Baby Afghans

Off to a family baby shower today, so you know I had to make something special for the little one. With baby afghans, I typically chose to do simple designs in highly washable yarns - they're meant to be used, washed frequently, etc. These are for a little boy, hence a lack of ruffles or other florishes.

This one is just a simple shell pattern. The yarn is a super-soft acrylic sport weight in a pretty yellow/turqoise/white ombre, and I used a little solid white for the border.

I opted for a reasonably tight repeat shell pattern so while a lighter blanket, it will still be quite warm. Also, as it's a lighter yarn, it took quite a few extra hours to crochet a blanket of substantial size, and it's a pattern that's easy for me to hammer out.


The other one I did is my favorite of the two.

I fell in love with the yarn, which is Red Heart's "Ocean".

I love the swirling blues and purples in it, so I let that guide me to a pattern. I chose a slightly more open pattern because it's a heavier yarn - standard worsted weight - and I wanted to have kind of a wave pattern to again pull out the ocean theme.

Size wise, it's quite a large afghan so it can cover Mom as well if she's cuddling the baby or be spread out to play on the floor.

I'm really pleased how this one came out, and have tucked instructions away because I could see making it again at some point in the future.

Here's a little detailing of the wave pattern and the edging:

And so, they are off to their new owners today and will be enjoyed.

Spring is coming!

Or coming along, anyway!

I opted to work on Celtic Spring for a little while this week and made some great progress with her skirt. I need to pick up some gold metallic for her skirt, as there's quite a bit of it throughout and I would prefer to fill some of it in as I move along.

I really like the blending of the lavenders - the 200 series in DMC - and might opt to steal those colors for the lavender conversion of Rose of Sharon I have planned for sometime in the future. I haven't quite nailed down the colors I wanted to do for that, so I might make it simple on myself and just swipe them from Celtic Spring.

Oops....wardrobe malfunction!

Of sorts, anyway. I was trucking along with my #4 peacock Kreinik, filling in a lot of the body area that I'd previously skipped. Ran through the one roll, reached for my backup roll and realized that instead of another #4, my ONS had accidentally sent me a #8....ack!

So here is Queen Mermaid, not quite covered up:

I'll have to order another roll so I can finish her "top".

I'm fairly pleased with my progress overall this week, wardrobe malfunction aside. Finished her tail, filled in more of her body, got started on her arms, hair.

The interesting thing is that depending on the light (day, night, OTT lite, etc), the color of the fabric (Sterling Silver by Silkweaver) keeps changing between gray and blue and somewhere in between. It has a really interesting depth of color and luminosity that I can't seem to quite pick up on the camera (as per usual).

Mirabilia Mermaid SAL

Towards the end of last year, I joined up with some fellow Mira mermaid enthusiasts on the Mirabilia Stitchers discussion board for a Mermaid stichalong (SAL), where we'd work on our chosen Mermaid the first week of every month.

I opted to do Queen Mermaid, because I had just started her anyway. I ended up not working on her in February because I was cruising along with Garden Verses and enjoying working on her (what can I say - at the end of the day, this IS a hobby to enjoy above all else!). I put away Knotgarden yesterday and got a head start on Queen Mermaid for March.

Here's where she is as of yesterday:

The fabric is Sterling Silver by Silkweaver.

I definitely will finish up her tail fin this week, and probably get some work done on her back and arms. I'll post another picture at the end of the week so I can see how far I got.

As with most Mirabilia mermaids, she seems to be working up fairly quickly. I'm looking forward to having both QM and her companion piece, Deepest Love, finished within a reasonable amount of time.

What I've been working on lately....

I've been working on Knotgarden the last couple of weeks because I am determined to finish it this year. I've got most of the center medallion completed but still have two gates and another dozen flower pots to go, as well as all the specialty stitches and beading. Ack!

Mira updates

And of course, plenty of Mirabilias in progress.

The Kiss:

Garden Verses:

Christmas Elegance:

Some Project Updates

Although I've been a little (ha) remiss about posting to the blog, I have been working on various projects and generally making slow but steady progress. As always, I divide projects into "Miras" and "Non-Miras", since there's usually about a 50-50 mix of WIPs.

First up, Scarlet Ribands by Long Dog Sampler:

I'm nearly finished the fourth page of the design - just a little more to go on that.


And Broadway by Silver Lining:

I finally got the center page completed - that was quite a lot of work! Fortunately all the other pages of the design have less stitching so it should go quite a bit faster now. Lots of confetti stitching, but to be fair, you just don't get the same effect without it.

And you knew it was coming: I started the Celtic Ladies series!

The lady in question is Celtic Spring, and she's off to a good start.

Royal Holiday Completed

The particulars: The pattern is Royal Holiday by Mirabilia; the fabric is 32 count cream belfast, done over 2. Started November 2009 and completed November 2010.

Some notes: I despise using Wisper thread, so I opted to use just plain DMC white as a substitute, something I've done to replace Wisper in previous projects. The only downfall is that there wasn't enough contrast between the white edging on her robe and the cream Belfast that I stitched her on. I fixed that by adding grey backstitching, which does what backstitching is supposed to do and make the edges pop out.

She is my fifth but not final Queen. I plan on doing Queen of Freedom and Queen of Peace in the future, but have no immediate plans to start either of these ladies just yet.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post an update, but I've had some issues with my old camera talking to my new laptop, and what's a blog about needlework without pictures, right? I think it's worked out now so it should be smooth sailing. I have lots of works in progress to update, which I'll do in the coming weeks.