Three week’s progress: 86 fish for a total of 176 fish completed at this time.

Fish Joining the Fishbowl
3 chocolate brown, 6 grape, 6 dark country blue, 6country blue, 6 gray heather, 6 berry blue, 6 violet, 6 blue mint, 6 autumn red, 6 pink, 6 orchid, 6 iris, 6 sundrop, 6 sping (green), 6 aqua mist

Previous Fish
90 fish: 2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 6 limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, 6 truffle heather (brownish-purple), 7 soft blue, 5 red, 6 light country peach, 6 bone (khaki), 3 chocolate brown

This post was supposed to appear December 4th, but I was too busy knitting fish, laying them out and knitting more fish. I have pictures, but again, I need to finish this by Saturday, ACK!

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

As a child, I always seemed to have an advent calendar to help me wait until Christmas arrived. It was usually a cardboard stand up thing with windows to open. As an adult, I have been looking for a reusable calendar that centered around the true meaning of Christmas. Two years ago I finally found a wonderful counted cross-stitch kit and purchased it with a 40% off coupon. I started it last winter after I finished Granny’s rather late and overdue cross-stitched Christmas present. I made a significant amount of progress on it, but haven’t touched it since February. The scene on the calendar is that of the Nativity/Creche. The rest of the calendar is gridded out with a space for each day counting toward December 25. There are ornaments to stitch ranging in designs from shepherds to stars to angels and baby Jesus in the manger. I redesigned the Nativity scene a bit because I do not believe the wise men arrived until Jesus was a toddler, so I took them out of the scene, but will leave them in as ornaments I think. I know they started traveling when they saw the same star the shepherds saw. Because I don’t have a fun way to countdown yet, I’ve gone in search of online Advent calendars. I make no warranty about content because I am unable to open any until December 1. As I remember to investigate, I’ll mark the appropriateness.

• Woodlands Junior School - UK based
• Boowa & Kwala
• The St. Margaret Mary Advent Calendar begins Nov. 30
• Knitting Advent Calendar
• Doxaweb
• Presentation Helper also has a PowerPoint version to print and cut out
• Episocpal Diocese of Washington 2007
• North Pole UK - day one was a puzzle
• Busted Halo
• Yule in Iceland
• Yahoo Directory of Advent Calendars
• Thrifty Fun’s list of advent calendars

This week’s progress: 29 fish for a total of 90 fish completed at this time.

Fish Joining the Fishbowl
29 fish: 2 truffle heather (brownish-purple), 7 soft blue (oops), 5 red, 6 light country peach, 6 bone (khaki), 3 chocolate brown

Previous Fish
61 fish: 2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 6 limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, and 4 truffle heather (brownish-purple).

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

Fish count Friday?

It’s still not Friday, but it is time for a fish update. As previously stated, this post is protected until after Christmas so the recipient won’t accidentally spoil his surprise.

This week’s progress: 29 fish for a total of 61 fish completed at this time, not quite the halfway point, which concerns me. I needed to be at least halfway through the fish making process by now. I need to find my muse earlier in the year or choose quicker knits. On the brighter side, I have the fish pattern memorized and I almost doubled my total. After 52 fish one would hope so.

New Fish (29)
1 more limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, and 4 truffle heather (brownish-purple)

Previous Fish (32)
2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 5 limelight green.

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

Threaden (a.) Made of thread; as, threaden sails; a threaden fillet.
Yarn (n.) Spun wool; woolen thread; also, thread of other material, as of cotton, flax, hemp, or silk; material spun and prepared for use in weaving, knitting, manufacturing sewing thread, or the like.

Threaden Thursdays are a review of my knitting, however, I can’t write too much because I am exclusively Christmas knitting right now. I can tell you that it’s coming along nicely. I like that in these initial stages, the project is entirely portable. Since the weather is cold, I’ve been wearing my hoodie nearly all the time. A skein of yarn fits perfectly in the pocket and I pull the yarn from the center and walk around knitting. I’m sure people think I’m a bit weird, but I’ve been weird most of my life. While visiting with friends in GR who understand my quirks, I was able to make a little progress.

My second post for today will have Christmas knitting updates, leave a comment here if you’d like me to email you the password. Please don’t post your email address in the comment area, just fill it out in the name/website/email area of the comment form.

I designed a coolie yarn ball graphic for Threaden Thursdays and that’s about it for today. Well, actually I designed it twice, I had it near perfect and forgot that my computer doesn’t like to multitask. GIMP hung and I lost most of it, but I had enough saved to try again. I liked the first one better, but I couldn’t remember what I actually did. .I tried to find a tutorial online, no such luck. Then I tried to find a nice clipart type graphic, no luck there either. I did find a graphic that I could purchase the rights to for almost $8, but I can’t rationalize purchasing something because I’m too lazy to do it myself. Have I mentioned how wonderful GIMP is recently? A simple circle, then a few paths converted to curves and ta-da!

I would much rather title this post “Festive Fish Friday,” but that would give away the project to someone and it’s not Friday. Here are some current photos of fish.

I have a total of 32 (35) fish in the following colors: 2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 5 limelight green, & 3 too big and armor-like burgundy fish. I am not going to be using those last 3 burgundy ones, but they still count ’cause they’re fish.

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

really, I’m not! I never would have considered myself a yarn snob. I’ve been using up stash yarn and some of it is Red Heart or Caron One Pounders. I had no problem knitting projects out of this the first time, but my hands do not like it lately. I had no problem knitting with the Caron Simply Soft yarns, but my problem arises when I look at the large bag of Red Heart that I purchased this weekend to make my super secret Christmas Elf present. I dreaded touching it, what little I did knit from my stash this time stuck to my hands, dried them out and made me miserable. I argued with myself for days about replacing it.

I made an unscheduled trip to GR yesterday and threw the Red Heart in my car. I decided to check out the local craft stores. Simply Soft was on sale, making it very attractive, I want my gift to be washable. So I began to hunt colors. I wasn’t able to find all the replacement colors that I originally found with Red Heart, but I think I found enough to make it worth the exchange of yarns. The photo on the left is the set I returned, the other two are the new colors. According to Caron’s website, I think there may be two or three more colors I can get. I may hunt the stashes up for sale or trade on Ravelry to discontinued colors. I debated trying to find Lion’s Wool-Ease, but I’d have to order it all online because the stores don’t carry a wide variety. It would be difficult to coordinate colors from online, so I settled on Simply Softs.

I am knitting a blanket for Christmas Elf prezzie. The pattern is called, “A Recipe for Fish,” but I am using this redesign because the fish are supposed to lay flat. I made a mistake in my first few fish, so they don’t lay as flat as I’d like, but I’m going to try to knit it correctly with a brown one and see if it lays flatter. The design I am going for at this point is a square color wheel. Think about opening your favorite graphics program. When you open the color picker tool, you see an image like the one in the middle and that is how I plan on laying out the fish at this point.

Here are the search terms you can search to see completed fish blankets shown on Flickr:

• +fish +knit +blanket
• +fish +tessellate
• “a recipe for fish“

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

After knitting an intarsia project, I am actually excited to find that I enjoyed it. While working on the hat, I was contemplating what to make for for my family Christmas Elf project. I have settled on an intarsia something that I will have to create a pattern for myself. I have searched high and low for a pattern to no avail. Rest assured, I will document my progress in vague terms so that all will be surprised for Christmas.

Vague progress question number one, did you know you could knit a circle? I didn’t, but I found a way. It’s not half bad. It looks a bit odd, but it’s a circle nonetheless and should work out just fine.

Friday evening, we went to town and I picked up some yarn, I needed a lot of colors of yarn for my project. Sadly, I won’t need much of each color, I think. I really don’t know. I may be making one for every Christmas Elf project for the next 10 years if I’m not careful. Now, how to store 14 skeins of new yarn. This project was supposed to use up some of the yarns in my stash, not add more to it!!!! Oh well, better luck next time I suppose.

I actually did. After a bit over a year of work, nearly 100 hours as best I can estimate and a little discomfort in my arm, the cross stitch is finished and delivered. When originally started, it was a stocking kit with a pair of cardinals in a tree or bush. Last night, I officially finished it by trimming the edges down to a bit over an inch, folding the edges under, backing it with fabric and sewing it all together. I then used some grommets to make it easier to hang with an adjustable string length. Slip knots are fun. Jason helped me by cutting a wire hanger to make a tension rod to keep the top middle from folding in on itself. I presented it to Granny at family lunch at Mom & Dad Proefrock’s.

I all but promised myself I would not do another large cross stitch project, but I found so many projects I had purchased over the years. I have a few knitting projects to work on as well, but I like to have a couple things to go between. I’ll stitch up the advent calendar I purchased and alternate it with a knitting or tatting projects. Since I finished Granny’s project, I am now allowing myself to learn to tat. I want to make snowflake ornaments. It may be cheesy, but I think they’ll be interesting once I learn. Tatting is a certain way of tying string in knots, if I could teach myself to make friendship bracelets, I can teach myself this, though I will probably need to refer to a book. Luckily, I have a book or two.