A Wee Pine Tree

This is my October Bride's Tree ornament - the theme was 'Pinecone, for motherhood, fruitfulness, or eternity.'

Patterns with pinecones are surprisingly hard to find; I cobbled this one together from bits and pieces of a freebie... I can't remember where I found it. I think it may have been on the Bride's Tree blog. The pic is not that great, but I think it's cute :D

And since it's Wednesday, here's my Mystery SAL blocks for the week:


Ugh. I hate this block. It looks okay, but 1. it's single crochets, 2. the sc3tog at the end looks messy, and 3. it refuses to be square, even though I tried about a dozen different things. I think blocking is going to be the only answer. I have to make ten more of these, but I'm spreading them out over the next two weeks because... I hate them XD

At least they look kinda neat. It's their only redeeming quality.

Two More Goals Down!

I finished two more projects!

Here's October's Christmas ornament - it's been done for a few days, actually, but I kept forgetting to take a pic of it:




And I started & finished 'She Sings' (I haven't washed or blocked it yet, obviously)



This is for my baby sister for Christmas. The pattern is from the last issue of The Cross Stitcher. I changed the dog's colors & stitched the moon in - rayon? Whatever the shiny (not sparkly) floss is called.

This is the sweetie I stitched it in memory of:



I changed the dog from speckled to as close to her coloring as I could without it looking odd. She was the first puppy my baby sister ever had as 'hers', even though she was really everyone's. My sister was 9, I think, and insisted on calling her Princess even though me & our brother held out for Annie - so her name ended up Princess Annie and quickly became Prin or Prin-Prin. She was a doll! She looks a little insane in the pic, doesn't she? Lol!

Here are my Clue #4 Afghan squares from Bernat's Mystery SAL:



I had to leave off the last TC row to keep my squares from being rectangles.

The next clue came out today so I thought I'd post these. I have to make 16 (!) of the next one. And it's all in single crochets... ugh! Not my favorite as they make my hand cramp. Oh well. I shall perservere! I'm already 2 down.

Mary and the Angel

Here is the motif for Mary Wigham that I stitched this month - this is the closest I have come in having this color of floss show up in the picture like it does in real life. It's still not quite this faded, but it's better than the other pics have been!



And here's the motif with the rest:



Color's still fairly good in this one; I wish wish wish I could get it right but oh, well. I can't get it with any of my camera settings... no matter what light it's in...

And here's my angel as she was last time I stopped working on her:


SIDE A

SIDE B (lol! I know the sides don't match but I hadn't worked on this part any more since.)

And as she is after 10 hours:



Ten more to go this month!

I've finished all the crocheting on my SIL's shawl, now I'm working on the beaded fringe... here's a not-very-good pic of it.



I'm only using pony beads because this shawl will see a lot of use and they're easily replaceable. The diamonds look oddly misshappen in this pic but they're not that bad for a first time trying this. They'll straighten out a bit more when I block it.

Mermaid Progress

Here's my Mermaid of the Deep after last month and this month's combined 10 hours - I think about 4 last month and 6 this month:




I have completely finished the first page (finally!) and isolated most of the confetti stitches on the second page. I'm hoping to finish her up next month. For now I'm going to stitch Mary Wigham's motif and work on my Angel.

I also did Clue #3 of the Myster Afghan at the Bernat blog - it was a V-stitch square, of which there was supposed to be 8 in color E. Since I'm trying to use up leftover yarn, I had to use two different colors. I don't have 20oz. of one leftover green. The dark ones are Light Sage and the light ones are Frosty Green.



Pardon, please, the fact that I have yet to weave in my ends :D Next clue comes out on Wednesday - I'm looking forward to seeing what it is!

I also decided to try and improve my very, very basic and shaky knitting skills by going back and doing the Mystery Knit-Along Afghan. I'm still on the very first square, though. This could take me awhile :D

October Goals

These were my SEPTEMBER GOALS!

1. Start & finish another Christmas ornament - done! Two, actually :D
2. Start & finish the August-theme ornament for my Bride's Tree SAL - done!
3. Start & finish the September-theme ornament for my Bride's Tree SAL - done!
4. Add a motif to Mary Wigham - done!
5. Work at least 10 hours each on Angel of Grace, Mermaid of the Deep, & Sunny - not done - got 5 hours on Gracie, 3 on the Mermaid, and never had time for Sunny
6. Choose either Kuruma, Chibi-Sev or Wufei and work 10 hours on him - done! 10 hours on Chibi-Sev

Since I didn't do toooooo badly - I think I'll try some October Goals:

1. Start & finish another Christmas ornament
2. Start & finish the October-theme Bride's Tree ornament
3. Start & finish 'She Sings'
4. Add a motif to Mary Wigham
5. Work 15-20 hours on Angel of Grace - I want to finish her this year if I can
6. Work 5 hours each on Chibi-Sev, Mermaid & Sunny
7. Stitch the Mystery Afghan squares as they are posted
8. Finish my SIL's shawl & start Mum's

We'll see how I do! I just wish I had more time to stitch.

I Hate Gauge...

I have finished my August Bride's Tree ornament - the August them is beauty & affection, symbolized by a rose:




And I did September, too - theme is hospitality, with a teapot or coffepot. I couldn't find another little coffeepot besides the one I stitched last year in a little sampler, so I went with the only teapot pattern I even vaguely liked:



This pattern is stitched diagonally - first time I've tried that. My brain kept wanting to short out until I made myself focus on the squares and not the pattern as a whole. Then it went pretty fast.

This brings me even with the Bride's Tree SAL - now I have to find a pinecone for October. Both these patterns were freebies that I found links to on the Bride's Tree blog. All these will be an anniversary present for either my mother or my sister-in-law.

When I got the stash shown in the previous post, I also picked up the latest issue of the Cross Stitcher - I hadn't had a chance to look at it then but I have now, and this little pretty is going straight on my to-do-list in October:



We had a sweet doggie that died a few years ago - my little sister's first dog that she can remember. She looked a lot like this and all I'll have to do is tweak the browns to a little darker. Then I may put her name and maybe dates at the bottom; my sister will want one, my brother, my mother... um... maybe I shouldn't stitch this yet! lol!
She was our best-loved dog ever and we all miss her.

I also joined (and promptly forgot about) the Bernat blog's Mystery Afghan Crochet-Along. I didn't remember it until I saw someone else posting about their first squares. So I hurried to the blog and read the instructions and it was super easy. I stitched the first right away, Tuesday evening.

The next morning I took the yarn with me to stitch the next one while I was waiting for my mum at the chiropracter (I have to drive her there). I made the nexxt one just as easy. Took no time.

Then I got home and laid them beside each other, and the first one was at least an inch bigger.

Huh. Odd, because I've been crocheting for eons - honestly, I don't even remember being taught, in our family our grandmother and aunts and mothers all crochet and I think the girls all learned by osmosis or something. Everyone can do it and only a couple of us actually remember lessons - anyway, I've never had that happen before with crocheting - same yarn, same hook, I should have gotten the same gauge. Knitting, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised, but crochet? Good old reliable crochet?!

So I tried again, doing just the first few rows, and measured carefully, and the square was still going to be smaller. Now, I'm using a K hook already to get gauge and I didn't want to use a bigger hook, so I started another, crocheting loosely.

Still too small.

I started a block four times before it occurred to me to try & measure the new squares I was making with the second, smaller square I had made that morning.

They matched perfectly.

ARrrGGhh.

So I made them that way - they are smaller than the 8 inches they are supposed to be, but I'm making my afghan to use up stash, and my yarn is worsted weight instead of chunky. So they will be smaller, anyway. I know how to make patterns compensate for that, it was just the gauge that was killing me!

Apparently, I was drunk when I made that first square.

REally odd, since I don't drink...

Here are my squares:


The edges look a wee bit odd to me since I'm trying that new technique where you don't have to chain 3 - it is neater, but it'll take time before I get them looking the way I want them.

Since yesterday was Wednesday, and that's when the new 'clues' come out, I went back to the blog to see what torment I had gotten myself in for.

Clue 2 was Granny squares. Thank God! I can do those in my sleep:


Now I'm going to be all antsy until I use the first yarn again. I wish my brain didn't work the way it does...

Stash!

I got some :D

Winter's coming this way pretty fast - when you live in a very rural area like I do, it's a good thing to have plenty of projects for the days you're snowed in with the roads closed. Although I already have waaaaaaaaaay too much stash already, I couldn't resist Coupon Days at JoAnns to get a little more.
I get their online newsletter and the one in the mail, so I had a lot of 40% off coupons. Enough to make the 2 hour trip worthwhile. Not that I don't think it's worthwile, anyway, but convincing someone to go with me isn't always easy. (My father gets really worried when any of his daughters, or our mom, goes that far away on their own. Men!)

So here's what I got this trip:



The Rooster ended up being $6 with the coupon, and Leonardo was about $10.



Lots of floss for my HAEDs - I kit those up slowly. Also two other projects that I'll show starts on soon.



These will be a shawl with beaded fringe for my mother's Christmas present. The yarn actually matches the beads very nicely, but the camera makes it look grey.



And this is why you don't let a price-obsessed grandmother choose her own yarn and embellishments for her Christmas shawl. But I promised to work with what she chose, so I'll see what I can do. I don't think this lot came to even $10 total...

And this is for me:



I love this apron!

I also got some other yarns and some backing fabric for my ornaments, but I thought this was enough pics for one post!