Too busy to work?!

I’m convinced I could be a full time crafter if I didn’t have to work a paying job… I am totally dabbled over the past 3 weeks, I have so many projects in various stages!  And this doesn’t include any that I recently pinned on pinterest (like learning to crochet hearts and pumpkins and more!)

I went to a knitting class held by a local yarn club about a month ago – super fun and came out of that with 2 projects: 1) a sampler scarf of different knit stitches and 2) a spiral cowl (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-queens-spiral-cowl) . I had purchased yarn for the class and started the sampler scarf but found I really like the waffle stitch so here is work in progress #1:

The spiral cowl is (to me) a really big project so I decided to ‘practice’ with some other yarn I had that I had no idea what to do with. But knowing I was just practicing I didn’t pay close attention to the stitch count and was getting frustrated with this particular yarn so after using up the first skein I bound it off. Lesson learned – place more stitch markers!  I haven’t started the cowl yet but have the yarn, stitch markers and new pointier circular needles ready to go. Here is a picture from the Ravelry website:

Project #2 is stuffed turkeys –  I found the project on the Joanne fabric website. This has been in progress for a few weeks (okay, months) I finally got around to ironing and marking the fabric for cutting only to discover that fat quarters are not big enough for 18″ circles! I was feeling pretty dumb but the pattern even says “1/4 yard” and checked with my crafty BFF and she was stumped as well.  SO! I popped into Joanne’s and bought 1 yard each of 3 fabrics. Those are waiting to be marked, cut and ironed… This is the picture from the Joanne website:

Project #3 was a crochet octopus.  I missed a crochet get together at the Yarn club where everyone was crocheting an octopus for pre-mature babies in the local hospital NICU. (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/octopus-for-preemie—octo-project) Over 3 nights for about 4 hours total I made this totes adorbs octopus:

Now that I know the pattern I can definitely churn out another one in shorter time, and participate in the next crochet get together 🙂

Project #4 is a Christmas Creche (manger).  My Mom crafted one waaayyy back when I was a kid and I have always loved it – found the pattern from 1978 on ebay and it is sitting in the craft room waiting for me to cut out the pattern pieces.  This project will be a long ranging one as there are 12 figures, palm tree and the manger.  I visited my Mom this past weekend and took some detailed pictures and she let me borrow one of her wise men and a shepherd.

and finally Project #5 is a Halloween alphabet cross stitch! The design is by JBW Designs, I have quite a few of her leaflets from maybe 20 years ago?! This project I admit is totally  me having a “oh look something shiny” or “Dory” moment (as my crafty BFF calls it) – in the process of looking for something else I came across a JBW Designs leaflet…saw something Halloween and there went my train of thought!  It will probably be finished right in time for Halloween.

How bad is it that I’m excited for the forecast of rain all day Saturday?!  My garden could really use a soaking though and I’m overdue for a garden post…after I knit a few waffles and stitch some ABC’s of course!