Tag: stitchery

Less work, more crafting

Phew! Finally at the end of my ‘work week’ – 8 days in a row. I will be looking forward to not having my alarm on at 5am tomorrow, let me tell you …

I did however get a nice surprise at work from my delightful husband – he got oriental lilies (my favourite) delivered to work for me, which are absolutely gorgeous.

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Also pictured – the single long stem rose that one of our residents gave to me, and the bunch of roses that I grabbed from one of our other hotels. They had a regular guest check in who brought in probably a dozen bunches of flowers of the staff, and when I was over there they offered me one. I’m hoping I have enough large vases!

I’ve also had an exciting week with the mail – my Cottage Garden Threads came in yesterday from A Patchwork Quilt and has such a great variety of colours. I’m really looking forward to getting these monthly. It’s got a progressive stitchery which has designs to show case each thread colour – I probably won’t get started on that for a while, but it should look fantastic when it’s complete. Sharon over at Lilabelle Lane is much faster than me and has already sewn her four threads from this month!

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I also got the rest of my supplies for the Once Upon A Time sampler! I’m very impressed with how fast the postage was (especially considering I’m still waiting on something I ordered in October to be delivered – and the resent item – I think I may have to give up on that one!)

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The threads were from The Workroom in Canada – a couple of you asked how come I bought them overseas. It turned out that they had the thread packs all made up, and these turned out to be cheaper, including shipping, than buying them here, because they offered a small bulk discount. I also purchased the thread before I bought the pattern as I was spreading this out over pay cycles, so it meant I didn’t have to wait to find out what threads I needed.

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The fabric is hand dyed linen from Picture This Plus, and is the fabric that the original was stitched on. It’s my first time stitching on linen, so I suspect this will be a bit of a challenge to begin with, but what is crafting without trying new things?? I’m hoping to make a start on the border of this over the weekend, and hopefully get myself up to date in a couple of months so that I’m stitching as each month is released.

And of course, the latch hook of epic proportions is continuing. Not much more progress from the previous picture, but at least I’ve got colours other than green in this section.

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I’m rather impressed with my efforts though – I may just finish this before my August deadline!

Enjoying Today

In the midst of our adventures in Sydney I’ve managed to get some stitching in out on the balcony of our apartment.

When the iron on transfer was done it was extremely faint on one side, so I’ve been aiming for finishing the edges so the pattern doesn’t fade completely.

I’m still in love with the colours – I can’t wait til I’ve got them all in the pattern! Presently I’ve only done a bit but it’s stitching up quickly, especially given my tendencies to get distracted.

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It’s only a bit, but in the spirit of trying to blog more often, and also keeping records of my progress, thought I would share it with you all.

2014 – The year of finished projects?

I’m not normally one to set New Year’s Resolutions, but this year I want to try and set myself some goals.  Most of them are craft related, however I’m throwing a couple of personal ones in here for good measure. And I’m posting them here so I’m not only accountable to myself (and the internet!), but also so that I can look back in 6 and 12 months and see how I’ve gone.

My crafting goals:

Finish at least 5 projects – at least 3 which I’ve started this year.

This seems relatively easy, but if you know me, you’ll know that I’m a fan of having a lot of projects on the go – and failing to actually finish them. I can’t recall how many projects I’ve got on the go at the moment – which is terrible. I’m hoping to give some craft presents for Christmas this year – I’ve ordered them, so now I just have a little under 12 months to finish them. It’s achievable, whether I get distracted mid-project is another story.

I have, however, made a start on “Enjoy Today” that I posted about a couple of days ago – not much, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

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Here’s hoping that the next post, there’ll be a lot more colour to show you all!

Finish all the cutting for my “Vignette In Stitches” quilt, and finish 2 of the 16 blocks

I have made very minimal progress on this one, but that’s because I’m a) new to quilting, and b) have been so busy with work and the lead up to Christmas that I wasn’t able to properly sit down and concentrate on cutting the fabric. I’ve seen how long it’s taken some bloggers to do their quilts, so I want to keep trying to come back to this semi-regularly.

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The fat quarters, pre-cutting. Isn’t the range gorgeous?

Finish at least 3 full pages of my “Watching It Fly” cross stitch.

Lovingly referred to as “50 million shades of grey”, I’ll be putting up a post in the future about this. The cliffnotes version – it’s a huge cross stitch with 75000 stitches and I’ve completed just over 12000, which is about 2 pages. I am aware that I am totally insane picking such a huge project with such a limited colour palette – and you still can barely see the progress.

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The grey blob is the cloudy sky, and you can *just* make out the first strands of hair. I have another 4 pages to go before you can even see the hair enough to work out what it is.

Finish my three latch hooks that have been ongoing for a number of months/years

Two of these are Christmas ones that I planned on finishing last year – one which just needs binding. The third is a latch hook that will actually be cut out and shaped into a lion, to give to my nephew. I’ve completed all the latch hooking and just now need to ‘assemble’ the lion – last time I tried I got halfway through the head, and got frustrated at how fiddly it was and put it in the “too hard” basket. For six months.

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You can see what is going to be the lion’s head in the picture. I’m hoping it turns out well; I have other kits similar with a bear and a frog which I need to make for other people, too.

Finish a wedding sampler,before the couple’s first wedding anniversary.

This was meant to be a wedding present, and I was confident as the piece was small that I would be able to frame this myself. Turns out, I’m rubbish at this. Another trip to the framer’s is clearly going to be in order.

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While quite a simple design, the final piece just pops when the back stitch is added. Once I’ve framed it, I’ll post up another picture.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to complete some other projects, both from in my stash, and as I continue to find new things from designers. However, I’m trying to aim low at this stage and actually have some completions!

In terms of my other goals:

Blog at least once a week

Not only because this way I won’t be flooding my twitter feed from people who don’t care about the constant updates, but also so that I can have a record, and by going back and seeing the actual progress I’ve made. I’ve found that having multiple work in progress pictures helps, especially when it feels like I really haven’t done much more after stitching for hours!

Re-teach myself French

I did about 6 years of French in school, and promptly forgot the large majority since I stopped lessons. It’s always handy at least having basic skills in a language, particularly working in a hotel where we have a lot of foreign guests. I’ve come across a website/app called DuoLingo which is honestly the best I’ve seen so far. Amazingly, after only a couple of weeks, I can remember quite a bit. If I get a guest coming down asking about clothing, animals, or types of food, I’m set. The rest, not so much at this stage!

Read 20 books

I’m an avid, and quick reader, so this challenge shouldn’t be too hard – except that I discard books in favour of stitching and watching TV shows. My pile of books is overflowing and I really need to tackle this. I’ve got to track down a website or app to keep a record of what I’ve read – I believe I have a GoodReads account, but don’t really use it – any opinions on how this is, or any other other options?

Well – there are my list of goals. Hopefully achievable, but enough to make me actively work towards them. Let’s see how I did in another 12 months..

Another craft addiction? Why not.

As a lot of you know, I’ve been very much into cross stitch for the last couple of years. In typical crafter fashion, I have a number of different projects on the go, because I’m a compulsive starter but not so much a finisher.

Recently though, I joined my mother, who gave me my passion for crafting, at a Christmas Gathering run by Gail Pan and Leanne Beasley. The projects given on the day were stitchery, rather than embroidery, and Gail was extremely patient teaching me the satin stitches and colonial knots that I have now (finally) mastered.

We were given two kits – one from each designer – and I’ve started work on Gail’s design first.

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I’m making steady progress on it, and am quite impressed with it as a first timer, but suffice to say I’ve caught the bug and have another type of craft to add to my repertoire. At this point my husband has just stopped commenting when I buy new projects.

Inspired by a lot of the other bloggers out there, I’m going to finally try and post on my blog more often, if only because I’m sure by now my twitter followers are getting sick of all the craft posts, and because going back to see my progress has always been one of my greatest inspirations that yes, it’s a big project, but it’s getting there.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll have the finished stitchery to show off (with the bonus of actually finishing a project!)