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...for March Madness. At least ones that won't make even me groan as I type them. I've been doing pretty well with working on something different every day. I only broke my "rule" twice: Both times were because I was so tired/braindead that I couldn't think of doing anything except relatively mindles. So I knit on the Medallion Capelet. I have now finished all three medallions! Here's a "blocked/unblocked" photo:
I get it now: Blocking gooood.

Speaking of blocking, this will look a lot better once it's blocked ("Branching Out" from knitty):
There is a glaring mistake right now, but I've already restarted this so many times that I'm just going to sew up the hole!! I really need to put in a lifeline. I'm probably going to tempt fate until the next repeat.

Here are shots of some more progress that's been happening since last time I checked in...Moss Creek's "Autumn Jewels":

The sad progress on Britty Kitty's Poinsettia:
Yes, I believe that's the second time this month for that, but I did something else that day. I also started my surprise ornament, but no pictures of that. =)

This looks impressive, but it wouldn't if you saw where it was before this month. =) Victoria Sampler's "Heirloom Christmas Sampler":


The "Where's Waldo?" of today's post...can you find the start I made on Ellen Chester's "Quaker Turtles" in this picture?


Thanks to my stash, I was able to start LaBroderie's "Shakespeare's Garden" with DMC Flower Thread on a Silkweaver Summer Fun Pack fabric pretty much the same as the Light Mocha Cashel called for, only with beautiful subtle variations.
By the way, I ironed the fabric before I started, because it had been in its little plastic bag for years, and it was very creased. I have now promised myself that I will always iron fabric before I start. Look how great it looks! And it was so much easier to line up in the Q-Snaps! I immediately violated this rule when I started the Quaker Turtles. =) My rationalization is that I'm going to cut the fabric apart and make it my travel project as soon as I finish that darn Pear (excuse my language...it's on 35 count).

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More madness...but the good kind now.

Smalls SAL April 2018

No idea what the Smalls SAL is all about? Click the graphic above to learn more!

Most of you have probably seen this small already, since I used it for Jo's Easter Blog Hop, but since I BARELY finished it in March, I figured it could count for April. Plus, I somehow took a thousand pictures of the bunny's left side, but none of her right, I thought she needed another glamour shot, with the help of my lovely assistant.

I don't have a "good" side...they're both good.

I just might manage another small finish in May, but it won't be stitching! Ooo, such a tease....

Atlanta Blooms 2018

Let's take another break from stitching and look at some lovely tulips! Every year, the Atlanta Botanical Garden plants thousands of bulbs.

They generally bloom from mid-February through the end of March. This makes early March a particularly good time to visit the Garden, since Orchid Daze, which starts in February, is also still going on. The pictures in this post were taken on March 10th this year. Some of the tulips had already finished blooming, and there were a few that still had not bloomed.

I love the ombre effect they created around the great lawn.

Here's a closeup. I'm not usually a fan of orange, but I love these orange/pink tulips.

You can still have color even if you are constrained to container gardening!

The flower walk back to the fabulous new Skyline Garden was my favorite this year, though.

There were some really amazing varieties of tulips back there. Time for the pictures to do the talking....

It was a real rainbow of colors!

I love the frilly pink edges of these tulips!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some highlights of Atlanta Blooms!

The Actual End of the Madness

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To start off the final week of March Madness, I drew the ever-popular blank slip of paper, which lets me stitch on anything I want! However, because I was feeling brain dead, I asked Michael what I should stitch. His reply was, "America!" LOL! "OK," I said immediately, "upstairs America or downstairs America?" Which completely makes sense because I have a sort of split stash right now; part is upstairs and part is downstairs. He chose upstairs.

This is an Attic silk conversion of In Full Glory by Blackbird Designs on some teensy count of fabric.

March 26th brought us back to Moss Creek, where I did some chain stitch borders.

Wow, I have a lot of Moss Creek projects in progress!

The next day I didn't actually work on a project. I lost heart because this chosen piece of knitting had been nibbled by moths a couple places, despite the cedar wood I keep with it!

This was a class I took with Cornelia Hamilton, and although I love the colors (I have several skeins of Noro I'm rotating among), it seems like a weird size to me. Too wide to be a scarf and too narrow to be a shawl (the kacha counter is for scale). Maybe if I felted it when it was done? It's pretty tightly knit, though, so I'm not sure it would shrink much. Not knowing what to do with this is not making me excited to work on it. And I just couldn't face trying to fix those holes!

The next day we were back to hardanger!

This is another project I should really finish....

Next it was Christmas in...April with Victoria Sampler's Heirloom Christmas Sampler.

On Good Friday, I was too exhausted to stitch at the end of the day, so I took a break. The final day of March Madness, the SCOD once again coughed up a blank slip of paper! What a finale!! And what did I choose to stitch? Prancer!

I have decided to make Prancer a WIP Wednesday project to take a break once a week from the breakneck speed knitting I'm going to have to do to finish Loopy Academy Senior Year. I am looking at the projects I chose and saying, "WHAT WAS I THINKING??!?!!!"

So there it is, folks, the final March Madness post. What do you think...could you do this for a month? I think I need to do some mad weekends every now and then. The SCOD gets really lonely between Marches.

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I really think I should get a prize for not starting anything new when the Sparkly Compote of Decree gave me not one but TWO blank slips of paper AND a project I'd already completed. I am a paragon of virtue, I tell you (says the woman with too many WIPs to count).

The End of the Madness, Part 1!

Buckle up, me beauties, because there be a bevy of March Madness to wrap up!

*ahem*

Sorry, I have no idea why I started talking like a pirate for a moment. It won't happen...um, at least for the rest of this post. Probably.

Anyway! Before a glorious Easter and some lovely orchids invaded the blog, we were in the throes of March Madness, where an inanimate object dictates my stitching for the month. Winding up to the final week, the SCOD decided to go on a run of unusual techniques. First up was some Teneriffe Lace.

This was a class I took many moons ago. So close to finishing! This one went in a pile that I might work on once I get back to a rotation.

Next up was a Kumihimo necklace that is almost finished!

In fact, when I got it out to work on it, I realized that all I needed to do was tie it off and attach the hardware...which I had even remembered to put with the necklace! Could it be?? An actual finish during March Madness?? For the first time ever???!???

Um...no. I could not find my E6000 glue. :( So, I decided to work on another Kumihimo braid that I started when I was helping some friends learn. I got the pattern from this site (careful, it's addicting!)

This design uses...a few more bobbins than the beaded necklace! Here's what the braid looks like:

R2-D2 is a needle minder that I used as a weight to start the braid. The alternative would have been to try and keep tension on the braid with a couple fingers while also holding on to the kumihimo disk in the same hand. So since I don't own fancy kumihimo weights, R2-D2 was...my only hope. (See what I did there? Eh??)

March 22nd brought me some hardanger to work on.

I had already done the preparation work for a motif, so I was able to finish it that night!

Those are eight little woven wheels, one around each wrapped bar. This was a teaching piece by Linda Driskell. The sad thing is, I remember her finished sampler having a beautiful top and bottom, but it must have been charted separately, because it's not part of my class kit! I can't even find a picture of it to try to recreate it (although I went down some very pleasant rabbit holes on Google trying to find one!)

After this trio, we went back to some "normal" cross stitch, with Autumn Queen by Mirabilia.

This caused many exciting trips up and down the stairs where I tried to find my longer Q-Snaps. Aerobic crafting. Excellent.

The next day, I drew a project out of the Sparkly Compote of Decree that I actually finished last year! I looked at Michael and said, "Wow! Who knows what happens when I draw a project that I already finished?" His reply was, "No one knows what happens when you draw a project you've finished." Smart aleck. I figured that meant I needed to start a new project, but then I remembered that the Easter blog hop was coming up and I needed to be all responsible and stitch on something for that. If you were here last week, you saw what it was...Just Nan's Strawberry Bunny.

I think I'll save the final week for another post. Until then, fair weather (we could all use it!) and flying needles be with you!