WIP Wednesday - The SAL's

So... having finished the giant shawl I was itching to get stitching, I picked up the raven I'd started last year which I'd set aside at exactly the half way point to do the shawl. The pattern itself Raven Spirit is one I found on Ravelry - not exactly the place you'd expect cross stitch patterns but I've found that tapestry crochet pattens work nicely for cross stitch too. The Floss is "Nevermore" by Jodyri Designs and the fabric is a bit of white Aida I had dyed with some orange Dylon paint. You can can see how to do that here.

Of course none of this has anything to do with the current WIPs, however whilst I was finishing him off I was reminded that the Row a Week that I have done some work on in the past was starting up again, this time with a block a week rather than a row and it's been great fun so far!

Of course me being me I got things not entirely right as the green 20 cm lace edged linen wasn't as it turned out 20 cm of fabric but about 16 cm of fabric with the lace included in the 20 cm. I'd already stitched the border of the first block by then and having had a few goes at seeing if I could get the 3 blocks in width as I was supposed to but that failed so I decided to go with making the most of the space and leaving the first backstitched block where it was, this will pose a challenge over time as I may need to adjust things to fit the space I have especially as I only have 90 cm of the fabric instead of the 2 metres or so required, which will mean leaving out some weeks of blocks.

As you can see I have rotated the blocks on the right to their sides to make them fit in the space, however that did leave things looking a bit lopsided due to the gap on the side of the first block I did on the left so I added a skinny 3 stitch block next to that and filled it with the pattern of stitches that can be found in the logo of the SAL. I won't be mirroring the blocks section to section as I go down but will add some variation so that I may actually be able to add more blocks than I might have done.

These are the threads I have pulled for the project, I may not use them all but this is just a starting point for me, especially as I only have a few solids included in the mix so far. Included in the mix is ThreadworX 10362, several Tentakulum Painters Threads, some Cosmo and a lot of DMC, both normal variegated as well as Color Variations.

The second SAL I'm working on is the Linen and Threads 2017 Mystery Band Sampler Stitch Along. This is a lovely pattern so far and I'm miles behind mostly because I didn't start till the middle of February and my attention is split over 3 SAL's.

This one I'm also working on linen band, this time a natural linen band, it's the same width as the other one. I used ThreadworX 1053 as the starting point and chose 4 threads to go with it, though I may add more just to have a larger number of colours going for this pattern. Now that I am caught up with the first SAL I showed you I have this one as my main focus till the next pattern comes out. The more observant of you will notice that my band isn't as wide as the original pattern, and that's because this was the only bit of fabric I had in stash that was long enough for the pattern and I want to work as much from stash as possible. I have been Frankensteining the pattern as I go along to make sure it fits the width and is pleasingly symmetrical. Fingers crossed they keep doing symmetrical patterns!

The last of the 3 SAL's I have joined in with in the same week is Pamela Kellogg's Never Ending Band Sampler which I found out about last December but hadn't started because of not knowing which fabric to use or which threads. I did finally decide and this is what I came up with:

I'm using Tetakulum Painters Thread in Kadinsky and have chosen the other colours based on that and added ecru and white into the mix - it's very tone on tone and sometimes difficult to read from a distance but it does look nice up close and I'm hoping it will work. The fabric is 18ct Aida by Jodyri Designs and part of the monthly fabric she creates, this one is from January 2015 and once this is full I'll be moving on to the next one. I've got a whole stock to use as I've been collecting them ever since this first one so I'm not likely to run out even though they are not as long as called for (or as wide but as you can see there is plenty of space). What colours I will use when this runs out I don't know, I'm not planning on making them all tone on tone.

Last of all is the SAL I'm hosting myself - I've been trying to catch up a bit with the ones I've not stitched yet for whatever reason - or not completely finished as the case may be.

The current one I'm working on is the December pattern which I use as my take along project at the moment. I'm using the colours I planned for it on 18ct Aida.

As you can see I'm keeping myself busy, hopefully not too busy but we will see!