a february finish

Pattern: February Cottage, Country Cottage Needleworks
Fabric: stitched over 2 on 35 count linen from Wichelt - lambswool
Floss: DMC and Crescent Colors

   The February Cottage is finished!  I put the last stitches in this yesterday and am pretty happy with the results.  I made a few changes and all of them were intended this time!  First of all, I used Crescent Colors Pink Posy and Pink Champagne as called for, but subbed the DMC color recommended by the pattern for Poblano.  I left off the floating hearts surrounding 'February' as it seemed too busy to me.  These hearts also had a border of a different color surrounding them that made it a bit over the top for me.  I love the simple hearts of the border and plants and didn't feel the need to overcomplicate things and throw more hearts at it.  I also added a pop of blue on the birds (which were originally white) using DMC 3766.  

 

   I had some issues with the bright, Pink Champagne floss running when I pre-soaked my skeins.  I think I lost a lot of color when the stuff would. not. stop. bleeding. so my bright pink is not as bright as I'd hoped.    

   Overall, I'm happy with this cottage, and for the moment I'm not too disappointed in my January mishap.  

In the meantime, the March Cottage is ready to go. 

weekly WIP progress report

  Here's a look at what I've been doing this week.

Peterborough

Pattern: Peterborough, Berroco: Norah Gaughan Vol. 8

Yarn: Mirasol Yarn, Wach'i

Colorway: 1512 Natural

   Peterborough is well on its way to completion.  The body and one sleeve are finished and I'm nearly done with the ribbing on the second sleeve.  Knitting 4" of ribbing with a (primarily) cotton yarn is no fun, but I managed to CO my second sleeve right after finishing the first.  Trade secret: always CO immediately following the BO on the first piece of things knit in pairs (i.e. socks, sleeves, mittens, etc.) to avoid the nearly unavoidable SSS (Second Sock Syndrome), or in this case SSleeveS.

   I've been panicking about not having enough yarn to finish this cardigan, but I got another 2 skeins of yarn (from the same dye lot!) from another Raveller in the mail this week.  I'll have plenty of yarn to finish this up.  No more excuses for this WIP.

  

Miss BB

Pattern: Miss BB, Chic Knits

Yarn: Mirasol Yarn, Sawya

Colorway: 1800, Black

   This week I also spent a bit of time with Miss BB.  I've got nearly 6" of the back done.  The yarn is gorgeous and wonderful to work with.  No regrets about adding 17 skeins of it to the stash, except maybe not snagging another sweaters worth when I had the chance.  Once I get Peterborough squared away I can devote 100% of my time to Miss BB, and I'm sure that time will fly by.

  Here's a preview of another WIP I've been working on.

Pattern: February Cottage, Country Cottage Needleworks
Fabric: stitched over 2 on 35 count linen from Wichelt - lambswool
Floss: DMC and Crescent Colors

This morning I spent an hour or so putting a few stitches into my February Cottage and its nearly finished.  Look for an update soon!

weekly WIP progress report

   It's Sunday morning and I'm enjoying a cup or two of coffee.  Here's what I've been working on this week:

February Cottage

Pattern: Country Cottage Needleworks, February Cottage
Fabric: stitched over 2 on 35 count linen from Wichelt - lambswool
Floss: DMC and Crescent Colors - Pink Champagne and Pink Posey

   I've started on my February Cottage and it's nearly done.  I never thought I'd say it, but there really is A LOT of pink on this cottage.  I've seen other mods of this chart and think I will also make my birds into bluebirds and might also leave off some or all of the floating hearts surrounding 'February'.   

   I'm still worried about my issues with the January Cottage, but I figure that I can finish stitching February and March, which make up the top row of my 12 cottage piece, before I do any major ripping out on January.  At this point, I'm feeling that I do need to rip out the January cottage and start over.  The problem is that if I rip out the cottage, there goes my snowman and tree also.  

Peterborough

   The body has been washed and blocked, so I've moved on to sleeves.  I'm pretty sure that my 4 remaining skeins of Mirasol Yarn Wach'i will not be enough to knit both long sleeves, but thankfully a kind Raveller has offered to send me a couple of skeins so I can finish up.  
   Once I do get the sleeves knit up, seaming will be a long and tedious process.  I actually enjoy knitting garments in pieces (many mini FOs FTW!) and like the structure seamed garments have, but sewing the pieces together by hand is a bit tedious.  Hopefully I don't stall out on the finishing for Peterborough, because it's lovely and has had WIP/Hibernating status for way too long.  

A New Start

Yarn: Mirasol Yarn Sawya

Colorway: Black

     
      This yarn turned up at my mailbox this week.  In the near future it will become a jacket/cardigan for me.

january in september

   I am definitely late to the party, but last night I finished up January Cottage from Country Cottage Needleworks.  I clearly can't count, so I had to make some adjustments.  Since I'm going to stitch all 12 cottages on the same piece of fabric, I hope it won't be too obvious that January is a bit off.

Pattern: Country Cottage Needleworks, January Cottage
Fabric: stitched over 2 on 35 count linen from Wichelt - lambswool
Floss: DMC and Crescent Colors - Pebble Beach 

   My cottage is one row too high, but of course I didn't notice this until I had stitched the entire cottage and half of my snowman.  Instead of frogging the entire thing, I only stitched one of the chimneys, so the second one wouldn't be too close to the J and I added an extra row of white below the cottage.  Hopefully once I start stitching the February Cottage, the borders should line up.  However, looking at the rest of the months, my January Cottage will still be a bit too high up on the designs.  I'm hoping it won't be too noticeable.   

  Meanwhile, February's Cottage is kit-ed up and ready to go after I make more progress on the Mystery Sampler.