I can be lazy so I tend to like the self striping yarns that are available today rather than buying a bunch of solids and weaving in a ton of ends. I’ve made a ton of blankets over the last couple years (37 of them!) and found some yarn/pattern combinations that I really like too.

You know of my new found love of the Mandala Ombré yarns when paired with the Linen Stitch.

I’ve used a ton of the Caron Big Cake yarn in the last couple years and have tons of it yet to use. My favorite two patterns for it so far are the Easy Ripple and the somewhat fancier Woodland Ripple.

The Lion Brand Big Scoop yarn looks great with the Blanket Stitch pattern. This yarn comes in variegated colorways too but for this pattern I like the single color ones … I’ve done a pink blanket and a yellow blanket and I have blue yarn waiting. It comes in a green too so I’m sure I’ll eventually make one of these in that color too.

And I’m thrilled because I’ve finally found the perfect pattern for the Caron Cotton cake yarn. I’ve made at least 3 other blankets with this yarn and I’ve liked them all OK but I’m LOVING this yarn with the Shell Stitch Blanket. I’ve got a fair amount of it at home and I’m thinking most of it will probably end up being used with this pattern.

And that’s probably more than you want to know about my crochet blankets!

I recently saw a question about the best chair for sewing in one of the groups I occasionally follow and thought I’d share my favorite chair. Over the years I’ve sewn in a number of chairs starting with a basic dining room chair and several different office chairs but my favorite is this chair I ordered from Amazon. I have two of them that I bought for my sewing room in Tampa. It’s leather, it swivels, you can raise and lower the seat, and it does not have arms.

I checked the price at the link above and it has gone up quite a bit in the two and a half years since I bought my second one. I paid $105 for mine. When I needed a sewing chair for Big Canoe, that was the first one I went looking for but it was unavailable. I ordered another office chair that had all the same features EXCEPT it’s cloth and not leather … not the best choice with all the strings but it will work for now. I think I need one of those animal hair brushes to see if I can clean them off.

You can see I’ve made progress on the Granny Square quilt in the background. I had several comments about it and people seemed confused, thinking it was a different quilt than the one on the Twisted Irish Chain class handout I’d shared. Nope, it’s the same quilt. Just a simple square alternated with a 9 patch block and it’s the placement of the squares in the 9 patch that create the pattern.

This is the Linen Stitch blanket that I started on Election night … we may still be waiting for the certification of the election results but the blanket is done. I used a pattern that came with one of my BluPrint kits but you could Google linen stitch crochet blanket and find patterns or look at this post of mine where I linked to a couple patterns.

• Pattern – Linen Stitch Blanket from a Bluprint kit
• Yarn – Mandala Ombré, colorway is Mantra
• Hook size – I
• I used about 5 and 2/3 skeins and my blanket measures about 40 x 46

I love the texture of this stitch!

So, I did fix my error today and I’ll post another photo of the Boxed Squares quilt tomorrow.

We saw deer in the yard daily this past summer and it’s less frequent now but I still glance up from my sewing now and then and see a visitor. Rae got to see this one this morning too. She gets as excited about the deer as I do.

Her classes involve a number of video calls and she’s good about keeping up with the time (she sets an Alexa alarm for a couple minutes before she’s supposed to sign on). Her last class usually ends around 1:15 and she continues to work until 2:30. I sew most of the day, stopping to help her as needed and after her video calls, I usually sit in the room with her while she’s finishing her assignments. Finn likes to come down and sit with us too. That’s my current hat project in my lap.

We take short breaks during the day doing some yoga and when we’re done with school for the day, Rae’s always happy to go outside and sit on the swing … it was the one thing she told us she hoped the new house had when we were house hunting. She looked so grown up sitting out there today.

The boxed squares top is finished…. or is it? I flipped two blocks when I was sewing it together and didn’t notice. I guess that happens when there are lots of interruptions.

This was how it was supposed to be sewn …

I might just take off the top row and flip two blocks around or I might not …. but I think it bothers me enough to take it off.