Big Stitches, Little Stitches – YOP 21/22 – Week 13

Happy Sunday! Checking in with a Year of Projects post today. Year of Projects is a group of bloggers who plans their projects for the year and then blogs about their progress weekly, usually on Sundays. You can find my list for the year here.

I actually don’t have a whole lot to share today. Since I last checked in, I have slowly and surely been working on my baby blanket, and I should finish it tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I stay up for the whole football game?). My knitting has been down a little bit, both because of the busyness that was two weeks ago, and then also because I have been drawn in a bit by other crafty adventures. As you saw in my post Wednesday, I did sew a dress this week, so that took some time! I am going to update my YoP goal to sew at least 6 garments, because I’ve already made two! I made a shirt I didn’t show off, and then this last dress. Plus I have plans to sew at least a better version of the dress and maybe a jumpsuit on my vacation. Yes, I am bringing my sewing machine on vacation because it is a solo vacation and mostly I will just be enjoying alone, free time in a place that is not my home.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to bring on my trip knitting wise. Like I said, I am about to finish the blanket, and I don’t want to start something big and complicated like one of my sweater/shirt stashes. The WestKnits MKAL is starting the Friday I get back, and I know from last year you can’t really do anything else with the KAL if you want to even sort of follow along! I do plan to bring my ace socks (and maybe another skein because I am nearing the end on those) for like “Sit at breweries” knitting, of which there will be a lot), but I don’t want my “me time” knitting to be just stockinette. So ANYWAY, now I’m doing cross stitch!

There’s something so satisfying about switching between worsted weight yarn on size 8 needles and watching a blanket just build up, and then slowly and surely seeing little tiny stitches with string form a pattern. I have cross stitched before, I picked it up in maybe 2016/2017 or so? I really like following a pattern, and how you can get such cool images, but at the time I found it just too weird of a combination of mindless and concentration. I actually made most of that butterfly above when I was into cross stitch. I’ve recently fallen down the rabbit hole of dress history/ costuming YouTube, and the amount of hand sewing shown in those videos kind of got me feeling it again. A few years ago, I got a bunch of flower patterns sent to me from a friend’s grandma who could no longer cross stitch, and I decided that bringing one of these would be the perfect type of project I am looking for on this vacation. I know I won’t get it finished, but I’ve been really enjoying trying to finish the butterfly and I’m looking forward to working on these flowers.

In other random news:

Last weekend, my friends and I were part of a world record at a local farm/ museum – the most people knitting “in the presence of sheep.” We had 230 people, and while the sheep were shy most of the time, it was still a great day just hanging out with fiber friends in some pretty perfect weather.

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Check out this awesome mandala my friend Debbie made, and sent to her daughter Leah (wearing the blue shirt in the photo above) to assemble for a local music festival. Debbie was one of the first knitters I met in CT, in the group that eventually lead to the four person awesomeness that is Leah, Jen, Kristen, and I. Crafty friends are such a blessing.

I hope everyone has a great week filled with lots of crafting and awesomeness.