Hello my Blogging Friends! It has been way longer than I wanted since my last post. We were doing some home renovations and updates for the last few months. Unpacking boxes and getting things back to normal has been taking longer than I thought. I have a few more weeks before my Mother in Law comes to visit, so I am getting down to the wire with final appointments and making sure that everything I want unpacked, is unpacked and put away. But I am still stitching. At the end of the day, I always look forward to picking up my needle and thread and putting stitches into fabric. I also look forward to picking up my knitting needles or a crochet hook, too. So, what have I been up to?

Let’s start with my first August WIPGO draw; #19. On my board that was O’er The Fields We Go by JBW Design

Just a reminder, I am doing all Christmas and winter projects for my WIPGO 2026. And so far I have been keeping up. Since my Christmas decorations have been red and white the last couple of years, I had to add this one to my line up. Right now I am a little over 50% done and here is how it looks now.

I am stitching this one on 16ct Aida Christmas Red and I am using 2 strands of DMC B5200 along with one strand of Kreinik 032 Blending Filament, for a bit of sparkle 😉 I love how this one is looking so far and I think I will be making it into a pillow, similar to the sample on the chart cover. I do think I am going to have a bit of a time getting all of those wrinkles out of the Aida though.

My current knitting project is the Lil Something Shawl from Laura Dobratz. I started this one on July 5.

The yarn came in a Mermaid Box from Twice Sheared Sheep. It is Staple Sock from The Sheepyshire and the color is called Be A Mermaid. I love it! I thought this yarn would be perfect for this one skein shawl pattern which is available on Ravelry.

Those cute little jellyfish needle point protectors and the mermaid tail progress marker were also in the mermaid box. The cute mermaid gnomes knitting bag is from Three By The Sea Designs on Etsy. I really have an ocean theme going on here, don’t I?

I love stitching on this shawl in the morning while having my coffee. It is such a relaxing knit. Mostly garter stitch with some slipped stitches on the edges for the Icord edging and some yarn over increases. It makes a great travel project, too. The yarn is so soft and squishy and nice to work with.

I have one more project to share with you today. Back in May 2025 I started a crochet blanket called 2%. I am not sure I ever posted about it here on the blog.

I am not a great crocheter, but I saw this blanket on someone’s flosstube and really wanted to make it. So I searched out where to find the Bonus Bundles of Mandala yar by Lion Brand. The 2% blanket calls for 2 giant skeins. I found them at Walmart and chose the color Meowth.

My stitch count per row is not always what it should be, so I fudge a little. I think it is looking pretty good. After this photo was taken, I had put the project away for about a year. I picked it up again this past May and made good progress on it.

I decided to keep working on it until I finished at the end of June.

I have not blocked it yet, but I think it came out really nice. It is not perfect, but I love it. I really enjoyed crocheting all of the different stitches and am quite proud that all of my holes that form a giant X all line up. Did I have to fudge some of them? Yes, but they do line up.

I do love this blanket and can’t wait to cuddle up on the couch with it this fall and winter. Of course with all of the renovations we have done, the colors really don’t match our living room anymore. So I went to Walmart to see if I could find that same yarn in different colors. It was slim picking! Not sure if they are not carrying it anymore or what. I did find this yarn at a local yarn shop that has the perfect colroing-grays and blacks.

Jewelspun is an Aran weight yarn, so thicker than the Lion Brand Mandala yarn. I will see how far I get with 2 skeins of it. I haven’t started it yet, but I know that I will enjoy it as much as I did the first one.

So, that is what I have been up to lately. I think in my next post (which hopefully will not be that long into the future) I will do an update with all of my WIPGO projects. I am happy with all of the holiday projects I have completed this year. Can you believe that the 30+ year old Nativity project has not been called yet? It is on my WIPGO board 4 times and has not been called once. I am pretty sure that one is not going to get completed this year. And I only finally got a BINGO in July! Actually a double BINGO, so that means 2 new starts!!! One has already been started and another is maybe soon to be started 😉 More on those in another post.

So leave me a comment and tell me what you have been working on the last few months. Did you work on any holiday projects for Christmas in July? You know that Christmas has been all year for me this year. I would love to hear about your holiday projects and what you have been up to.

Happy Stitching!

ginny