End of July Update

I have been making the most of the little free time that remains to me before classes start up again in a few weeks.  Here's what I've been working on lately.

My Halo blocks:

I have 22/72 blocks sewn as of today.

In the lower right corner of the above photo, you can see my Box Kite blocks. I am using them as a leader/ender for Halo.

I dug out an old cross stitch UFO which I can find no photographic documentation of on the blog or Flickr. I think this one is from 2010 or 2011. It is Rest and Be Thankful by Cricket Collection.

Fabric is a bit more of a cream color than shown in photo.

I have never been entirely satisfied with this linen and even after letting it sit for 5 years+, I still found myself bothered by it. The original model was stitched on Old Mill Java which had a warmer tone to it and a mottled look. I know you can tea/coffee dye fabric but was unsure of doing that after you already have stitching on it (unless you want the stitching to look antique). I did some reading online, asked for advice on Instagram, and then did a coffee grounds dye test on a piece of scrap linen. I loved how it turned out!  I'll do a quick explanation in my next post about how I did it.

Post-coffee dying

Current progress

Finished installment 3 of the Wee Winter Woolens Knit Along. #4 will be released tomorrow.

I decided I needed some strawberries as a summer decoration and was inspired by some I found on Instagram a while ago. Pattern is by Pezdiva and is located in the comments section on her Flickr photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pezdiva/133734949/ I am using scraps of Madelinetosh DK and Cascade 220 on size 3 DPNs.

Have knit a few more but not sure if I am "done" yet or not.

I hope you are having a very crafty summer too!