Thursday, February 20, 2025

Vacation!

 It's been snowing on and off the last couple of days, but hopefully most of it managed to melt this afternoon because I am hitting the road this weekend! Come hell or high water, I will walk if need-be because I have been ready for this vacation for the last 2 months. I have a whole week of no obligations except for restaurant reservations. Since I'm not taking any classes this time, I've packed my own projects. 

Where I'm at with the Fraktur Trifold Book:

The wings for the Parham Owl:
 
The reticella laceand the back of the Stuart Thistle case:

My go-to dragon (which I think I also haven't worked on since last year...):


A new project, a little bead kit my mom found in her stash:

 And still plugging away at this scarf:

I figure this is a good enough range of projects, that there will definitely be something I want to work on each day. And I'm excited to get back to each of these! It may actually be harder to figure out which *one* to work on at a given moment. 

And this was a good time to finally finish the Ennis pullover!

I'm pretty sure that last time I worked on this was exactly a year ago, because I was trying to get it finished in time for this trip for 2024 (and didn't quite get it done in time). I had tucked it away over the summer and mostly forgotten about it. Thankfully, I had more done than I had remembered: I only had to put in one side seam, get the collar knit, and set in the sleeves. And ta-da, another wool sweater! I pulled it on just long enough to make sure everything was in the right place, then straight into the suitcase.

Here's hoping the weather continues to clear!
 


Sunday, February 9, 2025

Happy New Year! In February....

 I work in retail, and the Christmas season is our busiest by a significant margin. I haven't had much energy beyond getting to work and back the last couple of months (January is the season of gift card spending and returns, so it's just as busy as December). 

But I have managed *some* stitching. Primarily the Hapsburg Lace Needle Case by Tanja Berlin as one of my local EGA chapter's projects. This one I had to get done because I ended up running the program on the finishing.

I think it turned out cute! I was mostly drawn to its construction: it uses actual book-binding techniques to put in the felt pages. But the cover pattern is cute and it was a fun, quick stitch. It was perfect for retail-zombie brain to achieve.

For knitting, I thought I found another pattern for the yarn stash I got from my mom, but alas either my math was wrong or the pattern's math for the larger sizes was wrong. So I got most of a sweater knit before I ran out of yarn. I have since found another pattern, so hopefully I'll have a picture of that one next time.

For something completely different, I picked up a Gundam plastic model kit from work:

It is a lot of tiny finicky pieces, and I've been enjoying myself immensely.

Made it to 2026!

 Already starting the year off better than last! Apparently my earliest 2025 post was in February, so I'm calling this one a win. As exp...