 Yesterday was a long dyeing day so I didn't get into the sewing room at all. I finished dyeing right before dinner and, after that, only had the energy to sit and listen to the latest Lisa Jewell book and crochet some on the baby blanket. This pattern goes really quickly because it's all double crochet and the stitches are in groups of 3. Three together, three DC in 3 sts, three DC in on stitch. Nice and mindless so I could keep my focus on the book. I was so hooked that I had to stay up to finish it.
Today I start making blocks for the Paula sample quilt. I'll share black and white photos as I go along.
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 Almost everything I crochet is donated to charity but not this one! This one is for my nephew's daughter who will arrive in November. The parents, James and Ashley picked the colors and pattern so.hopefully, they will love it. When I got the yarn I made a swatch and washed it a few times to see how this yarn would perform and, I can say that it's going to be a really soft blanket and should hold up well to multiple washings.  The blanket finished to 34" x 47" so it might be a little too big but it will be big enough for the baby and the dog to share on the floor. The details: Pattern: Even Squares Blanket from Daisy Farm Crafts except that I used half double crochet instead of the pattern stitches. I did the pattern in 4 row sets. Yarn : Brava Worsted from Knitpicks in White, Marina, Cornflower and Seashell. It was the first time using this yarn and I liked it a lot. Hook: I, 5.5mm  Daisy Farm Crafts is known for their gingham and other patterns that carry two colors along on one row. You can see the blue in the white section and the white in the blue. Once you get the hang of it, it's quite an easy technique.  I didn't really know what I was doing when I ordered the yarn and I seem to have some leftovers! I only used about half a ball of each color.
When we were discussing patterns, Ashley mentioned that she likes the traditional chevron pattern too so I might make a striped chevron a little smaller than this blanket. Then I can make a donation blanket with whatever is left.  First I have some news! When I get back from vacation, Mom and I will be organizing her move. She's done a ton already but we will still have to get her internet set up and take care of any other details in prep for the move on the 7th. I've decided not to stress about the blog or shop that week and, instead, will have a week of giveaways! I've got all the packages lined up and ready to go so get yourself ready for 6 days of giveaways coming soon!  Back in Maine, I've yet to turn on the sewing machine but I did add 8 more rows to the baby blanket. 8 rows in an evening seems to be about my best rate and it will be done in plenty of time for the shower in October.  Yesterday we had a pretty warm day with a mix of clouds and sun. I took a day off from hiking so Anne and I got out on the lake to do some kayaking. It was a little breezy but in certain areas there weren't many waves.  We headed into one of my favorite areas of the lake where it outflows toward Somes Sound. There's a series of fish ladders from Somes Sound and into Long Pond. One of those ladder systems is here.  This part of the lake is full of Water Lilies.  This was the first time that I've ever seen this plant in bloom in Long Pond. I'm sure it's been there before but I've never noticed or seen it. I did some searching and found out that it's called Pickerel Weed.
If the forecast holds, today is supposed to be beautiful. We're going to take a short hike this morning to test out my toe issue and, after I get my car fixed, we hope to spend the afternoon floating in the lake.  We left Greenville, ME Friday morning with this view and it rained the whole 3 hour drive to Mount Desert Island.  We spent the afternoon in Bar Harbor while we waited for the house to be ready and we arrived to this view. Let's be honest, it's still a pretty spectacular view even on a gloomy day! the day wasn't a loss because we had lobster for dinner.  We woke yesterday morning to this view. Now we're talking! Everyone's mood lightened instantly and we quickly planned and set out on our first hike. We usually do a "warm up" hike and this time was no different. We started in Thuya Gardens and hiked through to reach a carriage trail that went around and over the Amphitheater trail. It was about 6 miles but almost all on smooth surfaces. It was just what we needed. Here are a few photos from the day.  Thuya Gardens is not officially part of Acadia National Park but is adjacent and connected through trails. If you are ever visiting Acadia try to visit Atiscou and Thuya Gardens. It's a beautifully maintained property with lovely gardens.  The trail we took has some pretty mossy areas and you can get a glimpse, on the left, of how well manicured the trail is.  There are miles and miles of carriage trails in Acadia. They were developed in the late 1800's by the barons of industry (Rockefellers, Fords, Vanderbilts, Morgans, etc). This is where they chose to summer and the developed these carriage trails so they could travel to the tops of the mountains and enjoy the beautiful views. Now they are used by hikers, cyclists, runners and horse drawn carriages. Most are many miles long so they are good for a long, relatively easy, walk. They aren't flat so there's a lot of up and down hiking to keep the blood flowing. I love that they are mostly all lined with granite blocks. Besides timber, cod and lobster, granite mining was a major industry here.  Even the park bridges are made from granite. This is a small one.  This is one of the large ones, the Amphitheater Bridge. We hiked under this bridge on the Amphitheater Trail last year and it was one of our favorite hikes.  Yesterday afternoon we started getting more settled in and I got my sewing corner set up. I love the view from my sewing room at home but it pales compared to this one.  Before we left Greenville I got close to 60 more block corners sewn along with the offcut mini HSTs. I'm ready to start sewing these into blocks.  I have about 80 blocks cut out and once they are sewn I'll need to do some math and see how many more I need. I'm out of light fabric so I might go shop for some light blue batiks to finish off the blocks. I don't think anyone would notice batiks mixed in as long as they are mottled and not printed.  On the crochet front, I finished these two hats for donation. I had a skein of this dark green yarn that I wanted to use up and a pattern I wanted to try out. It's the Crochet Baby James Beanie and it comes is all sizes. I like working a hat in this way and will use this pattern again.  Laura finished the second veterans quilt top Thursday night before we left Greenville.  She's now moved on to knitting. This is a sweater project that she started in May, the last time she visited the US and it will be her US project until she finishes. She wanted to cover a mistake for the photo.
That's about all from here. I'm hoping for kayaking weather today. It was way to breezy for that yesterday. I have a toe injury (long story about me being a klutz) that I keep reigniting so I will take today off from hiking or even walking much. Plus my friend, Anne, has arrived and we'll plan something that she wants to do. The boys will get to take one of their hard hikes today. I won't go on hikes with cliffs or rungs to climb.  Yesterday brought us better weather than we expected but we still didn't' feel that the trails were dry enough. We are planning to get out on one of our favorite trails today if the good weather holds. I did get the next batch of 40 blocks done for my blue quilt so I have a total of 99 out of 256 done and the pile of tiny HSTs is really growing.  Laura is almost done with her second veterans quilt top. We might have to go to the quilt shop today and get fabric for another kit for her. We've picked a simple pattern and the local shop has some nice woodsy themed fabrics that would work well.  Today's crochet was the baby quilt and I got about 6 more rows done, finishing off a row of dark blue squares. If I crochet today it will be on the sweater. I like to alternate the projects.  The weather was much better than forecast yesterday. Weather forecasts here are really just a total waste of time. I did a pretty hard workout this morning so I was not interested in the 8 mile walk that Ian and Laura took into town. Chris and I drove in to pick them up and make a trip for groceries. While we were having dinner I looked out and realized that last night was our first real sunset since the night we arrived. I rushed down to the pond to capture it.  After sunset I convinced Chris that we needed a fire. After all, we had bought all the makings for s'mores and this was our first opportunity to use them. It was a lovely calm evening for a fire. Isn't the moose cut-out on the fire ring cute?
Here's hoping for a nice hike today!  Yesterday was kind of perfect. It had a morning of recreation and and afternoon of reading and crafts. I'll start with the afternoon activities. I didn't finish any more blocks for the blue quilt but I chain pieced parts for about 40 more blocks. We are expecting bad weather today so I might get this set done today.  Laura started the second veterans quilt kit that I brought for her. I think I'm going to have to go to the local fabric store tomorrow and get more fabric for her. She's got another week and a half here and is about out of sewing projects!  While she was sewing, I added two more rounds to my hexie cardigan and finished listening to Yellowface. I will have a lot to say about that book in my book review at the end of the month. I did not particularly enjoy it and got a totally different message out of it than what I've read in other reviews.  I also finished reading this book and I don't recommend it either unless you are a scientist or mathematician or just want to make your brain hurt. It was a difficult read. I'm digging into a new Michael Koryta mystery tomorrow for something easier.  The one thing that you cannot rely upon here is the weather report. The day rarely turns out to be what's predicted and today was no exception. We did get clouds and a little rain in the afternoon/evening but the morning started out beautiful. Laura and I got in a 4 mile walk and then Chris and I headed out on the kayaks and it was absolutely beautiful on the pond today.  This pond has yellow water lilies. We had not seen yellow ones before and I was shocked to be able to get the bloom and dragonfly in the photo together.  We also saw a few loons. The photo is a little blurry because I had to zoom in so much to get the photo but I was thrilled to get a photo at all. They usually dive just as I'm about to snap the picture. They are such beautiful birds and we just love hearing their calls in the evening.  I've become really fascinated with trees growing on and in rocks. These trees seem to be perched on top of the rocks and have created their own dirt mound within the roots.
The tide has started to turn on the gaming. Ian and I had a puzzle race which I won by 5 minutes, then I finally won a Cribbage set (he's still ahead 5 sets to 1) and I beat him and Chris at Scrabble. I made two separate words off the "z". We'll see if my luck holds tonight. We do expect rain/clouds today but it could change. We'll make the best of whatever it is.  The rain finally stopped and yesterday we were able to get outside. It was overcast and really windy but we walked the neighborhood road down to the Wilson Pond dam and then, in the afternoon, we walked a neighborhood trail. Laura's watch says we walked nearly 20,000 steps. In between those 2 walks I sat and worked on the baby blanket. I finished the orange section and started another dark blue section. I know it looks green but it's really a dark marine blue.  Laura started sewing a veterans quilt kit that I cut for her. I also lost to Ian at scrabble and cribbage. Even though I lost at scrabble I was really proud of the highest scoring word: piques for 44 points.  As you can see, we could not get out on the kayaks yesterday. This photo was taken near dinner time when the sun finally peeked out for a few minutes. We hope to get out on the water today after a morning hike. Chris was supposed to go on a guided river fishing trip but the water is too high from all the rain. He hopes to reschedule for next week.
Even though the weather isn't perfect, we are having a lovely time.  I'll get to yesterday's weather and activities in a minute but I thought I'd start with an update on my crochet projects. I brought 3 things to work on and the first is the baby blanket for my nephew and his wife. She picked the pattern and the colors and I love how it's coming together. I purchased way too much of this yarn so there might be a second blanket in a different pattern. If she doesn't want a second blanket it can always be donated.  The second project is my purple hexagon sweater. I'm finally making real progress on this one. It won't be long before I can sew sleeve seam and add the cuffs.  Lastly I brought my hat bag. I've been wanting to try a side to side hat pattern and, so far, I really like it. I made the first green one and was happy enough with it that I decided to use the rest of the green yarn and make another, larger, one. The first one is kid size. Both of these will be donated and were just practice for the 2 hats I want to make out of the loud lime/navy yarn. Those hats will be for my SIL's grandchildren. The hats are their school colors. I have other hat yarns just in case I run out of things to crochet.....but that's not likely! I did start some sewing but I forgot to take photos. Today it's going to be rainy so there will be lots of sewing.  Forget about today's rain because yesterday morning was spectacular! We went out for some paddling for a couple of hours and got back about an hour before the clouds rolled in.  Here's a picture of our cabin from the water. It's our third year staying here and we just love it.
In the afternoon we drove to Bangor to pick up our friends. They flew into Boston and rented a car to the Bangor airport. It was a short 2 hour drive through beautiful countryside to pick them up. Today, as I said earlier, is a rain day. So the exercise will be inside and using my normal daily app and then I'll head into town to see about getting my wheels realigned and, maybe, check out the local quilt shop and show Laura around. I expect that Chris and Ian might eventually end up at the local pub. Otherwise it's reading and sewing day and I can't complain about that!  This is the 7th blanket that I've made with this pattern and line of yarn. It seems a little insane but I love the yarn and bought a ton of it on clearance and I'm going to keep making blankets until it's all gone. I think I only have yarn left for 1 or 2 more blankets. I will not start another until the weather cools down. This one got a little hot to work on but I wanted to finish it before vacation as I want to use the project bag for my travel projects.  I've been calling this my "dude" blanket because, so far, I've given them all to men in my family. But this one has a more feminine look so I'll probably give it to a deserving woman. Maybe someone not in the family but someone that has done good things for me. Here are all the details: Cascade Cartwheel Yarn, 6 balls Pattern from BagODay Crochet, pattern repeat is 8 stitches plus 3 I used a K hook and chained 131 stitches (with an L hook), all of the others have been 147 stitches but I wanted this one a little smaller. 6 balls made a blanket that finished 46 x 64 and that's plenty big.  The best part is that on the last row I had this much yarn left!
 The holiday weekend was very productive for me! Aside from Mom's quilt, I also wrapped up this blanket. In all fairness, it was close to being done.  The blanket is square, the narrow top is due to the camera angle. I intended this one to be a donation baby blanket but I think it ended up being a bit big at 34 x 44. I'll donate it and I'm confident that they will find the perfect home for it. I love how it turned out.  The pattern is Woodland Heather Baby Blanket. It's free from Daisy Farm Crafts. I used Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn and an I (5.5mm) hook and cast on 95 stitches. The resulting blanket is sturdy (from the stitch) and very soft. Now I can start new projects!
First up is a baby blanket for my new Great Niece arriving in November. I'm making another Daisy Farm Crafts pattern called Even Squares Baby Blanket. My niece picked the colors on the left and I'm trying Brava Worsted for the first time for this project. So far, so good. It's really soft. I worked up a swatch testing 3 stitches. The bottom row uses the stitches from the pattern. The middle row is double crochet and the top row is half double crochet. I like the half double crochet best so that's what I'm using.  I mentioned before that I was not going to finish the tank top that I was working on so I put that project in time out until I think of something else to make with the yarn. Instead I started the project that I really wanted to do anyway. This will be another hexagon cardigan. I gave Mom the blue one so this one will be for me. When I did the last one it worked really well to make both halves at the same time so I'm doing that again.
I still have the big blanket going so will alternate these 3, switching each evening and they should keep me busy for several weeks. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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