Planet Nice Crafts

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...

Planet Nice really enjoys the month of World Cup as it provides the best background to the crafting activities. Duration is long so you have a full day, this year from 7 AM to about 3:30 pm, to give the environment a little extra energy. This post is a couple days later than I wanted; this semester, school is a full-time venture and I am attempting to keep disciplined, putting homework before Planet Nice. As for project updates, a reverse in orbit has occurred since I last posted. Here is a picture of the headband: No, you are not seeing things. It IS the yarn back in a ball. The previous headband was going very well and there was yarn left so it did grow to a cap. A problem arose when I washed the cap, it stretched and grew to a very large size! I was hoping for a bit of shrinkage but I received quite the opposite. After trying three attempts to shrink it, one even involving the use of a microwave and reading that this was not uncommon for superwash wool – I decided that...

With a break in school, the industriousness of Planet Nice has increased. This will be short-lived as Summer semester starts next week. A planetnicecrafts Instagram account was opened and there is a widget showing the photos on the Blog’s website ( planetnicecrafts.blogspot.com ). A preliminary logo was used in the profile: The first photo is a crayfish so not a craft project. The goal is to explore how Instagram can be used along with the Blog, there will be a wider breadth of photography topics than the Blog and some photos will display Photoshop’s more artistic tools. The craft projects, however, will remain the bread and butter of Planet Nice Crafts. The next knitting project was started with this: It is Lorna’s Laces 100% superwash wool, leftover from a pair of socks knitted a couple years ago. It is a quite fine wool yarn and again, I had only a very rough idea of how much yarn remained. I decided to go for a hat but knew that most likely it would be a headba...