Stitch Sew & Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 23

 

Welcome to Stitch Sew  Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 22

I have been taking three steps forward and three steps back

 and exploring the importance of gauge in crochet this week. 

This was the three steps forward and I was working on Stripe 15 in my

Christmas Candy Stripe Sampler Afghan

This does not look bad from the distance, in part because I did not show the sides of my afghan, which had taken on a large curve in the multicolored row strips at the top.  When I laid it out and measured, my Stripe 14 was 4" high when it should have been 3" high according to the pattern.  My stiches were too loose. The green stripe below it was pulled in at the sides, indicating my stitches there were too tight.

I corrected this by pulling out Stripes 14 and 13 and changed hooks.

Most of this afghan has been done with the green I Hook (5.5mm) on the bottom.

I used a larger hook (6.0mm) for the light green Linen Stitch Stripe. I am usually inclined to stitch this pattern, also called the Moss Stitch, tightly.

The multicolored lace pattern is new to me and called the Larksfoot Stitch in the pattern.  I really needed the video instructions for this stitch.  It calls for placing the elongated stitch across two rows and needs to be done loose enough for it to lay flat.  I made it too loose the first time around, so I used a smaller (5.0mm) hook to get the correct size.

This is my progress in the redo so far, showing the side of my work.

You can see the rows now look even on the side edge.

Now it is time to redo the white row and I am putting this aside.

The first time around I used the creamy Snow White skein that I pulled out once before.  Even at a distance from the previous white strips, it looks dull and off-white.  I am waiting for a new skein of Snow White to arrive and hoping the dye lot will be a better match. 

What are you working on this week?

Please share! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Christmas Candy Crochet ~ Playing Catch-Up

 These are Stripes 7 to 12 for my current yarn project. 

This is my 

Christmas Candy Striped Sampler Afghan ~ Started Here

It is a monthly BOM kit and I am catching up as I had been focused on other projects. I know this month's kit is on the way, so I may or may not be ready for it when it arrives, but I am making good progress.  Crocheting is a no stress zone for me.  I find it very relaxing. 

These are Stripes 7 to 9 which I Posted Here.

Over the weekend I was able to complete Stripes 10-132.

Today is a beautiful day so I am taking my yarn bag out to enjoy the flowers blooming in the yard.

Linking Up today with

Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts

and

Monday Making @ Love Laugh Quilt

May you have a happy stitching day! 

Stitch Sew & Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 22

Welcome to Stitch Sew & Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 22

This week I stitched Stripes 1-9 for my

Christmas Candy Striped Sampler Afghan ~ Started Here

This completes the first three months of this BOM which is for purchase via

Annie's Crochet Stripe Afghan Club

I am not affiliated with this business.  I am providing the link only so you may find this pattern if you are interested in making this afghan.

The monthly kits include a written pattern and yarn and there are how-to videos for both right and left handed crocheters online for club members. 

I am requested this as a gift from Mr. Scrapatches so I could revive and build my crochet skills. It has been very helpful.

I love the sampler rows stitch patterns, particularly this Mixed Checkerboard stripe.  I am not sure I would have placed the stitches correctly without the help of the video instructions.  

I am now working on the month four kit. 

I have six months of kits now and hope to catch up before the next kit arrives.

What are you working on this week?

Please Share! 

I visit every link every week.  Sometimes I have difficulty commenting.

I very much enjoy all the inspiration in the links.

Thanks to all who join in my weekly linky party! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Stitch Sew & Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 10

 

Welcome to Stitch Sew & Show ~ 2022 ~ Week 10

I am Nutmeg and I have been helping Mommy with her quilting and blogging. 

Here I am copying and pasting the code for today's linky party.

I am very competent computer cat.

Usually I work the scenes for treats and petting breaks. This week I have taking over Mommy's blog so she can have more time to take care of the kitties. 

Shhhhh ... don't tell Mommy but I will be ordering more cats treats and toys

 while she isn't looking.  Meows the word! 

 This week, Mommy and I received the third monthly kit for our 

Christmas Candy Striped Afghan ~ Started Here

The yarn in this kit is really soft and cuddly, but Mommy says there is an issue with the dye lots.  So lets take a closer look.

The kits arrive with three new balls of yarn each month and we have a bag of leftover yarn from the first two months.

Mommy says she expected  that she would not have to think about all the yarn in this project being from the same dye lot because it is being put together by pattern and kit makers. But last month when she started the new ball of Snow White included in the kit for the 6th row, she noticed a difference in the color.

Mommy says you can see it better here 

because we put a sheet of white paper under the white stripe.

Can you see that the last two rows are a more creamy white than the first three rows?

Mommy is thinking of pulling out all the rows in this sixth stripe and using the creamy ball of yarn. She says she can then use the small ball of leftover white from the first skein to use as the "small amount of snow white" needed for Stripe 8 and it will not be so noticeable.

Mommy and I are wondering:

What would you do? 

Thank you for visiting us and joining in our linky party fun! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Christmas Candy Stripes Afghan Progress

 

Month 2 ~ Stripes 4-6 are done.

I am enjoying this skill building pattern.  The stitches are challenging and the yarn is oft and pretty.  The soft pink is my favorite.  Pink did not used to be one of my favorite colors but as I have gotten older it has become more and more appealing. I like the addition of the pink to the more traditional Christmas colors. 

Tomorrow I will be picking up one of my other projects to make some progress.

  It has been another cold and icy day.  The winter sun was not warm enough to melt any of yesterday's ice.  

I hope you are having a warm and happy and safe weekend.

Happy Stitching! 

Stitching and Snowing in the Scrapatch

 

The Neighborhood ~ Block 1 done for my ... 

Neighborhood SAL ~ Started Here

is embroidered and done!

This is a free stitch along pattern @ Crabapple Hill Studio

Nutmeg has been her usually helpful self. 

When she curled up for her afternoon nap on our fleece covered ottoman,

I sat and worked on the fourth stripe in my 

Christmas Candy Striped Afghan

I definitely needed the instruction video for this stitch as the written instructions and diagram had me confused.  After the how-to video de-mystified the process, I could see that is just what they said.  My brain just would not comprehend.

I love the look of the star stitch stripe and the lovely pink yarn.

On to stripe five and this pretty Christmas green yarn! 

Today was a bread baking day.

If you missed my post for this wonderful, go to my earlier post:

Peasant Bread ~ Recipe Link Here

Mmmm ... so good!

It has been a day of ice and sleet and snow here and precipitation is still falling.

Mr. Scrapatch went off to work. The plows pushed a few feet of into the end of our driveway.  The temperature is dropping.  This stuff is not shovelable.

 Time for ice melt to help him get into the driveway. 

Hope you have a safe and warm and happy weekend.

Snow ~ Time To Crochet

Let it snow; let it snow; let it snow. 

It has started snowing here.

 The forecast is for blizzard conditions.

I think there is a fancy new name for this storm 

but here in New England we just call it a Nor'easter, 

a few feet of snow in windy whiteout conditions.

I have quilts. I have batteries. I have yarn.

The pretty yarn above arrived today.

It is the second month kit for the next three rows of my 

Christmas Candy Afghan ~ Started Here

I am tempted to drop everything and start Stripe 4.

Tonight, I am persevering with the next block for my

Sampler Squares Crochet Afghan

 I will finish this square and block it and then decide 

if I will be hooking squares or stripes tomorrow.

If I do not post for a day or two, it will likely mean we lost power.

Hoping to stay snug and warm this weekend.

May you be safe and warm, too.

Stitch Sew & Show 2022 ~ Week 1 ~ Join in the Fun!

Welcome to Stitch Sew & Show 2022! 

I started Stitch Sew & Show ~ Week 1 here in 2021.

By December I was questioning whether I was going to continue in 2022.

After thinking it over and realizing that I made some very creative and kind new friends last year and that my little online sewing circle was growing and has given  me many smiles and much inspiration. 

Warm hugs to all who have participated!

The image at the top is a temporary one.

My daughter made last my button for me last year and will be updating it for me when she has time.

For this year's background I have chosen the ...

Pantone Color of the Year 2022

If I were asked what my favorite shade of purple is it would be Periwinkle Blue in its the deepest blue tones.  

I do have fabric and a project that has been in my queue for a very long time that would use this color in its palette wonderfully. 

I think I am going to have to go fabric spelunking in my big closet and dig this gem out of its fabric cave.

My sewing machine is still covered though and has been since Thanksgiving.

My sewing machine is calling my name. 

My current project is this 

Christmas Candy Crochet Striped Sampler

This is a Annie's Crochet Stripe Afghan Club monthly program. 

Kitty helper Nutmeg has been most interested in this new project. 

Most helpful.

After a day which included an hour long dentist appointment this morning and a two hour nap this afternoon, and a bit of an ice storm off and on all day, the evening of Day 5 find me still working on this very easy Stripe 3

I hope to sit and stitch after publishing this post.

Below is the link to join the party.

This is a very informal party ... no stress, no prizes, no finish needed.

This is just a place to share what you are working on with others

and enjoy their inspiration.

Think of it as sitting at home while stitching with a group of friends.

I have always enjoyed sharing with others and have received much kindness in return.

This is a way for me to say thank you and to encourage others.

This link will remain open until next Tuesday so you may join in on any day or at any time.

Please join in the fun for 2022 

and share what you are working on ...

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Crochet Sampler ~ Day 4 ~ On a Roll

 Day 4 of 2022 found me working on my 

Christmas Candy Crochet Sampler

I was on a roll ... 

 er ... maybe ... ?

With my morning coffee nearby, I thought I was ready to add the green Stripe 3.

These yarns come in one of those "easy pull" skeins.

I have never been convinced these are "easy" to "pull.

For the white skein for the first stripe I tried easy pulling for the skein.

About 3 rows in it stopped easy pulling.  

It stopped pulling completely.

After digging in and pulling out the humungous knot in the center,

spending an hour or so trying to untangle it,

I had to cut it and roll two uneven size white balls. 

Does this ever happen to you? 

 Or has someone given me the crochet evil eye and cursed me with no-pull easy pull skeins?

Living and learning again here that it is best for me to roll the skein into a ball.

All seemed to be going well. I completed the first row in the green stripe.

This pretty wooden yarn bowl arrived via Amazon to help keep my yarn ball from rolling off the table to the kitties' delight.

Yes, that is Nutmeg sitting on the table, temporarily distracted by "birdievision" out my open back door. 

The bowl has a cover but I cannot use it until I use up some of the yarn.

After completing all but the final row of the green, I took a good look at the last red row and compared it with the pattern  photos. 

Hmmm ... something did not look quite right. 

After going back and watching the instruction video all the way through, I found I had missed an important feature of the last red row.  Thinking that I knew what I was doing, I put the hook in to wrong place in the red loop and the knit look design of the red stripe was lost in the last row. 

Time to pull all the green out, fix the last red row and get it right.

Note to Self: 

Always watch all of the instruction videos to the end in the future.

Tomorrow will be another day of playing with the pretty yarn.

Not a bad thing at all ... :) 

I hope you had a happy and successful day of stitching and sewing.

Christmas Candy Crochet Sampler ~ Stripe 2 Done

 

Day 3 of 2022 found me still working on the second stripe of the

Christmas Candy Crochet Sampler

This stitch is a HDC (Half Double Crochet) variation.

After watching the same small section of the instruction video a few times and starting this row over, I almost mastered the stitch. It is a stitch that I believe I had done over 40 years ago but I can not quite recall.  After I got the stitch placement down, I found I had picked up several extra stitches in the row.

After pulling it out again and completing the rows for this narrow red stripe

I checked my gauge and it is spot on. 

One of the things I really like about crochet is that there is only one stitch on the hook at a time so if you have to take out and fix stitches, it is easy to do.  There are only 136 stitches in the rows for this project, so this is not very time consuming to pull it out and and get it right.

On to Stripe 3 in Clover green tomorrow!  

I am a contented crocheter tonight.

Do you crochet? 

The New Year Brings New Challenges

 

A new creative challenge for a new year!

The red is Stripe 2 in the 

Annie's Crochet Stripe Afghan Club

There are several pretty colorways for this club.

I chose the "Christmas Candy" colors.

This is a gift that I picked out when Mr. Scrapatch asked me what I wanted for Christmas.

I will be receiving the pattern and yarn for three rows every month. It is a bit pricey but it includes access to instruction videos which I will need to do the rows with more advanced stitches. So far I am calling this a good gift and worth the cost. There was an option to receive it every two weeks, but I have so many other  projects in the works, I chose the once every four weeks option. 

I taught myself to crochet when I was young and used to enjoy playing with the hooks and yarn before quilting became my main creative outlet. In the past 15-20 years I have only crocheted a few granny blocks and a small project or two and I have one fusion type project started that combines fabric and yarn that has been in UFO pile for a few years. 

The kitties have been very curious about this interesting new craft material.

What cat can resist a yarn ball or a loose yarn end?

Here Nutmeg is inspecting my work.

I am on Stripe 2, Row 10.

So far this is very relaxing and enjoyable 

and just the project that I need right now.

On Christmas Day I spent several hours in the Emergency Room at our local hospital during a winter ice storm that made some roads impassable.  From my small vantage point on a mobile bed, tucked up against the main desk at the ER, I can tell you that all you have read about hospitals and medical personnel being overwhelmed is true. Although the ER doctor wanted to keep me for more observation. I went home, slept comfortably in my own bed and had a wonderful day after Christmas with my family. As I promised the ER, I called my Primary Care last Monday and went in for a follow-up appointment. The nurse practitioner found what has been going on inside my chest for at least a few years that regular EKGs and doctors' examinations and all the ER tests and staff did not find.  I am now scheduled for more tests at the end of January. I am doing okay, taking it day by day and have plans to live to 150 so I can sew all my fabric. 

Looking forward to what the New Year brings ...