Saskatoon Craft Guild Tea - April 13 & 14

The Saskatoon Craft Guild is proud to present our 70^th Annual Display and Tea on Wednesday, April 13 and Thursday, April 14, 2011 from 1:00 pm to 9 pm.  The Tea will be held at the Masonic Temple located at 1021 Saskatchewan Crescent (formerly Herman Avenue).

Admission is $3 and includes entry to the Display, the Tea Room and door prize draws.  Feature crafts include:  Quilting, Smocking, Crochet, Knitting, Needlepoint, Creative Stitchery, Hardanger and Rug Making.

Please come out, have some tea and dainties, and check out all the wonderful work that our members have done and enter the door prize.  You may win some of these wonderful homemade crafts!

If you are not into crafts, but you know someone who is, please forward this to them!

You can see some of the gorgeous items from last year here.

http://allaboutme-sharon.blogspot.com/2010/06/saskatoon-craft-guild-tea-april-2010_13.html

http://allaboutme-sharon.blogspot.com/2010/06/saskatoon-craft-guild-tea-april-2010_17.html

http://allaboutme-sharon.blogspot.com/2010/06/saskatoon-craft-guild-tea-april-2010_19.html

Time for New Projects!

So I managed to finish off my knitting projects, and its time to start some new ones.  I did attempt to start some socks the other night but didn't get too far, I just ripped it out several times.  I will try again another day.

I also have started a new crochet project - a granny square blanket.  I am using blue and pink together and will be donating it to the Crisis Nursery along with all the scarves I have made.  I did notice night that I have a scarf that I haven't finished in crochet, but I think I only have a row or two left (long rows) so I can finish it without too much effort.

I will have pictures in a few days.  :)

I think I figured it out

Lately I just have not been inspired to work on knitting.  I go to a group every week, and the project I picked out wasn't thrilled me so I have continued with the two scarves I have on the needles.

I figured it out.  Knitting is not my thing, so it doesn't thrill me.

So I have a plan... I am going to tackle knitted socks, as they still entice me.  But, I am going to do other projects I want to do in crochet.  For instance, I want to change my blue pillows to brown, and I already bought yarn for it. So I am going to make covers with crochet.  :)

I am feeling excited again!

An Update of my Life

I know, I haven’t been updating.  I think I start out all my posts like this.  But then, no one complains, which means likely no one is reading, so the lack of updates don’t really matter.

So here is what is going on in my life:

Work

We are coming up on our yearend, so life is about to get hectic.  While my job doesn’t have a lot of extra duties associated with it at yearend, there is prep work to be done as things that have been ignored for a while have to be dealt with.  I foresee overtime in my future, which is okay by me as the brakes in my car need to be dealt with.

Candles

Tis the season that people start to buy candles and things are starting to pick up in that regard for me.  Of course, some of my bookings are corresponding with my busy time at work, so I foresee a bit of a crazy and busy two weeks in November.  Hopefully it will be worth it!

Reading

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and then writing reviews on my friend’s book blog at http://amasgetbooked.blogspot.com/ so come check it out!  

Knitting

I re-joined my wednesday night group and have started working with double pointed needles.  I am getting close to ready to attempt a pair of socks!

My Crafting History

Crafting is something that I have always done, but I tend to go more in bursts and spurts with it. I learnt how to do needlepoint when I was young from my grandpa, I did china painting with my grandma, and mom taught me how to crochet. As I got older, I did not work on the crafts my grandparents taught me, but would occasionally pick up some crocheting to work on, but never tended to complete anything.

Back in 2000, I learnt how to scrapbook. I went gungho with that for a few years, but then ran out of pictures and did not really have much to work on. The group that I would scrapbook with also did not meet as much due to various family commitments, and my scrapbooking fell to the side.

Knitting is something I always wanted to learn. My mom tried to teach me once, but because it was not a craft that she favoured, she really was not able to, and I forgot about. I heard about a craft group through a co-worker and decided this would be a great idea to join and learn how to knit. I actually did figure out the knit stitch in advance, but did learn from the group how to purl, and due to the group I spent some time every week working on a knit project.

Stemming from this, I decided to get back into crochet, which I much prefer for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it goes quicker than knitting does, at least for me. I likely will try some other crafts as well, as there are some I still want to try out, but first I need to find some more time in the day!

Organizing Your Stash

I read a great article the other day, but apparently I deleted it.  It was about how to organize your stash of yarn.  Come on, you can't deny that you have one, but is it well organized so that if you need something you can easily find it?

This article suggested putting all like colours together within a ziploc bag.  It was recommended to use the largest bags you can find and put them all in there.  So all the greens in one bag, all the purples in another, etc.  That way, when you need that colour, it will be easy for you to locate.

If you are someone that likes to keep your scraps and then make something with them, the scraps could easily be sorted into its own bag to be kept for embellishments on other projects, or for a multi-colour scrap blanket or other project.

My latest Craft Project

After my first knit baby blanket did not turn out so well, I decided to create a second one.  I am only about 6 inches into it, and the baby is due in just over 70 days.  Last night I took a look to see if it is going well, or if it needs to be frogged, and well, it needs to be frogged.  I managed to turn the pattern around, which isn't that huge of a deal, and I see that the pattern is leaning a bit.

I am going to switch to a crochet blanket.  I have already found a nice simple pattern that I should be able to get done in a relatively short time.