Thursday 26 March 2015

Tutorial Thursdays Month-Long Linky Party

Tutorial Thursdays Linky Party

Welcome back for the last week of linking fun in the month of March.

March is the month of seasonal change!

Spring is in the air for some of us and for the rest there may be a tiny nip in the air as autumn approaches - Get creative and share your craft tutorials on the upcoming season!

I would love to see them, so share them below :)

This month there will be no feature. 

Feel free to link up all your crafts below.
I look forward to visiting all of the links I find below.

If you want a button for your side bar - here you go:

Marigolds' Loft

See you soon
x

Monday 23 March 2015

Weaving Woes and Other Fun

Rigid Heddle scarf

Above is the only bit of my Odds and Ends Scarf that you will get to see unfortunately :(

And it was looking soooo pretty too!

I sat down to continue on this project yesterday and no sooner had I started than one of my warp threads faded into nothingness.

And after another 10 minutes another one dropped out.

rigid heddle warping failures

You may recall that I mentioned in last week's post that my Drops Delight kept almost felting together, well it seems it was a very bad choice for a warp as with each successive beat it seemed to pull away more and more fiber, exposing bare little threads that could not hold up to anything, not even my touch!

What a pity!

As a weft it is lovely, and I love the way the colour was just starting to turn.

odds and ends scarf

Oh well, experience I guess :(

I will be warping my loom with some sock yarn soon to try and make a scarf out of that as I have loads of that still stashed.

I have started a new Card Weaving Project at work and I hope to be a little further with this later in the week, I will share my progress with you next week (or if you follow me on Instagram you will get to see it before then :))

card weaving

WIP wise: Kay's socks have finally started to grow :)

Kay's socks

I have started the heel on the socks and will hopefully get well into the foot as the week progresses.

Reading wise: I haven't got much further in my book from last week as I have become a little sidetracked with garden planning and the likes!

If you would like to see what I have been up to on the homesteading side come on over and visit us on our Homestead Blog :)

Do you have some loved Pinterest recipes?

Pinterest Tried and Tested

Come on over and share them with us all tomorrow on Holistic Homesteading, we would love to hear from you :)

Have a super week ahead,
See you soon
x

I will be sharing this post with all of my weekly friends.

Craftsy

Friday 20 March 2015

February Lady Sweater

February Lady Sweater

Here she is - my finished February Lady Sweater!
Sorry for the slightly blurry pic!

I love this project to say the least.
In the above image it is still unblocked and I am hoping that I will get around to blocking it soon, or just wearing it :) 
But as you can see the sleeve edges definitely need a blocking as they are curling up on themselves, although I don't find it looks too bad.

What I loved about this project is the ease of the pattern. It was such a wonderfully easy lace pattern to follow and not only was it delightful to knit, but because of the pattern I found the whole piece grew incredibly fast.

This project took me 15 days from start to finish!

I moved onto the sleeves over the weekend and finished them up on Monday afternoon.

fls

The project was knitted in Drops Nepal and I love the colour of it, a perfect accompaniment for any spring/autumn wardrobe!

I liked the fact that I could work out my perfect length and overall the pattern suited me down to the ground.

I finished the sweater by sewing on some Drops Buffalo Horn buttons which compliment the sweater nicely.

Ravelry February Lady Sweater

Would I knit this again?
Definitely!

I am going to save this project as a go-to project should I ever not know what to knit! 
Although I would like a green version of this project......

What did you manage to finish this week?

If you would like to, feel free to link your Finished Objects below.

x


Thursday 19 March 2015

Tutorial Thursdays Month-Long Linky Party

Tutorial Thursdays Linky Party

Welcome back to another month of linking fun!

March is the month of seasonal change!

Spring is in the air for some of us and for the rest there may be a tiny nip in the air as autumn approaches - Get creative and share your craft tutorials on the upcoming season!

I would love to see them, so share them below :)

This month there will be no feature. 

Feel free to link up all your crafts below.
I look forward to visiting all of the links I find below.

If you want a button for your side bar - here you go:

Marigolds' Loft

See you soon
x

Tuesday 17 March 2015

Project Progress


A new week and now that my Juliana is finished things seem to be moving fast :)

It could be the fact that my FLS from last week flew off the needles thanks to the bulky yarn and bigger needles! 
(I will share the FO with you on Friday)

It went so fast I am actually wondering what I should cast on next!

Now don't think I don't have a queue of projects as long as my right arm, I am just a bit stunned at the emptiness of my project bag for the moment and don't really feel the need to fill it with too many new projects just yet.

I think it is time to work on some smaller projects again and I am tending to lean towards a bunch of sock and wristlet projects that will shrink my Christmas knitting and will be perfect projects for the upcoming season
(which will be warm - I ordered the weather yesterday! ;))

Let me run through the projects you see in the image above:

sock knitting

These are Kay's Socks. They haven't grown at all since you last saw them and I am hoping that by next week they will have improved themselves.

onion 0004

I want to sew myself a new pair of harmen pants and had hoped to have started on them this morning.
Alas this has not yet happened and I am hoping that I will get some time to sew them through this week.

odds and ends

Another bit of progress in the weaving department! 
I finally warped for my Odds and Ends Scarf.

I haven't done too much weaving just yet but I am liking how it is turning out.
I love being able to just add scrap yarns higgeldy-piggeldy and watching the magical transformation as they turn into an amazing FO!

My only gripe about this project so far - I have used Drops Delight quite a bit in this project and what I am finding is that it is almost felting to itself just through the friction of the heddle :O 

I didn't think that this may happen as it is a superwash, but I am hoping that it is just a starting hurdle and it will loosen up as I continue.

the invisible library

Reading Wise: I have started to read "The Invisible Library" but haven't progressed enough to have formed an opinion about it yet.

What are you busy with this week?

I wish you all a fantastic, creative week.
x

I will be sharing this post with all my creative weekly friends, come on over and join the fun :)

Thursday 12 March 2015

Tutorial Thursdays Month-Long Linky Party

Tutorial Thursdays Linky Party

Welcome back to another month of linking fun!

March is the month of seasonal change!

Spring is in the air for some of us and for the rest there may be a tiny nip in the air as autumn approaches - Get creative and share your craft tutorials on the upcoming season!

I would love to see them, so share them below :)

This month there will be no feature. 

Feel free to link up all your crafts below.
I look forward to visiting all of the links I find below.

If you want a button for your side bar - here you go:

Marigolds' Loft

See you soon
x

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Loving This Pattern!

February Lady Sweater Ravelry

I am so loving this pattern!
So much so that I actually haven't worked on any of the other projects I had planned to over the last week. Every time I have had a moment to myself I find myself knitting away at this sweater.

I am not sure if it is the ease with which a bulkier yarn allows you to knit at (especially after my Juliana ;)), or if it is the wonderful lace pattern which keeps me going - whatever it is I am enjoying this pattern no end!

I have already got to the end of the body and am on the garter stitch edge which I will more than likely be able to cast off today. 

That means I should be on the sleeves by tomorrow so I could possibly have a finished sweater by next week - that is if the sleeves go as quickly as the rest of the sweater!

My buttons for the sweater have also arrived and I think they suit to the overall look and feel of the sweater beautifully.

They are made of Buffalo horn and I love the rustic look that they provide:

drops buffalo horn buttons
  
February Lady Sweater drops Nepal

I am also making progress in my big clean-up and rearranging project which I am busy with at work. 

It may sound a little fanatical, but I am loving the structure that our work-shelves are slowly acquiring :)

Weaving cloth and knitting yarn

Reading wise: I am just about finished my book from last week and look forward to starting a new book shortly.

How has your week been so far?

I will be sharing this with all my Tuesday and Wednesday friends so hop on over and be inspired :)

x

Friday 6 March 2015

Finally Juliana!


Juliana Ravelry

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy......
I love it!

Over last weekend I finally managed to get to the end of my Juliana - whew! 
I have been busy on this baby since August last year. 

Given that I did take a break from October onward to get all my Christmas knitting done, I still saw it every day which made the project seem endless!

drops baby merino

I have never knit such a long piece of knitting before - I know why!

The pattern was a lovely knit, it was perfect evening knitting with a really simple 8 row pattern repeat, making it easy to get it growing quite quickly.
The hardest bit was realizing that I had to knit 1.80m and then still had to knit the arms, it did get a bit tedious when I stopped to ponder what the mass of fabric on my lap was to become!

juliana

Once I finally bound off the arms on Saturday, I could get down to the task of dropping the stitches throughout the pattern.

I love the effect of the dropped stitches, and am glad that I persevered with it!

Dropped stitch pattern

This took me the most part of Sunday to complete and I did have a problem twice under the arm where my cast off edge somehow had not worked and the stitches started to unravel into the sleeve.

There was no ways that I was going to rip it out and begin again, so I ended up improvising and sewing those two stitches into the piece so that they will hold for as long as I wear this garment :)

I knit this project with Drops Baby Merino which is a perfect fit for this pattern.

Would I knit it again?

If it wasn't for the meterage and my wanting to have it out of my WIP bag so I could focus on something new, then yes, I would definitely make more of these!

I could see this being a super knitting machine project, cast on in the morning - finish in the afternoon!

What project have you managed to complete this week?
If you would like to link your finished projects up below feel free to do so :)

Have a great weekend.
x




Thursday 5 March 2015

Tutorial Thursdays Month-Long Linky Party

Tutorial Thursdays Linky Party

Welcome back to another month of linking fun!

March is the month of seasonal change!

Spring is in the air for some of us and for the rest there may be a tiny nip in the air as autumn approaches - Get creative and share your craft tutorials on the upcoming season!

I would love to see them, so share them below :)

This month there will be no feature. 

Feel free to link up all your crafts below.
I look forward to visiting all of the links I find below.

If you want a button for your side bar - here you go:

Marigolds' Loft

See you soon
x

Monday 2 March 2015

New Week, New projects!


Yay!
Finally a whole range of new projects to share with you all :)

Yes, that does mean my Juliana is off the needles and will be shared with you all on Friday.

So let me get down to introducing you to the projects that you haven't seen before:

February Lady Sweater


To be perfectly honest, I actually had this yarn set aside to knit an Isis-Wrap for myself, but when I fetched my nifty pattern holder sleeve, the February Lady Sweater was sitting on the top of the pile and seemed to tickle my fancy more at this moment, so I cast it on!

We knitters do that ;)

I do have a few balls of yarn too little so I remedied that by ordering a couple more from my LYS as well as choosing some buffalo horn buttons to go with the cardie. I hope they will look good together, I will share them with you once they arrive.

So far so good, I like the bulkiness of the yarn and needles, I love jumping to a more bulkier project in between others, they grow so delightfully fast!

Yarn Scarf for me

This nice little collection of odds and ends will be planned into a woven scarf for myself.
I am hoping to be able to warp my loom today.

I think I will be going all willy-nilly with this project and letting the yarns fall into place where they may.

They are all sock yarn scraps and the full balls are Drops Delight, which are a fingering weight, and I think they will also be used for a large percentage of the weft too.

socks for kay

These socks you have seen before, as I did cast them on a while ago.
I originally planned to have them done for Kay birthday, but that plan didn't work out, so I have come up with an alternate plan - I will slowly and calmly knit each member of my family a new pair or two of socks for Christmas. This gives me loads of time and I should be finished way before I actually need them!

Let us see if that plan works out!

Reading Wise: I am reading a book that my cousin wrote actually :)
It is called "Virus Doctors" and so far it is a good read.

I am finding that actually knowing the author makes it a lot harder to just read the book, does that make sense?

Has any of you experienced this before?

How have your projects developed over the last week?

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Until next time.
x

P.S. I will be sharing this post with all my Wednesday friends.

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