Another colleague of mine decided to pursue her dreams and is leaving my work soon. For the goodbye party, I wanted to stitch a cute little something so that she can feel motivated. I chose this adorable bear that originally said ‘Yes I can’ in the bottom. I changed it to ‘Go get it’ because she should reach for the stars and she’ll grasp them. It was a fun quick stitch with a lot of backstitching.
I really love how this one turned out and I can absolutely see myself making it again for a different occasion. She said that she really liked it and that it had sentimental value for her too, so my goal was achieved. She’ll go get it too!
As part of my Kingfisher purchase, I also got a free manatee embroidery pattern that used colours that were also used in the Kingfisher. There were very few stitches so who was I to ignore this cute face. He’s tiny and quick and it was lovely to just sit down and sew some brown.
I made another iteration of the Ophelia Overalls from Decades of Style (previous versions here and here). This time, I used a ‘fine rib cord with cat print’ from a shop called babystofjes.nl (baby fabrics). I am not a baby, but I thought it was cute so I decided to go for it.
I made some changes to the pattern; I eliminated the buttons and flaps along the side, added an extra d-ring to the front pocket and the side, fully lined the front bib and made some adjustments to the facings of the back, and I cut it a little longer. Then I started thinking about wearing it with the straps down and what to do with them. The ochre version has shown me that it’s a little tight if I keep them attached to the bib. So, I improvised some ‘stap holders’ that attach with snaps at the pockets. This seems to work quite well.
The one down side I’ve experienced so far is that the side straps are a bit slippy, so I tends to loosen a bit over time. If it turns out to be a massive problem, I’ll figure out a solution in due course. Probably more snaps..
I do think these are adorable though. The fabric is quite soft, doesn’t fray and is very light weight. Other people also seem to like them, so that’s fun. They are mostly for the hotter months though, I think a breeze would blow straight through.
A colleague of mine is leaving to pursue another job and I wanted to make her a little gift. So I figured that I would embroider the saying that we use in the office a lot: ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys’, which in essence means ‘not my problem’. However, it needed some adaptation since it will be her circus. So I found a pattern of a set of monkeys with tails in a heart shape, and found a 5-stitch high font here that I adapted a little. The final result is a ‘This is my circus and these are my monkeys’ embroidery with the name of her new company in the middle.
I personally think this is hilarious. I hope she likes it.
Cute embroidery of a chicken carrying some lovely plants.
On of the first kits I purchased when I restarted my cross stitch craze was one called Kip met de planten or ‘Flower Bustle’ from Andriana. It depicts a white chicken with an apron, running around with two plant pots with the leaves trailing behind. I thought it was very cute and since Monsteras are one of my favourite plants, I didn’t think I could go wrong with it.
I started it a while ago, in February, and have been working on it intermittently. There are a lot of different colours and it also requires stitches made with one strand each of two different colours. Which means that the colour gradients are even prettier and more subtle. The size of it did mean that I had to reposition my rectangular embroidery frame a few times, since it was not big enough for the whole picture in one go.
This was a really fun one to since you could see the leaves grow bit by bit. I did make an adjustment in the apron because didn’t like the red detailing at the bottom. So I replaced it with green and left out the triangles. All of those details were made with backstitch and this means that the reverse of this is an absolute disaster. Luckily you don’t have too see the backside to enjoy the front!
I must preface this by saying that I haven’t watched a full episode of Ted Lasso, so most of the jokes in the pattern went entirely over my head. Still, the experience of participating in Believe: An MKAL the Lasso Way by Mary Annarella was a lot of fun.
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It required 4 skeins of yarn, one needed to be high contrast with all the others but those three didn’t need high contrast between them. I settled on dyeing them in three shades of blue and one bright yellow. The blues are a combination of Aqua Tropic as a base with either Teal or Turquoise added. For the yellow, I had to dye a second skein because the first one ended up too orange.
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Unfortunately, the main knitting method for this scarf was extremely similar to the other Mystery Knit Along that I was participating in at practically the same time: Funfetti MKAL. However, this one had opposite increases and decreases from Funfetti so I had to pay close attention to which one I was working on. What was fun was that these sections were much more manageable and different. There are some repeat stitch patterns but all in all that went very well.
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Since there are many colours here too, there were a lot of ends to weave in. The forums quickly shared a good method for weaving as you go. So that made it all a lot less annoying. Once there were two equal parts of the scarf, we knit points. Those two sections were then three needle bind-offed together to get a nice diagonal stripe across.
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I like this scarf. The colours are nice and it’s very long so I can wrap it und my neck twice and still have length leftover. This was very unexpected as I was not on gauge and expected the thing to turn out much smaller. The yarn is decent enough, but it isn’t as warm and cosy as the alpaca sock yarn that I tend to want to use. It has already seen the outside world and I expect that it will do that more often when the weather calls for it.
January 29 was the start of my next Mystery Knit Along (MKAL), this one was Funfetti MKAL by : : : Katie Degroff Knits : : :. It called for 200 grams ish of fingering weight yarn, and then 200 grams ish of two or six or twelve contrast colours. I opted to split two skeins of Alpaca 4 ply into three, so I wound up with six colours. Since I just purchased new yarn dye in almost a rainbow, I figured that would be a great way to test those too.
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The main colour was then a combination of violet and periwinkle. The contrasts were A: Neon Red, B: Neon Orange, C: Neon Yellow, D: Blacklight Blue, E: Aqua Tropic and F: Crocodile Green. Most of the colours work well together although the Crocodile Green does feel like the odd one out. Out of my new dyes, Croc Green, Aqua and Neon Yellow are my favourites.
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When it came to knitting, it was a lot per installment. The construction was interesting. We started with a diamond shape with rounds in the different colours. Then we put that one aside and started working on a section where you increase in the middle but eventually start decreasing on the ends, so you end up with a ‘house’ shape. We did that for a few of the clues before going back to clue one and starting to add to that one too.
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The final clue was to fill in two rectangles to connect the two sections we had been working on. This was quite satisfying because it was the last clue and a much smaller number of stitches. I was debating whether to do the colour changes at the end because it would leave so many ends, and while I decided to go for it, I opted out of the last colour and only did five colours. I think this worked fine.
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The end result is a long rectangular scarf, with one of the short ends straight and the other side pointed. Since there are so many colour changes, weaving in the ends was a project in and of itself. It really is quite big. I don’t think I should opt for 400 gram scarves in the future. This one will end up being gifted away since I’m not enjoying the purple colour for anything I would wear.
Still, the MKAL was well organized. The forums were fun and the designer was very helpful. I just chose colours that I didn’t like even though the yarn I used was great.
A nice new pouch for all the stuff I lug around on the daily.
Every Day Carry – the amount of stuff you just bring with you daily ‘just in case’. Mine used to be in a pouch I made in 2018, but recently I wanted to downsize. I had managed to remove some items from the original pouch and it just looked sad and floppy. I went on the internet and looked around for nice pouch patterns that I could make and stumbled upon the ‘Pencil case with layer‘, which is also a YouTube video.
So I wandered back upstairs for the bin with pouch materials and came down with exactly the same fabrics as the originals were made of. I liked the idea of the pocket on the top even if I didn’t want the extra layer for pen(cil)s. I also wanted a carrier strap. I made an estimated guess of how big the thing needed to be and made myself a ‘pattern’ in Microsoft Word-shapes based on the original.
I skipped all the interfacing steps, since the original held up for 8 years (and still isn’t breaking), I figured it was fine as is. I grabbed a fun length of zipper and got to work. Since I had a tiny bit of the black shrooms leftover, I made two parts out of that. I also opted out of finishing everything super nicely, this stuff doesn’t fray. I ended up with a nice little pouch with a pocket in the top for pens and my spoon, and enough space in the main compartment for anything else. I love that it’s flatter and shorter and so far, it’s been doing well!
Ps. for those who looked back at the original post. I did not, in fact, make a cover for my scooter in a reasonable timeframe…
A little embroidered kingfisher in different shades of blue.
I have been engaged in mystery knit alongs (tip, don’t try to do two at the same time that both require lots of knitting) and have had little time to do anything else. However, before I got distracted by those, I finished some more cross stitch patterns!
The first was a really small but super cute bird by LaSelvaDesign. It used more colours than most of the other projects I’ve done, but sometimes only three or five stitches. I love how it came out. The different shades of blue really complement each other and bring some sort of depth?
It’s framed in something that looks woodish but is actually plastic and flexible. Since I left so much fabric around it, it’s been a bit hard to get into this frame, but it does look really nice on my wall. Adorable, if I say so myself.
I bought a super cute cross stitch pattern of a pumpkin under a leaf that I wanted to stitch up. Due to the light colours of some of the outside stitches, it didn’t feel right to stitch on white. So I decided to dye some embroidery fabric blue with a cotton dye.
The intention was to have an uneven fabric, with some lighter sections. After the first bit of fabric went into the bath, I decided to add a second. This is why the left bit of fabric above isn’t as dark. It wasn’t in the dye bath for nearly as long.
I liked how it turned out and chose the darker one for my pumpkin. I cut all the threads and put them through a cardboard thread holder. I always estimate that a length of 6 strand embroidery floss will make around 180 stitches (60 per double strand section). So I measured accordingly.
Then I got to work. I wanted to start near the middle, to make sure everything would work out, so I stated with the darkest green first. Then came the purple and the black before the first orange was added. That first one brought him firmly into temporary spooky territory.
The third and fourth orange were added before the highlights of light yellow and light green were completed. I do think it looks a little magical with the nice stars all around. I really enjoyed this project. It went quick, the amount of stitches was doable and the outcome is really lovely.
