A different week for me

Here it is, the start of another week and another year. I am going to say that given it was a holiday week I was able to spend some time stitching, so this is going to be a longer than normal post.

We did take some time this week to relax and enjoy the time to do some of the things that we enjoy doing. If I can look back at what I have been able to work on this week, I am happy.

New Doors - here is a project that I decided to see how much I could get done in the last week. It felt great seeing that I have been able to make some good progress on it. I still have quite a bit of stitching to do, but at least I have moved it from under 60% completed to now around 73%. 

My goal is to have this piece finished before the end of March, so will see how things go. It was nice to see that I am getting closer to getting all the inside completed, and it will just mean that I have the border left to go, so will see how things go with this project. Of course, there were some other things that I ended up working on as well, so now to see when I go back and pick up this and move it forward again.

Let's hope that this one will come back out in January, and I see how much more of it I can get done.

Elizabeth Wood 1850 - this is my New Year New Start for 2023 and this is what I was able to get done on January 1st. It is always fun to have a new start for the new year, and it is once again my aim to have this one finished early in the year. I would like to get more of this done before my new post, but will have to see what happens.

This isn't too big a piece, as I think it is around 7 x 8 inches, so will see how things go. It is going to be nice to have another red sampler finished, and I have now decided to work all my red samplers with DMC 816.

Joy - one of the things that I wanted to do in the last little while it was having a quick finish on something, so of course that meant it was time to start a project, so that is what I did. I found this ornament that was in my stash and figured it was time to get it stitched. 

It was a fun little thing to do and given this week was all about taking time and trying to relax, it was great. Now what I have to do is go through all the projects that I have finished and get them fully finished so that I can have things hung on the walls and other things ready for hanging on a tree next year.

Mini The Forgotten - here is the piece that has been my focus for a while, and the main thing I wanted to do before the end of the year was to get all the black finished on the entire piece. When I first thought about this idea, I wasn't sure if that was going to work too well, but then I sat down and started working on it and I have been able to get all the black done. Of course, there is still a lot of stitching to do on this piece, but at lest I have an idea of the entire size of it.

It felt good taking the picture of the entire piece as I haven't really seen the entire design as I have been working on the various sections and just quickly moving the q-snap when I needed to do that.  Currently not sure how I am going to move the stitching forward on this yet, but I am thinking that I might at least try and work on one colour for a while and see how much of it I can get done.

I have now moved this project from a q-snap to a scroll rod as I am thinking that this might because a focus for 2023 as I would like to see more of this done. I don't think it will be a finish, but at least getting more stitches done would make me happy. There is still 42,000-stitches left to go on this piece, so it will be a while before it's done.

A Year in Flowers - February - I had started this piece earlier in the year, and then I put it down and didn't get the February section done until this week. It was a lot more stitching that was left than I thought because there was quite a bit of back-stitching. It is a nice piece once it is done, but it was just sitting and making a point of moving it forward.

Of course, I still have the remaining months of this project to do, but I think for now I am going to be happy seeing that I have the first two of them done and later this year I will try and pick up some of the other month's and see how many of them I can get done. 

Cross stitch in general - this last week was nice as I was able to spend quite a bit of time working on the various projects and seeing what I can move forward. Yes, I did get a couple of small projects finished which is nice, so that means that I ended 2023 completing 19 cross stitch projects. It felt good seeing that I was able to make some good progress on things this week and now to see what I can get done in 2023. I haven't set any goals for myself this year, but instead I have given myself targets to aim for, so will see how it goes. My overall target has me trying to get more stitches completed than I did this year, but I will see how it goes.

If you have cross stitch goals/targets, do you set how many projects you are going to complete or how many stitches you are going to do? I do have both of these kind of figured out, but will see how things go.

Simple Scarf - this is the last project that I worked on in the last week. I was able to pick this up some days, and just being able to get a few rows done was nice. I have finished two out of the five balls of yarn, so will see how things go moving forward. I would like to see this scarf finished off quickly, so that means that I am going to have to work on getting more of it done. It's a fun, simple project, so that means that maybe spending bits of time on it will help me get more of it completed.

I do have other projects that I have started, and I need to get them completed, so they will come out and get some attention once this project is finished. I have found that I don't want too many projects out at once because then I just don't work on them, so focusing on once at a time seems to make me the happiest.

Other notes - now that 2023 is here, I am going to be working on moving things forward and seeing how things go. I may not reach everything that I want to achieve this year, but I know that I am at least going to try and do most of them.

I hope everyone had a good holiday, and now it's time to get back to work and see how much time we have for your crafts or how we relax each day. Have a good week, and hopefully I will have some progress on something next week to show you. There won't be as many projects worked on this week as work is calling me to get things done.

 

Some progress this week

Here it is the start of another week and yes things continue to be very busy for me, so there isn't a lot of time for me to sit and craft right now. I hope that before too long I can get into a routine and then see how things go.

I continue to love working from home and even with office going back we will be working from home like we did even before the Pandemic. It is nice being able to just walk to your desk each morning and not worry about traffic or anything else.

A Year in Flowers - February - this week I decided to see how much of this project I could get done, and I am happy with the progress that I made on it. I was trying to get it done before the end of the weekend, but it just didn't happen, but I am going to try and focus on it and maybe get it finished this week.

I do enjoy this group of projects because it is nice having something that is smaller and works up quickly, and you progress before too long. I am going to continue to work on getting more of these done, as I would like to see all the months done before the end of this year. 

I realized that yes, it is the middle of April and I haven't even finished the second month, but as they don't take too long to stitch I am hopeful that I can sit and do some more of the stitching on these smaller projects through this year. I am also going to try and not have as many projects on the go moving forward.

New Doors - this last week I was able to pick this project up for a little while one day and get a bit more of it done. I know that this is a piece that I also want to get done this year, so I am going to need to focus on getting more of it done as well. 

I am going to see how much of this piece I can get done this month as it is a lot of fun and given it is using over dyed floss it is a lot of fun seeing how the keys are going to turn out. It doesn't take too long to complete one of the keys or a lock, so I might try and get some more of them done before too long. I think the border is going to take me the longest to-do, so I should try and start to work on it again.

Hopefully this week I will have a bit of time to maybe get another couple of keys done or something on this piece.

Toques - so this week the big focus was on getting the decreases done on this toque, but as you can see it isn't finished yet. I finished knitting the hat, but now I just need to sew it together, so that is also on my list of things that I will try and get finished this week.

Other projects - I have quite a few things that I would like to get done moving forward, so will see how it goes. I am busy with work and other things, so it doesn't give me a lot of time to actually focus on my craft projects. I am going to continue to make sure that I take those few minutes each day to sit and do something for myself.

I hope everyone else is finding that bit of time each day to recharge your own batteries because it sure does make a difference on how you can handle the rest of your day. I am not sure how much time I will have this week for getting my projects moved forward, but I will be trying to ensure that I can spend even a bit of time each day. Have a good week and I will see how much I can get done this week and hopefully have something to show you next week.

A bit of progress

Another week has gone by, and this time I can honestly say that I am not sure where the week went. Things here have been extremely busy, so I haven't had a lot of time to sit and work on much of my crafting. I am keeping with at least 15 minutes a day of some time to relax, and some days that was all that I was able to achieve.

A Year in Flowers - February - I was able to get the February design started this weekend, and it is coming along quickly. It felt good to see that I have been able to make some good progress on this piece. I love these little pieces as it lets me make some good progress quickly on things, and then it is another project off my growing list of things I want to do.

I have finished all of this green on the piece, so now I will start to add some other colours and will see when I can get this done. It would be nice to be able to focus on getting more of these months done quickly, so will see how that goes.

The flowers that are on this piece are violets and iris.

Toques - I am continuing to work on making toques when I have those few minutes. It is nice when I can sit and even get a couple of rows done in the evening, as it means that I am moving these projects forward a bit at a time.

I have decided that for a while I am going to have at least a toque on the go as it is something easy to pick up and work on and just get something done. Most of the toques will be given away to a charity in the fall so that children will have something warm. I am also going to be working on some headbands as again they are easy to work on and do work up quickly.

Other projects - of course I have other projects on the go, but the progress on them has been very limited, so nothing that is worth showing.  This week I hope to be able to find a bit of time to work on something. I am not sure how much I will get done as once again I have a busy week.

I hope everyone continues to find those few minutes each day to take time for yourself and do something that you enjoy. I know that I have found the importance of those few minutes after a very busy week. It is time to clear the mind and focus on something that makes me happy.  Next week, I hope to have some more progress on some projects to show you.

Progress and a finish

Here it is the start of another week and now to see what I have been able to get done.  I know that this week has been a little crazy, but at least I have been able to make some progress on a few projects, and that makes me feel good.

Here in Ontario, a lot of the mask restrictions are starting to ease, and now it is our choice if we wear a mask or not when out and about in most places. In medical, long-term care facilities and on public transit, masks are still required.

A Year in Flowers - January - this has been a lot of fun to work on, and it has been something that I wanted to see if I could get it finished before the end of this week.

After not working on it for a while, I decided to sit and focus on it and see if I could get it done, and on Saturday I was able to get the January piece finished. I am loving how it turned out, and I am looking forward to working on the other 11 months and getting them done so that I will have all of them ready to hang up on our magnetic board before too long.

I hope that I can continue to move this project forward quickly, as these don't take too long to finish, and it feels great seeing that I was able to get it done without too much of an issue. This week I hope to start the February piece, but will see how things go.

Mini Bouquet Sampler - this piece didn't get a lot of attention this week, and part of that is because I was working on getting the other January piece done.

This week I have started to work on the stems and then also on the pineapples that are a key part of this piece. I hope that I will be able to get more of this piece done, as I would like to see that I have both of the January projects done before the end of March.

I am not sure how much stitching time I will have this week, but I hope that I can continue to move this project forward and maybe even see that I have enough time to get it done. I know that I am loving how this is starting to turn out, and also I know that just sitting and focusing on this piece will help me get more of it done.

I know that the next two months have already been released, so I need to move forward on January so that I can start to get caught up on this overall project.

Pandemic - here is a piece that hasn't got a lot of attention so far this year, but I am very happy with the progress that I was able to make over the weekend on it.

I hadn't touched this piece since January, and all of a sudden, I wanted to pick it up and see how much of it I could get done. Part of me was concerned that there was going to be a problem with the fabric, so over the weekend I worked up the border to ensure that I have enough fabric to complete the entire project. What I did was work the outside border all the way to the top of the project to ensure that there was enough fabric available for the project.

I am happy to say that after stitching all the border, I have found that I have quite a bit of fabric at the top, so that means that everything is going to be ok with this project. After stitching up the border, I decided to focus on one area of the piece and also have made some good  progress on it. I think started working again on the lower section so that I can start to move it up.

Beach Haven Shawl - this week I continued to work on this project and as the rows are getting longer it means that it takes longer to complete each row. It is nice to see that I have at least been able to make some progress on it this week, and now to see what this coming week is like. I hope to be able to continue to add some more rows to this piece, and maybe if things go extremely well I might be able to change colours again.

Other projects - I haven't had a lot of time to work on other things and this week looks about the same, so will see what I get done. Weekends seem to be the time when I can sit and work on a project a little longer than I can during the week.

I hope everyone is continuing to take care of themselves and find that bit of time each day to relax and recharge your own batteries. I am not sure what this week has in store, but hopefully I will be able to find some time to move a couple of projects forward.

A week of starts

It is hard to believe that another week has come to an end, but at least I have some progress to show this week. The week started out with me figuring out the knitting project that I wanted to start, and it ended up with me also having two cross stitch starts as well. This has been a week when I decided that I wanted to start some things and maybe see how much I can get done over the next little while.

A Year in Flowers - January -- here is the first cross stitch project that I worked on and am happy with the progress that I have made. This is by Tempting Tangles, and it was originally a year-long SAL, but now it has been released as one pattern and I decided that I wanted to stitch it. The pattern shows it either stitched as a book or as a sampler, but I will be stitching each one separately so that I have put them one during the month and changing them up. I am trying to get a bunch of monthly smalls completed so that I can have them hung up and change them up each month.

This one is stitching up very quickly, and it makes me happy to see that I have been able to get this much progress on it already, and I only started this piece on Friday. It is always nice when you can see some quick progress on a piece, and hopefully it will be finished before too long.

Mini Bouquet Sampler - January - here is another project that I decided that I wanted to stitch, so I pulled out the floss that was needed for this project. Between both this project and A Year in Flowers, I didn't have all the floss, so it meant a quick trip to Michael's so that I could get the floss so that I could work on both of these projects.

I was able to get this much of the piece done before going to Michael's on Saturday, so now will see how quickly I can get this piece done as well. This is another sampler that was designed to be stitched either all together or as pincushions. I will be making them small pieces that I can hang up on our magnetic board and display them each month.

Beach Haven Shawl - after finished the shawl last week, I knew it was time to start another project, so here is the progress that I was able to get done this week on Beach Haven Shawl. I am loving how this shawl is knitting up, and I am using a rayon yarn made from bamboo called Truboo which I picked up at Michael's. I have already completed the first colour of this pattern and there are four sections, so will see how quickly I can gt the shawl knit up. I do have a goal of when I want it finished, so will see if I can get it done by then.

This shawl starts out with three stitches and by the time I finish the four sections I will have over 540 stitches on the needle. It does work up pretty quickly as I am already at 200 stitches on the needle and that is just around 80 rows complete out of the 154 rows. 

Other projects - I haven't been able to get much done on any of the other projects, but at least I can see that I made some progress on things this week.

I hope everyone continues to find those few minutes each day to take time for yourself and do something that you love doing. It doesn't matter if it is reading, watching TV, crafting or just relaxing, it is taking some time to recharge your own personal batteries, and it does help so much. Each of us needs to ensure that we take care of ourselves so that we have the energy to take care of others.

Hope everyone has a good week and if things go well I will have some progress to show you next week.