Finished cards

So this has been another busy teaching week, and I’ve been doing quite a lot of cross stitch because I understand it, and it always goes the way I want to. With the result that my mum’s mothers day card is now finished!

I finished the cross stitch

broke out my new toy- coloured card 😀

stuck it all together

and finished with some writing- I should practice my writing more, but where’s the time?

I also made up another card that’s been floating around for a while

I already have a plan for this card, but I need to knit something as well before it’ll be sent off.

Now it’s back to the blanket again…yipee.

Well, that was a busy week!

York University now does seminars every other week, with the result that I have to do twice as much to get the same amount of money… great. So, every other week becomes crazy busy! As it was this week, although I did manage to keep crafting, especially after I realised that there’s less than a month until Mother’s DAy here in the UK. Eek!

So, as well as the blanket I’m still working on, I’ve also been cross stitching something. And I’ve actually remembered to keep track of how long I’ve been working on i!

This is slightly less than 4 episodes of the Mentalist, which run for about 45 minutes each, so a total of just under 3 hours. It would be 5 episodes, but I miscounted, and so spent the first 10 minutes of the second episode undoing what I’d done in the first (and I didn’t count that towards my total). *sigh*

As for the blanket, I stalled on j for a while, but that’s mostly done now, so it’s back to plain sailing for a bit.

I’ve done h for hammer

i for igloo

and j for jigsaw (stalled because that was all duplicate stitch which isn’t my idea of fun!)

I’ve also been working on my scrappy blanket- it’s coming along wonderfully 🙂 It’s starting to look like a proper blanket, which is great!

I should get a post in sometime next week, since I won’t be teaching. Although not teaching really means getting on with my work, so maybe not…

WIPocalypse the third

Time for another WIPocalypse meeting! Wow doesn’t time fly? Well, this full moon, the topic is:

If money – and time – were not limiters, what projects would be on your stitching bucket list?

This is an easy one- all the Goddess faces from Joan Elliot. Starting with the Green Goddess

This has been tentatively promised to my parents for the conservatory, to cover a rather ugly box on the wall which has all the wires and things for the lights. So I already have an excuse to stitch this…just need the time!

There are also faces for the four seasons:

and a Rose Goddess

They all make a lovely set 🙂

There’s also a Sun God, but I’m not so sure about him- probably because I haven’t seen it all stitched, just in progress in one of my fb groups 🙂

I also have plans to restitch Frederick a few more times, again, just need to find the time!

At the moment, I’m still fairly new to cross stitching, and I’m quite young, so I haven’t reached SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy) yet! I fully intend (and believe that it is possible) to do all of these, soonish.

So, onto the next part of WIPocalypse- my progress. (I had to go back to the previous WIP post to see what I’d done that long ago!)

My butterfly:

The border is more than half done now, which is really exciting! Hopefully I can get it finished in March…

 

Love is…

This was finished in a month??? I’m fairly surprised by this as well- I thought that I would get massively bogged down in the backstitching! But it was such a small piece I didn’t mind all the backstitching! Woot! When the baby is born, I’ll put their details underneath, and hopefully frame it in a double frame so the couple can have a baby photo in it as well 🙂

Mother’s Day card

Something else I finished very quickly (just over a weekend). To be fair, there isn’t exactly a lot of stitching in it! I even took a trip to Hobbycraft to get a quilling kit to make the hearts 🙂 I need lots of practice, but I really like the idea of adding some quilled bits to my stitched cards 🙂

Another card

Clearly, I am currently loving these small pieces! this was a great stash-buster, and I’m already planning more of them, with different coloured cats. Yes, there is a lot of confetti and backstitching, but it looks so darn cute! I didn’t even get bored of it as I was doing it, which was amazing!

At the moment, I’m having fun creating a ‘stash’ of completed stitched cards so that when a special occasion pops up, I can just get one, rather than having to make a new one. I would love to hear whether or not you have one? What sorts of cards do you keep on hand? Special occasions, or just generic cards which can be used in any situation?

A flurry of finishes (but still no knitting!)

So, what does everyone think of ‘flurry’ being the collective noun of finishes? I think it suits really well 🙂

I finished the cat, and it’s absolutely gorgeous!

I want to make loads of these now, with different cat styles. They’d be great stash busters 🙂 And then I remembered how much confetti/backstitching there is, particularly in the flowers, and decided I needed to lie down until I stopped wanting to do that!

Then, while high on endorphins for finishing something, I decided that I didn’t really need to press my juggling ball, so got on and finished that (one juggling ball totally counts as a finish, right?) Getting my corners to line up proved to be impossible, but maybe with the next two I’ll improve 🙂

It’s partially filled with rice, to give it it’s weight. I’d better get a move on with the other two, I want to start juggling with it already 🙂

I’ve also been doing more on my ‘love is’ piece- it’s now got their faces! I’m not enjoying all the backstitching for their hands, but it’s so totally worth it 🙂

Hopefully that’ll be finished soon! So quite a few finishes from me, really 🙂 And just a few days ago I also finished the cross stitch for my Mothers Day card. I went to Hobbycraft to get a quilling kit, so here it is in all it’s finished glory 🙂 I loved making the hearts, but I’m certain I need more practice! Lots and lots of practice! The book in the kit I got also has some really cool projects to make, so at some point I’ll have a go at them 🙂

Now I’m off to spend the rest of the day on my butterfly…I wonder how far I’ll get 🙂

 

What *was* going to be a knitting post

…except that the sock doesn’t fit any more…

I finished the first sock the other day, and found it was a little too small *mutter mutter*. I’ve been doing a toe-up version of these, (ravelry link) which were lovely when finished. The only difference this time around is that I knitted it toe-up, which apparently makes a Very. Big. Change.

So the damn thing doesn’t fit. Except that it fitted before. When it was first done, it fitted very nicely on my right foot (the smaller of the two. Do other people have different sized feet, or is it just me?)

So, although I started the second one, it’s gone back away again- I don’t really want to frog a finished sock, which I think I need to do, so it’s hiding until I think of anything better to do.

So the cross stitching has still been in charge of my life. Which does mean that I finished my mother’s day stitching 🙂

The stitching reads ‘With Love On Mothers Day’. I think that it is a gorgeously simple design 🙂 There are some more like this which don’t have Mother’s Day sayings on them, which I think I’ll stitch up for other occasions 🙂

Then I moved onto another card- they’re so quick and simple, it’s wonderful 🙂 There was quite a lot of confetti and backstitching, which was a pain, but it’s so worth it when it’s done 🙂

I’ve now just got the rest of the cat to do (Just noticed that the tan floss is covering up the cat’s face- it’s gorgeous in person 🙂 ) and then that’ll be another card finished for some special occasion 🙂 I don’t think that I want to use it!

My rota has rather gotten out of control lately, so I’m scrapping that idea :/. Instead, I’m going to try a ‘one out, one in’ idea, where I need to finish one thing before I can start another. So I’ve seen a gorgeous sewn pouch I’d like to make, but before I start it I need to finish my juggling balls, which inspired me to pull them out. (And then put them away again because they need pressing, but still. It’s a start…). And I really want to try quilling (I think some quilled flowers would go wonderfully with my mum’s card 🙂 ). So before I even get the quilling kit, I need to finish something else. Not entirely sure what, since I don’t have any small things started, but still… maybe all that backstitching on the ‘love is’ piece. Hmm…

So, does anyone do this kind of plan for controlling their WIPs? I’d love to hear about what things worked well/didn’t work/if there are any tips for it???

A second successful ISHW

Hello everyone! I hope that your weekend was as productive and awesome as mine, whether you took part in ISHW or did anything else. I spent the Saturday (around taking the bike back to the shop again, and going food shopping!) stitching on the butterfly. And the border is more than half-way finished now(the bottom part is half way done, and the top more than)! Yay! I cannot wait to see this finished!

Then, on Sunday I was struck by my conscience of ‘I’m doing a Phd, so let’s do it already!’,and so I spent a fair few hours working. I did get quite a bit of stitching done as well- I did a smidgen more on my butterfly, before remembering that Mother’s Day is coming up (it’s March 15, for those in the UK), and therefore I should maybe start making a card for my mum (quick question: how do people keep track of various holidays necessitating cards? I would love to hear about any way you remember?)…Which naturally necessitated a look through my big book of cross stitched cards.

Big mistake. Half an hour later, I escaped from inside there. There are just so many pretties, I want to make them all! The Mothers Day cards are right at the beginning, so at least I’m not in danger of ‘falling in’ again! I’m planning a quite simple pattern- just a flower in a glass of water. I’ve made a good start already, and I’ll be concentrating on this until it gets finished 🙂

Also, I recently got this utterly adorable miniature scroll frame 🙂 And I think it needs a name- any ideas? My hoop is called Lark, from the Circle of Magic books, where the character who has control of thread +weaving etc is called Lark. I’m thinking that I would like to use another female character from another book/series for this scroll frame (my two ‘normal’ sized scroll frames don’t have names… maybe they should as well). Does anyone have any ideas? Or maybe you name your props as well? I would love to hear what you’re names for things are, as well 🙂

As well as all my stitching, I’ve been doing quite a lot of knitting, but I’ll update all of that later on in a knitting post, rather than derail this stitching one 🙂

Also, I’ve been nominated (again) for the Liebster award. I’m not going to go through the whole rigmarole again, but thanks to The Redhead Stitcher for nominating me! I’m very happy that she did, her blog looks awesome. And she has regular book reviews, which is awesome since my local library recently reopened, and I want to start using it more.And again, I would love for all my followers to accept it and answer the questions I posed in the previous post 🙂