Planet Nice Crafts

Hello Everyone! I hope the winter holidays have been a good experience for you. 2020 is a challenging year to put in perspective. Foremost, it is accomplishment enough to be able to witness the end of the year as so much tragedy has occurred. But then daily life needs come in to the picture which can be complicated and stressful such as going to the grocery store. What keeps me going are the stories of the spectacular such as a high school student, Emma Davenport , leading the IL effort to create masks and those individuals using this time to make giant strides in their personal growth. Enough of high philosophy, however, it has been busy at Planet Nice Crafts with creative activities and I am sure you have been quite busy too. A common creative activity this time of year is holiday decorating. Because so many of the tree stands had sold out in my area, I purchased a Christmas tree on December 8 th , about two weeks earlier than I usually do. I chose a white pine, which I had one befor...

Hello Everyone. I hope all is as reasonably well as can be expected. Unfortunately, nothing very new here at Planet Nice Crafts, not even with the birds. Sewing is ticking along slowly. I did replenish my supplies at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston in person. It was a nice adventure.   Gardening is moving along, the change of seasons is here. A few tomatoes and peppers remain. The string beans, kale, and the tomatillo are the workhorses and are still producing good harvests. The pumpkins have kicked in but are battling the fungal disease, powdery mildew. And of course, the beetles are as hungry and numerous as ever. The pests and diseases should slow down now that it is cooler, but the plants slow down as well. There is a bright spot without issues so far and that is the second crop of snap peas. The peas were planted in early August and though they had to get through the August heat, they established themselves more quickly than those which were planted in April. No garden pictures ...

The last summer school assignment was completed last Friday so now I have three weeks before the Fall semester begins. It sounds like a long time but it will be filled with catch-up activities such as creating blog posts 😊. Knitting continues. Planet Nice Crafts did make the goal of having FOUR knitting entries for the Lake County Fair. Here they are: Yes, there are some additions that have not been mentioned before. The hat utilizing the 5-ply dark green cashmere yarn was completed since the last post; the pattern is “Milanese Lace Topper” by Tante Ehm with a modification. I like the pattern for this chunkier yarn, but towards the end there were several mistakes in the lace pattern SO I may rip it out and re-do it. Every row has lace stitches and keeping the pattern required uninterrupted concentration, unfortunately, with looming assignments and late nights, there were plenty of breaks in concentration hence the mistakes. It did have a photo shoot on the head mannequin...

I apologize greatly for the delay of this blog post. My schedule for school is intense, but it is going well – it is reassuring to know that I can be a full-time student once again because I keep finding classes that I would like to take. Planet Nice is adjusting to the latest schedule as best as it can and I am really happy with the material that I want to share with you. First of all, the cap is complete! And it had a photo shoot on a head mannequin as well as flat. I like the reflection in the mirror of this shot. This flat one is nice because you can see the pattern. I am VERY satisfied with the end product – I am not sure if it was worth all the messing around, but I can sleep soundly now. I have not washed it again, but I plan to when I have another piece to wash it with. It will be interesting to see if the superwash wool keeps up its antics of stretching - I did make adjustments to the number of stitches to compensate if it does or perhaps it will not stret...