Sweetness follows

If there's one thing I absolutely love, it's a long weekend. A long weekend spent at home with no obligations and no plans is even better.

Although I did have a plan for this long weekend - to do nothing but relax - and so far I think I've succeeded.

This morning I sat in my sewing room and ironed some blank coloured handkerchiefs I bought a while ago. Then I went through my shelves (yes, shelves) of Sublime Stitching patterns, selected some suitable embroidery floss, and spent the next hour stitching. It was mindless, it kept my hands busy and it was a fun thing to do while I listened to the radio.



The daddy-hankies are ones I stitched years ago. I'm not too sure today's effort turned out looking much like an owl - Mr Quiltingmick reckons it looks more like a ghost from PacMan - but I think it's tarted up a plain hanky quite nicely and that was my goal.

I think this counts as project one towards my challenge. I've already started on another stitching project, which is perfect as our next Brown Owls meet is a stitching tea party!



Last night was an eating pizza, eating ice cream, and watching recorded crime shows kind of night. A perfect night for starting a new crochet project. I haven't touched any crochet, apart from joining blocks for bushfire blankets since I finished off my show projects, and I thought it was time for something a little more challenging than crocheted socks. I picked up Interweave Crochet Winter 2008, flicked to the Alpine Frosted Scarf pattern, and tried to decide between the Sealing Wax (red) and Verdes (green) colours in Malabrigo Lace. I have a couple of reddish scarves already, so went for the Verdes.

But in this pattern, I very quickly became a non-fan of the Verdes, although in the light of day it looked marginally better. The shade differences are just too dramatic when crocheted with tall post stitches, and it came out looking like camouflage. So I changed yarn and went with the Sealing Wax. It's plainer and seems to be a little finer for some reason. It certainly shows the pattern up a lot better. I'm really glad I tried both though, and thank heavens for a stash that enabled me to try both!



Speaking of stashes, I have bought nothing this year except for some very special Wollmeise (as opposed to all that un-special Wollmeise!) and some yarn for bushfire blankets. Neither of these purchases count, especially the Wollmeise. I've used up about 17 x 50g balls this year. I'm pretty pleased with my stash reduction efforts so far. Now, if only I could stop buying books to add to my book stash!