, to the fact that summer's here and there's lots more to do outdoors than there is in the winter.  Despite periods of barely tolerable heat, and a long stretch of drought, we've at last had some rain and everything's growing!

A few years ago, I bought the empty lots next to my home -- they came as a pair and total 104 ft. x 130 ft. -- when they'd fallen into the hands of a bankruptcy trustee.  Unserviced, all that was on them were scruffy shrubs and an over-grown willow "bush", left when the prior owners (before the bankruptcy) cut everything down but didn't remove the stumps.

I've been working on 'taming' the trees, and turning the dandelion-filled grass into a meadow.  Without a lot of money, it's a slow process, but it brings me a great deal of pleasure.

This year it now sports 2 apple trees, 3 Saskatoon berry bushes, a cherry shrub (edible, not just decorative), two raised beds for veggies, and two flowering beds under trees.

I've been fighting spiders on the apple trees, and drought everywhere, but it's still a pleasant place to sit in the cool of the early morning, with coffee, my journal and some knitting.

"Outdoor Studio East" in "The Grove"

This week I ordered some wild flower plugs -- of the Prairie Meadow variety -- from Wild About Flowers in southern Alberta.  I hope to get well over a dozen plugs, so I can plant them here and there over the expanse, optimistic that over time they will work away at taking over.  

I don't mind the dandelions, per se -- I make jam from the blossoms, after all! -- but I would like a bit more variety.  To that end, I've inserted daisies, irises and lupines, and am allowing the natural spread of red and white clover, alfalfa and Northern Bedstraw that have appeared on their own.

In the beds under the trees I've added poppies, bachelor buttons, brown (or black)-eyed Susans, more irises and some hens-and-chicks, just for fun.  So far, their progress has been slow -- especially due to heat and drought since early May, but "instantaneous" is not part of this gardener's vocabulary!

Grasses and wildflowers under the willows

While I watch my garden grow, I love to "grow" my textiles too.  I've not done much with the Butter Churn quilt blocks -- that's inside work -- but I am up to four dozen or so of them...another 3 dozen or more to go!

But the Tour de Fleece has started, as well as a Summer Spin-in -- both via groups on Ravelry -- and I've been trying to spin at least an hour almost every day.  My bag of Mystery Mauve wool batt has dwindled appreciably.  I'm almost finished spinning a fourth bobbin, and once I have four, will ply pairs together to get two 2-ply skeins.  Stay tuned!

I've set aside the Swan Lake shawl temporarily, as I've been 'growing' a Balvraid Hap shawl -- the small size, in the four-colour option -- from woolly wool my daughter gave me last Christmas (I wrote about that gift HERE).  It's been growing at a steady pace, and I'm now on the last bit: the outer-most lace edging:

Edging started -- June 28-2023

Here's a close-up of the edging, which you apply as you go:

And a detail shot of the tri-colour border:

I cast on this piece on June 12 -- and might just finish it by July 12.  That's how much I'm loving this project!

There's been 'growth' on the stitching front too.

"Bernarda Bellon 1838" was fully finished and mailed off last week.  All the crowns are done on "Keziah Campbell 1796", and I've charted the initials I want to place under them, but have yet to begin that.

Instead, I started and finished a delightful little stitch from Maximum Cross Stitch: "Road Leads Home".  I was inspired by the verse on the sampler, attributed to C.S. Lewis, as I connected it with the theme of a recent sermon by our parish priest.

I used the called-for DMC (except the black, which is "Carriage Black" from Weeks Dye Works), and stitched it using one thread over two, on 32-count "Smoky", a printed linen from Zweigart that I got from Embroidery Marketplace when she had her pop-up shop at Fibre Potpourri in Red Deer in mid-May.  It's too big (I think) for a pillow or flat-fold finish, so I'll try to find a frame for it.

I then finished the red sampler I was working on -- a little piece from Red Barn Samplers entitled "Jemima Fortune Cunningham 1883" (a free pattern).  I worked it on 32-count something-or-other linen, using a single strand of #8 Elganza Perle cotton from the Sue Spargo line, in the variegated red colour-way "EZM 89".  I found that at Quilting from the Heart in Camrose a while back, and was excited to try it out with cross-stitch.  It's lovely!

Next, I returned to "Barnabee's Quest - Part I" from Just Nan (a pattern from 2001!) and it's growing too:

As you can see, I've got the text and the bottom border to do, as well as adding a bee in the bottom row of flowers -- and then there are beads and a charm to add, in true Just Nan fashion.  I'm doing this on a high-count mystery fabric that's linen-like but likely not linen (!) using 1 strand over 2 (or over 1, as required on occasion), and my own DMC colours-to-match-as-closely-as-possible.  I bought the charms and beads with the pattern eons ago, but not the silks!  I've enough space on this piece of fabric to do Part II, and then another scrap of the same for Part III, and will likely create three small pillows with them once the series is complete.

But...Yesterday was Canada Day 🍁 -- so of course I had to have a new start for the occasion!  I set out a couple of months ago to find just that -- and found a reproduction of a Canadian sampler, at a mail order shop in -- of all places! -- Red Deer, an hour's drive SW of here!

The Essamplaire has an amazing array of original antique samplers and reproductions thereof -- from all over the world!  She also has a few of her own designs. Who knew?!  The ordering process is a bit 'old school', but it works just fine, so I ordered "Julia Amelia Hounslow (1848)" -- a wee marking sampler stitched by Ms. Hounslow in or around the town of Sweetsburg in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.  I had ancestors from the Townships, so that suited me down to the ground! Here's my start from yesterday:

I'm stitching this one-over-two on 36-count "Cream & Sugar" from Fiber on a Whim -- a wee remnant that I bought from a vendor at the SAQA Conference in Toronto in mid-April.  The piece calls for Soie d'Alger silk, but I had only 2 of the colours.  I'm using those, and the rest I've substituted for DMC in colours I think are "close enough". 😊  I finished the top and the left-hand borders first, to ensure I have enough space on this little bit of fabric.  It's close, but it will do.  It may end up being a pillow -- or mounted on a small canvas, or put in a small frame.  Time will tell.  Meanwhile, I've discovered I really love interspersing more complex pieces with the simplicity of alphabets and numbers on marking samplers!

Now, in addition to "Julia Amelia", I have brought out "Betty Sumner 1822" from Red Barn Samplers, and am working it as well.  Both are in very light, breezy summertime colours -- perfect for lazy, hazy days!  Here's that piece from a June 29th photo:

Today the weather has cooled significantly and may be a mix of sun and cloud, reaching a high of about 17 C (low sixties Fahrenheit), so this afternoon I just might return to those Butter Churn blocks --  to keep that quilt top growing!

Meanwhile, this morning we're supposed to have an outdoor church service at the family farm of one of our parishioners, with a potluck to follow.  Hmmm...looking out the window at the moment, I'm thinkin' it might just move indoors!  

With that I'll leave you with my usual link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  This week she has a guest blogger: her daughter Tess, whom we've watched grow up over the years, and who has now published a book!  

Happy July 4 to my American readers, and blessings to all for the next while -- à bientôt!

Finishes, Starts and Ideas

There's a lot goin' on 'round here.  Mother Nature hasn't been able to make up her mind about allowing us to have Spring this year, which my tulips, my budding trees, the returning birds and my schedule have found rather chaotic.

As if the outside world weren't chaotic enough! 😆

I've been fighting back attempting to stay calm with routines -- roughly reflected in the title of my April 1 post. Knit, quilt, stitch, repeat.  To that, when possible, I've added "walk".  It's helping -- somewhat!

As a result...I've managed to get a few things finished, a few started, a few under construction and a couple of new ideas.

In my last post you saw my finished blue-and-gold quilt for Ukrainian refugees.  It -- and three other lap/comfort quilts -- were delivered to the local Blankets of Love rep a couple of weeks ago.  Now I'm roaring ahead on "Hearts of Hope" -- Bonnie Hunter's contribution to Ukraine support.  All of the pattern parts are posted now, and I've seen some finishes online.  I'm not there yet -- but I'm getting close.  Though not a difficult pattern, it's rather labour intensive, but I've been working on it every-other-day or so, and have 4 rows completed, with the blocks of the fifth waiting to be sewn together, and those of the sixth under construction (there are 7 rows plus borders).

"Hearts of Hope" - what a single row looks like

I have to say I've really enjoyed this pattern and will probably make it again with different colours -- or completely scrappy!

Aside from my little embroidery piece honouring Ukraine -- which now hangs outside my back door -- I've finished some other pieces, and am gearing up to start a couple of new ones.

This one -- "Crowning Glory" from The Victoria Sampler -- is now at my framers for a special mat to be cut.  I've asked her to mat it, then back it with foam core, so I can simply mount it on a stand once a year as an Easter Season Stitch.  

It's a pattern that I acquired a good 12 years ago; now it's available as a PDF.  I had some trouble with it (to put it mildly).  The fabric frayed tremendously in the midst of one of the pattern features...  Take a look at the pattern on the website, and see if you can figure out what I did differently.  😉😆  

I also finished this one -- "Schoolgirl Basics" from Just Nan, started one summer (2018?  2019? -- I can't remember).  It's very pretty, and when I'd done it up, I wondered why I waited so long to finish it!

"Schoolgirl Basics"

It's also at the frame shop. I want her to frame it as a companion piece for this Just Nan pattern I did in 2005 ("Summer Night"), that currently hangs in my bedroom.  The mat and frame styles have changed, of course, but she thinks she can get something close to this:

"Summer Night"

And speaking of finishes re: Just Nan designs -- I've finished the stitching for the first of a pair of pieces entitled "Marching Orders".  This first one is going to become a needlebook for one of my favourite "floss-tubers".  Here it is just out of the frame.  There's a red hat charm to be sewn on, but I may leave that till I'm close to a "Final Finish".

"Marching Orders"
Needlebook

And...I happily finished Jeannette Douglas' "Mini Bouquet" for April: "Be Well" -- shown first here in situ...

And here's a close-up

I played with the reds on this one, so it's a bit brighter than "called for" -- I just think it's delightful!  And the next installment comes out on Sunday!

I have three pieces under construction: "What Remains is Love" from Blackbird Designs, which is a memorial for my husband and is stitched only from time to time; "Stitcher's Prayer" from Kathy Barrick, a pattern I've had for ages (it was published in 2001!!); and a third on which I'm making great progress -- but won't show any links or photos, as it's a gift for one of my friends who occasionally reads this blog.  Sorry...

Of course, there are 'starts' in my future now: "Marching Orders" as a line sampler is top of mind, along with the May 'mini bouquet' from Jeannette.  

In the sampler/cross-stitch world, apparently there's a group that celebrates stitching in the month of May with "Stitch Maynia".  There was a Facebook page...but it's evolved and I can't find it for 2022.  Nonetheless, the Floss Tube world is all a-buzz with this year's projects and plans.  The general idea is that you start something new every day during May!!  Whoa!  

But wait -- you don't have to!  As with so much today, there are no hard-and-fast rules about that.  Just start one new thing, or one a week or one for Mother's Day and another for Victoria Day (or Memorial Day in the US) or...or...well, you get the idea.

So I'll have the two starts mentioned (which I'd have started anyway), and...I've a stack of options for another start.  I'm thinking of Mother's Day because of this red-stitch sampler:

"Ruth Gibb, 1882"
Designed by Hands Across the Sea Samplers

 
I bought mine through my favourite LNS, Traditional Stitches, located on the west edge of Calgary.  

Margaret Gibb
ca 1910

It was the name that got to me: Ruth Gibb.  My maternal grandmother was Margaret Gibb, and she named my mother Margaret Ruth.  Mom always went by 'Ruth' -- and my DH and I named our daughter Gina Ruth (she uses 'Gina').  I think it only fitting that I do this as a "Mother's Day Start" then, eh?

Of course...that's lead to another 'rabbit hole' -- finding out more about the Gibb family, emmigrants from Barrow-in-Furness, England, in the late 1800s.  And seeing if I could find a Scottish sampler created by someone in my father's family, which originated in Kilsyth (Stirlingshire).  My GGGrandfather and his bride came to SW Quebec in 1826 to join his two half-brothers.  My Scots cousin (on Skye now) said he didn't know of any, and that may be true -- I'm not sure how many of the farmers' daughters went to school in those days (where many samplers were taught). 

That said, I had the delightful honour of a Zoom chat with Nicola Parkman of Hands Across the Sea (HATS), and she's encouraged me to select some examples of Scottish samplers, including ones from Stirlingshire (there are some distinctive features in those), and design my own.  Needless to say, photos are being collected and ideas are percolating!!

On the art quilt front, my little piece, "January Picnic" is up for bid at the SAQA Spotlight Auction, which opens today and runs online at HandBid, through May 7.  (Bidding opens at 3 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Mountain).  My piece is on "Table 1", which will be the first to close on that date (4 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Mountain). Every piece starts at $20 USD.  Shipping is $30 USD for up to 5 pieces.  Each is matted and backed, so it will present beautifully when you receive it.

And...several pieces are in at the framer's, including my latest piece, faced and mounted on 16" x 12" stretched canvas:

In the Tall Grass (c) 2022
Rusted cotton fabric, machine quilted

It's actually rather "good" that my art-making has taken a back seat to knitting, stitching and charity quilting.  The pieces are stacking up at the frame shop due to supply issues including the acquisition of the particular mouldings used for my work -- that black 'floater' frame I like so much -- so I don't know how long the process will take.  As I'm showing in the shop's gallery, I do have some work on exhibit -- as it were -- but there'll be no local art show/sale again this year (I'd be there right now if there were!).  Thus my framer can take her time getting them framed -- and I can save up the $$ for when it's all finished!

As for new ideas...well, aside from designing a Scottish sampler (and maybe an English one too!), I've at least two art quilting 'experiments' brewing.  One is the quilting of an almost-all-white string/improv piece that I thought at first might be a background, but now think might stand on its own.  The other is some sort of improv work with a selection of "prairie greens" I've gathered over time.  It includes some sunprinting I've done, some hand-dyeing, and some lovely stretchy velvet bits (6" square) dyed by my friend arlee barr -- and which I've finally mounted on stabilizer so I can  use them!

In addition to continuing my making, over the next while I'll be attending the SAQA Conference -- brought to us again online this year, from a team in Florida (where the in-person plans were cancelled due to...you know).  So while I'm 'travelling' to "St. Petersburg" via Zoom...I'll leave you with wishes for a great weekend, and a link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  Nina-Marie isn't there right now though; she's also travelling. Check out the link to learn where!

The Itch to Stitch

In my last post, I talked about my return to cross-stitch.  Since then, I've done very little else but scratch that itch!  Yep...I fell headfirst down that rabbit hole, even starting to stitch with my first mug of coffee for the day.  My sewing machine was beginning to gather dust, and even my knitting's felt rather left out! 

Mother Nature cooperated by giving these parts a wonderful mix of rain, ice, snow, wind and deep freeze temps.  This meant lots of time to stay home and stitch!

It's paid off too!  Here are some finishes...

A birthday gift for my friend Mary W. who, like me, loves to garden.  "The Potting Shed" -- -- from Elizabeth's Designs, which I think are no longer readily available, except on places like e-Bay and etsy.  I finished it with a quilted border using some bits of a gardening-themed fabric that I bought some years back (for what purpose, I can't recall -- of course! 😉)  It finished at about 8" square:

And here's the back - red poly-cotton from my "inheritance"!

She and her DH have an indoor garden -- a gift from one of their sons at Xmas -- and so she chose to mount it on the side of the structure.  Isn't that cute?!  Makes me smile every time I think of it! 😊

Photo by Mary W. and DH

Next up: I finished the February mini-bouquet from the free monthly series produced by Jeannette Douglas.  So pretty -- with a Valentine theme, of course!  

I expect the March motif will be out on Tuesday.  It's delightful to discovery what's coming next in this SAL (Stich ALong).  

And given that my DH and I were engaged in February, I worked on two other pieces.  The first -- which I finished yesterday -- is another of Jeannette's designs: "Mon Coeur".  If you read my last post you'll remember that I struggled with the slippery white thread that was used for the initial heart outline.  As a result the rest of the design didn't fit as shown.

In other words -- it was time to fudge it! 

There was a time when I'd never have done that!  Perhaps, though, both age and the lessons I've learned from art quilting have served me well.  I figured, "It's about love!  It's about hearts! So, why not personalize it?!"

And so I did:

Finished - in the hoop

Finished mini-pillow.
The initials are my late husband's.

Tiny pillow back

At about 4" square, stuffed with clean, uncarded fleece, it's joined the "Humbug" pillow, a biscornu (a gift from a stitching friend) and Jeannette's "Love Needleroll" (from a class I took with her in...umm...2005?  I didn't finish it till 2010!) in a wicker basket on the pass-through shelf between my kitchen and my living room.  There's lots of room in the basket for more of these tiny finishes.  I'm not into "fiddly" things (don't ask me to make a stuffed toy!) but these little pieces are simple and easy (no zippers, no body parts, no funky angles!)

My "Love Needle Roll"
Designer: Jeannette Douglas

At the same time, as I mentioned in my last post, I worked on What Remains is Love from Blackbird Designs, created for Traditional Stitches' 20th Anniversary. 

More fudging!

Yep.  I'm "spatially challenged" -- just like Laura (the Serial Starter from the podcast with her friend, Brenda).  I put it down to my myopic, astygmatic eyes.  I have a tendency to transpose numbers and patterns, and my eyes can 'jog' down a line (or two) when I'm reading charts for stitching and knitting.  I use magnetic strips or rulers to mark the place on which I'm working, but -- as you'll soon see -- that doesn't always work.  It happened with "Mon Coeur" (above) and again with "What Remains".  

In the latter, I didn't discover my error until I'd gone past what I consider The Point of No Return, and it had a domino effect.

I was stitching merrily along on the large blossom that's a focal point in the sampler...when suddenly I noticed it seemed wider than the pattern called for -- and yet the position with respect to the house motif above it seemed fine.  I figured, "It's just a flower" and added some stitches to ensure it looked like the one in the pattern.

Then I began the stem and leaves...and that's where it fell off the rails -- sort of.

At least, that's when I discovered my error!  It all stemmed back to the start of the text -- the words "What remains".  I stitched them lower and a bit farther left than the pattern indicated -- and that shifted the flower accordingly:

Oops #1!

In the above photo, the word "What" is below the leaf in the motif on the left (circled).  It's supposed to have started farther up and slightly to the right of that leaf.  That this did was shift the flower such that it's lower than the bit of bottom border that I'd stitched a few months ago (circled).  Blessedly, that's the only bit of bottom border I've done, and it's easily frogged and moved lower.  (Yes, I've enough fabric to allow that.)  In fact, it might be a positive "Oops!", because I wanted an appropriate space for my late DH's initials -- and maybe dates.  I may just have found it.

After I finished the flower, I moved on to the remaining text ("is Love") and then the peacock motif below that text.  If I'd thought about it, I'd have moved the bird a bit to the left...but instead I chose to position it under the "L" in "Love", as called for in the pattern.  This, of course means that I'm cutting it fine with the right-hand border. Sigh.  The ruler shows where that border lies.  The arrow points to where I stopped stitching it a few months ago, and the circle shows how, if I continue it 'as is', it'll be right up against the bird's tail feathers.

There's a lot of stitching in that bird -- and in the top of that border, thus far, so I might just leave it!

Oops #2!

As it is, I'm taking a break from it because I've run out of one of the greens (due to frogging part of  the leaves/stems of that blossom in order to adjust the position of the flower buds).  It's on order.  There's no deadline for this piece -- I'm doing it as a gift to myself -- so I'll just keep working on other pieces.  Maybe even some knitting and quilting!

Speaking of which...

The second braided cable headband was finished and sent to my friend in Ontario -- she reports that she's delighted with it and it fits!  

Pattern: Braided Cable Ear Warmer
Designer: Jessika Kalwei
Yarn: Red Heart "Heat Wave" - 100% Acrylic

I also completed one of my colour-work socks for the February Socks from Stash challenge, but have been so besotted with my stitching that I've not even cast on the second one!

The "bump" you see on my leg in the photo is just from the leggings I was wearing at the time. I didn't bother smoothing them out!

Pattern: Unelma Onnesta
Designer: Tiina Kuu

And...because I wanted to Focus on Fair Isle in February, I watched my Craftsy Class -- "Fair Isle Fundamentals" -- and began a worsted-weight hat in four colours, all wool:

Pattern: Copenhagen Hat - Tanis Gray
Yarns: Patons Classic Wool, Diamond Galway
Heather and elann.com Superwash Worsted

It's slow-going, but I'm plugging away at it, a bit each day.  And yes, with my chart-reading challenges, there's been some 'tinking' (reverse knitting) going on along the way.  I'm not sure I'm loving it...and am gearing up for the possibility that full-on Fair Isle or Scandinavian patterns aren't in my future -- much as I admire them.  Still, once I get going on the pattern, I find I have to keep knitting to see how it'll turn out! 😆

You'll note the brim curls at the bottom.  This is likely due to the fact that I couldn't face starting that corrugated ribbing in different colours, immediately after casting on with the dark teal -- so I knit a single row to ensure a good join.  I may rip it out and cast off that edge -- or I may simply fold it under and stitch it down once the hat is finished.  We shall see!

As for quilting...or at least, piecing -- I did manage to get a 3" border on my "Spare Squares" quilt top.  Here it is on my back stoop in yesterday's late afternoon sunshine:

The border is a really deep green -- cotton, I think, from my "inheritance"; the top -- it's a lap quilt -- finishes at 48" x 60".  Next up: piece the backing (a warm brown/tan from the "inheritanc" which I think mainly cotton), sandwich and quilt!  I'll bind it in the remaining deep green fabric.

I also shocked my sewing machine yesterday, when I decided to keep going after finishing that little Mon Coeur pillow.  I made 2 more blocks for my Rhododendron Trail -- that makes 12 now -- and finished 2 more wonky logs.  I've 90 of those now and I'm aiming for 99 so I can make the top 9 blocks across by 11 rows.  That would make it 45" x 55" before adding a border of some sort.  Then again, I've not laid them out, so there might be sashing going on.  Another "we'll see".

Today?  I've worked on that hat, so I might just jolt my sewing machine again and do a bit of piecing.  But then again...In this week's mail arrived the stitching pattern and fabric for a piece I want do do up for a friend's June birthday.  And I fell for and dowloaded a pattern for a 'red sampler' (that's one with all read floss on a cream or white background)...and there's a walk that has to happen later on this afternoon to try to maintain my svelt (!) figure following days of staying indoors.

I'll leave you with the link to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday -- where's she's been playing with colour in a new way -- and wish you a cozy, safe, creative, colourful week, whatever that means for you.  As Brenda and Laura (the Serial Starter) are won't to say, "Stitch what makes you happy!" 

P.S. in Other Good News: my piece, Incarnation to Resurrection: Reflections on Colours of the Church Year will be winging its way to Virginia in a few months, to appear in the "Spirituality" section of the most wonderful Sacred Threads 2022 juried exhibit.  I found this out yesterday, and have been smiling steadily ever since!