I am so far behind...

My job - yes I'm thankful for it, but still! - has been murder lately.

I've been working six days a week, 10 hours or more a day.

Yes, the money is nice. The chance to put it in the bank and all would be nice, too. (My place of work doesn't offer direct deposit yet.)

So stitching has been really, really slow.

And there is no end in sight - my direct supervisor had carpal tunnel surgery on one wrist, and has to have the other done before the end of December so she won't have to pay her deductible next year.

Until she's back, my job will remain like this. I don't know if I'll be able to get my Christmas prezzies done, forget about my poor Angel of Grace. I haven't finished my SIL's shawl because I ran out of beads - I did start (and nearly finish!) my Mother's shawl. I've also barely started my grandmother's shawl. I have no pics of any of those yet.

But I do have some small amounts of stitching to show!

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For example:

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A very small Gingerbread Cottage as my November ornie. It was supposed to have French Knot snowflakes, but I like it better without them. It's busy enough as it is.
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When I asked my brother what he wanted stitched for his present, he actually had an answer!

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A very weird one...

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I'm stitching a logo from something that I don't even know what is, called Demonhunter? I think.

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So yeah.

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A cross-stitch demon...

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"Boys want the weirdest things," she said, ignoring the large pictures of Vash the Stampede and Spike from 'Buffy' that are hanging on her wall...

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Here are my last Crochet-Along afghan blocks:
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I'm about two blocks behind - the next one is super simple, a big granny square. I just haven't gotten around to it. Then the last blocks are a flower block. After my sister's wedding necklace, I shouldn't have trouble, but I've never crocheted a flower block before. I've got to catch up! I still need a few of those mitered squares, too.

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And I have decided to stop wishing I could knit, gather my books and needles, and make myself really do something besides a scarf.

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I'm going to try Bernat's Knit-Along afghan since I'm also doing the Crochet-Along.

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Here are the very badly knitted, in desperate need of blocking, three squares done to the first pattern:

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The middle one was the only one that showed the pattern in the picture. I decided to do every block in a different shade of blue - if my stash of blue yarns holds out!

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The crochet and knitting I can actually do at work, during lunch, but taking the cross stitch is tougher. It's so much smaller, and yet so much easier to get dirty... I dunno why.

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Thanks for visiting my blog!

~Tama

A Wee Pine Tree

This is my October Bride's Tree ornament - the theme was 'Pinecone, for motherhood, fruitfulness, or eternity.'

Patterns with pinecones are surprisingly hard to find; I cobbled this one together from bits and pieces of a freebie... I can't remember where I found it. I think it may have been on the Bride's Tree blog. The pic is not that great, but I think it's cute :D

And since it's Wednesday, here's my Mystery SAL blocks for the week:


Ugh. I hate this block. It looks okay, but 1. it's single crochets, 2. the sc3tog at the end looks messy, and 3. it refuses to be square, even though I tried about a dozen different things. I think blocking is going to be the only answer. I have to make ten more of these, but I'm spreading them out over the next two weeks because... I hate them XD

At least they look kinda neat. It's their only redeeming quality.

Two More Goals Down!

I finished two more projects!

Here's October's Christmas ornament - it's been done for a few days, actually, but I kept forgetting to take a pic of it:




And I started & finished 'She Sings' (I haven't washed or blocked it yet, obviously)



This is for my baby sister for Christmas. The pattern is from the last issue of The Cross Stitcher. I changed the dog's colors & stitched the moon in - rayon? Whatever the shiny (not sparkly) floss is called.

This is the sweetie I stitched it in memory of:



I changed the dog from speckled to as close to her coloring as I could without it looking odd. She was the first puppy my baby sister ever had as 'hers', even though she was really everyone's. My sister was 9, I think, and insisted on calling her Princess even though me & our brother held out for Annie - so her name ended up Princess Annie and quickly became Prin or Prin-Prin. She was a doll! She looks a little insane in the pic, doesn't she? Lol!

Here are my Clue #4 Afghan squares from Bernat's Mystery SAL:



I had to leave off the last TC row to keep my squares from being rectangles.

The next clue came out today so I thought I'd post these. I have to make 16 (!) of the next one. And it's all in single crochets... ugh! Not my favorite as they make my hand cramp. Oh well. I shall perservere! I'm already 2 down.

Mermaid Progress

Here's my Mermaid of the Deep after last month and this month's combined 10 hours - I think about 4 last month and 6 this month:




I have completely finished the first page (finally!) and isolated most of the confetti stitches on the second page. I'm hoping to finish her up next month. For now I'm going to stitch Mary Wigham's motif and work on my Angel.

I also did Clue #3 of the Myster Afghan at the Bernat blog - it was a V-stitch square, of which there was supposed to be 8 in color E. Since I'm trying to use up leftover yarn, I had to use two different colors. I don't have 20oz. of one leftover green. The dark ones are Light Sage and the light ones are Frosty Green.



Pardon, please, the fact that I have yet to weave in my ends :D Next clue comes out on Wednesday - I'm looking forward to seeing what it is!

I also decided to try and improve my very, very basic and shaky knitting skills by going back and doing the Mystery Knit-Along Afghan. I'm still on the very first square, though. This could take me awhile :D

I Hate Gauge...

I have finished my August Bride's Tree ornament - the August them is beauty & affection, symbolized by a rose:




And I did September, too - theme is hospitality, with a teapot or coffepot. I couldn't find another little coffeepot besides the one I stitched last year in a little sampler, so I went with the only teapot pattern I even vaguely liked:



This pattern is stitched diagonally - first time I've tried that. My brain kept wanting to short out until I made myself focus on the squares and not the pattern as a whole. Then it went pretty fast.

This brings me even with the Bride's Tree SAL - now I have to find a pinecone for October. Both these patterns were freebies that I found links to on the Bride's Tree blog. All these will be an anniversary present for either my mother or my sister-in-law.

When I got the stash shown in the previous post, I also picked up the latest issue of the Cross Stitcher - I hadn't had a chance to look at it then but I have now, and this little pretty is going straight on my to-do-list in October:



We had a sweet doggie that died a few years ago - my little sister's first dog that she can remember. She looked a lot like this and all I'll have to do is tweak the browns to a little darker. Then I may put her name and maybe dates at the bottom; my sister will want one, my brother, my mother... um... maybe I shouldn't stitch this yet! lol!
She was our best-loved dog ever and we all miss her.

I also joined (and promptly forgot about) the Bernat blog's Mystery Afghan Crochet-Along. I didn't remember it until I saw someone else posting about their first squares. So I hurried to the blog and read the instructions and it was super easy. I stitched the first right away, Tuesday evening.

The next morning I took the yarn with me to stitch the next one while I was waiting for my mum at the chiropracter (I have to drive her there). I made the nexxt one just as easy. Took no time.

Then I got home and laid them beside each other, and the first one was at least an inch bigger.

Huh. Odd, because I've been crocheting for eons - honestly, I don't even remember being taught, in our family our grandmother and aunts and mothers all crochet and I think the girls all learned by osmosis or something. Everyone can do it and only a couple of us actually remember lessons - anyway, I've never had that happen before with crocheting - same yarn, same hook, I should have gotten the same gauge. Knitting, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised, but crochet? Good old reliable crochet?!

So I tried again, doing just the first few rows, and measured carefully, and the square was still going to be smaller. Now, I'm using a K hook already to get gauge and I didn't want to use a bigger hook, so I started another, crocheting loosely.

Still too small.

I started a block four times before it occurred to me to try & measure the new squares I was making with the second, smaller square I had made that morning.

They matched perfectly.

ARrrGGhh.

So I made them that way - they are smaller than the 8 inches they are supposed to be, but I'm making my afghan to use up stash, and my yarn is worsted weight instead of chunky. So they will be smaller, anyway. I know how to make patterns compensate for that, it was just the gauge that was killing me!

Apparently, I was drunk when I made that first square.

REally odd, since I don't drink...

Here are my squares:


The edges look a wee bit odd to me since I'm trying that new technique where you don't have to chain 3 - it is neater, but it'll take time before I get them looking the way I want them.

Since yesterday was Wednesday, and that's when the new 'clues' come out, I went back to the blog to see what torment I had gotten myself in for.

Clue 2 was Granny squares. Thank God! I can do those in my sleep:


Now I'm going to be all antsy until I use the first yarn again. I wish my brain didn't work the way it does...