Some progress and a finish

Schlock with Gun - Dec 17th

This past week has been a little crazy with regards to work and crafting.  I have been trying to find some time to stitch because I figured it would be great to have a finish before Christmas.

Schlock with Gun - now this project was the first one that got the attention this week as I knew that with a bit of effort I would be able to get it finished.  I spent a bit of time working on it and am happy to say that it was finished by the middle of the week.

Schlock with Gun - Dec 19th

It didn't take me as long as I thought to get this piece finished and that's probably because I had stitched this piece before and knew it was a pattern that I had done and it was going to work out.  Now to see when I can get to working on another Schlock as I do have more of them designed and would love to have a bunch of them stitched soon.

I think now that I have Schlock with Gun finished I will pull out Schlock with Dice that I will be stitching for Howard Tayler.

Tiger Lily - Dec 13th

Tiger Lily - now this project finally got restarted on fabric that I hope will end up resulting in a square design and not something that wasn't going to be close to a square. 

Tiger Lily - Dec 21st

I decided that this piece was going to get one evening of stitching this week and am happy with the progress that I was able to get done.  It feels great seeing that I have already been able to get some of the actual flower started and will see how much more of this piece gets done over the next couple of weeks.

I have another project that has taken over as something that I want to get done quickly so will see what happens with some of these projects.

Swans - Dec 22nd

Swan - how this is the project that I would like to get done quickly so it has become the piece that I will try and focus on for a bit. I had started this on a piece of hand-dyed fabric but was finished it a challenge.  The fabric was really nice but I just wasn't enjoying that version so I picked some different fabric and the stitch has started to come along quickly.

I know that it doesn't look like much right now and that is fine because I was only able to spend one evening working on this piece so far so will see how things go.


As it is now the Christmas holidays for a lot of people I hope to be able to find a bit of time to stitch when we are not working.  Yes, Christmas is a time for some people to have time off work and then there are others that work as that is when the projects can be actually done.

Some progress

Schlock with Gun - Dec 10

This week I was able to make a bit of progress on at least one project that also had a new start.

Schlock with Gun - now this is a project that I am trying to get finished quickly and I am seeing that if I can spend some more time stitching I should be able to get it done soon.  I love how Schlock is working up because it is one of the art show pieces for next July.

Schlock with Gun - Dec 17

I know that I am going to be stitching Schlock with Dice for the art show as well as now that I am seeing how the new colours are working I am happy to see the changes that I made from the previous version.

Schlock with Gun - previous version

Tiger Lily - Dec 13

I changed the colour on both versions of Schlock so that they will be the game colours instead of having different colours for each version that I stitch.

Tiger Lily - I ended up having to restart this project because it was suppose to be square when it is finished but the first fabric that I had pick wasn't going to be a square project.  Now I have restarted and will see how things go.

I hope to be able to make a bit more progress on Tiger Lily this week as I would like to see if this piece will end up square or not before I spend too much time on it.


As Christmas is a week away I am not sure how much time I am going to have for crafting but will see how things go.  I hope to be able to spend some time over the next couple of weeks working on projects and seeing some good progress on things.

One Crazy Week

Schlock with Gun - December 3rd

 This last week was a crazy week in terms of getting time to stitch.  The main reason for that is I was at a conference for the first three days of the week and then there was the work that needed to get done once I was back and able to focus on work again.

Schlock with Gun - December 10th

Schlock with Gun - now this is the project that got the stitching attention this week and basically the attention it got was a little bit Thursday evening and then finally got some stitching time on Sunday. I actually focused on getting the outline of him done and that started to fill in the different areas.  It felt great being able to just work on one piece for a while and actually see a bit of progress.

I am going to continue to work on Schlock this week as I would like to see if I can get it finished quickly. As I was stitching on Sunday I decided to tweet out a picture of the progress and sent it off and tagged Howard Tayler (the artist of the original piece) and the result of this was a retweet by Howard and more than 20 likes on the tweet.  It felt great because it let me know that people like how the piece is coming along.

Day Dream - finished

Day Dream - now this is a piece that I finished in October and have been thinking about how I was going to finish it.  I had thought about putting it in a frame but then I am up with another idea and that is thanks to a video that I saw and it was another way to frame a small project.  The piece is actually only 4 inches by 6 inches so it meant I had some options and I am happy with the results.

What I did was I found an artist canvas that was 6 inches by 8 inches and also an artist canvas that was thin and 4 inches by 6 inches.  I painted the sides of the big canvas and used the smaller canvas to actually stretch the stitched piece on it.  Once the paint was dry I used some scrap book paper to actually cover the bigger canvas front and then I glued the stitched piece in the centre.  It was quick finish and something that is different.

original container

Tea containers - I had a few tea containers sitting around and wanted to cover them because I didn't like seeing the actual tea container sitting in various areas of the apartment as I was using the empty containers as a method of collecting little bits of garbage where I didn't have a garbage can.

duct tape selection

Of course, there was the idea of just leaving them as is but that wasn't going to work for me so thanks to my husband he went and grabbed his collection of duct tape to see if that might be an idea to help me cover the tins.  I then grabbed some of the fabric that I had left over from some of my ETSY projects. After a few minutes and some laughing the containers were changed into something that I was a little happier with.

containers covered

As you can see we ended up covering three of the tins different because I kept wanting to try how each of them was going to turn out. The actual duct tape ones were ok but they just weren't what I really liked so that is when the fabric came out and was used. When I was using the fabric I had said that I might need some trim on it because I needed a method to cover the edges and that is when the narrow black duct tape seems to work well.  Now the tins are in the areas that they were and I am a lot happier with what they look like.

covered with fabric trimmed with tape

duct tape version

This coming week I hope to be able to spend a bit more time stitching but once again I will have to see how works go. I am going to try and find some time most evening to at least get a few stitches in on some of the projects that I have on the go.    I am also hoping that I can spend a bit of time working on a couple of other projects but will see how things go.  I also have a couple of gifts that I need to finish so they are on the list of things to get some attention this week.

Progress and a new start

Schlock with Gun - November 26th

This week I decided to try and focus on getting a bit of progress on things.  Of course, there were other things that took part of my time so that meant that I didn't get as much stitching done as I originally thought that I was going to be able to do.

Schlock with Gun - this is the project that I decided that I was going to try and see if I could get a bit of progress on before the beginning of December.

Schlock with Gun - December 3rd

I was able to get a bit more of the outline done and have started to fill in some of the body colour so that has helped some. I will see how much of it I can work on this coming week as my schedule looks pretty busy at the beginning of the week and not sure what the rest of the week will look like. Just being able to fill in some of the areas right now is making me happy because it also says that I am making progress on one of the art show pieces.

Mystery Sampler Stitch Along - October 22nd

Mystery Sampler Stitch Along - now this project hasn't get a lot of attention for a while so I decided that I would pull it out and work on it one day this last week. I decided to try and get some of the outlines done so that I can quickly feel in different sections when i pull it back out.

Mystery Sampler Stitch Along - November 29th

Swans - December 2nd

I would really like to see some progress on this sampler before too long but have to say that it isn't going to be seeing a lot of attention through the month of December as I have other projects that I would like to work on first. I know that I can pick this up when I feel like working on something that is just one colour so will see when that happens again.

Swans - now this is a new start that I decided was going to be my December 1st start.  I am not sure why I said it would be started on December 1st but I am aiming to have it finished by the end of April if things go well.

This design is something that I converted from a picture to a cross-stitch so now I am looking forward to seeing how it will turn out. The fabric is a hand-dyed piece of 28 count Lugana and I think that the colours are great for a picture with swans on it.    It doesn't look like much right now and I have to admit that I started it on the 1st and didn't like the original fabric that I was using so have restarted it on the 2nd on this fabric and like how the design is appearing better on this fabric.


This week is going to be another busy week for me as I am at a conference for three days so that means that there isn't going to be a lot of time to relax those days so my stitching basically will be happening over the weekend. Depending on what time I get home each evening I may have a few minutes to myself but I will also need to do the work that needs my attention as well.

Finally making progress

Schlock with Gun - Nov 11th

This week I finally was able to make a little bit of progress on my cross-stitch.

Yesterday I decided that considering I hadn't picked up any of my cross-stitch since early in November that it was time to try and put a bit of effort into at least one of them.

Schlock with Gun - Dec 6th - finished

Schlock with Gun was the closest to being finished so I decided that it would be the first one that got my attention.  I pulled it out finally got it finished which made me very happy.  It does feel good being able to see another project finally finished.  I have been working on Schlock since August 1st but it wasn't the only project that I was working on so at least now it is finished and I am happy with how it looks.

Butterfly - Oct 31st

Of course, one day and still lots of projects on the go but at least a little bit of progress was made.


After finishing Schlock I pulled up the black butterfly that I started on October 4th. Again, this is a project that has been put aside and not looked at since the end of October.  I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked on it but at least I was able to get some done so that did make me a bit happier.

Butterfly - Dec 6th

Both Schlock and the Butterfly were worked on during the afternoon yesterday while I sat and watched the Canada Cup Women's final for curling.  It meant that I was able to get something done and that was good considering how little crafting I have been doing over the last couple of months.

Lady - Sept 20th

After dinner while I watched about an hour of the hockey game I pulled out Lady and she got a little bit of attention as well.  The part of Lady that I am working on is just simple fill in so that meant that I really didn't have to focus on it.

Now that I have been able to get a bit of cross-stitch done I am going to try and work on at least one of these projects for a while and see how much of it I can get completed.  It was nice having a bit of time yesterday to craft and not think about work.

Lady - Dec 6th

I did finish a few more baby  hats but those are normally done while sitting after dinner chatting with DH or while a passenger in a car. The baby hats are something that are great when I only have a little bit of time to craft in the evenings.

This week I am hoping to be able to find some more time to craft because I have missed doing it.  Of course, I have a lot of things on my plate so I am not sure how much time I will be able to spend on crafting but I am at least going to try on Wednesday evening to work on a project for a while.

So now it is time for me to get some work done as I have lots to do.  Being able to do a bit of cross-stitch felt very good yesterday because I haven't done any since the 11th of November.  Maybe now, I will be able to find little bits of time in the evenings to craft again.

Another slow week

Schlock with Gun - Nov 8th

It is hard to believe that another week has passed and my crafting still seems to be stuck.

On Wednesday evening I was able to work on Schlock with Gun for a while and I was able to get a little bit of progress on it. I had hoped to get some more time to do some stitching but life just seemed to get in the way over the rest of the week.

Schlock with Gun - Nov 15th

It is amazing when I look and see what I have been working on craft wise lately and don't see much. I have been able to get a couple of rows done on the baby afghan I am working on so making a bit of progress on it as well.  The baby hats seem to be the project that gets my attention lately because those are simple to work on and I can do them without really thinking too much about them.

This week I am hoping to be able to make some progress on my crafting.  Part of me has been juggling a lot of other projects and haven't been giving myself time to relax so that is what I plan to do this week.  I am aiming to work most evenings on a craft project instead of working.

Before the end of this week I also have another assignment to complete for school so need to make sure that I can also find time to do that.

I hope that next Monday I will be able to have some good results to show and maybe even one project finished. 

It is now time for me to try and get some work out of the way so that maybe tonight I can sit and relax a bit with a craft project.

Crafting time

Schlock with Gun - Nov 1st

Crafting for me has been a challenge again and part of that is because of everything else that I have been trying to accomplish.

I did find a little bit of time to sit and work on Schlock and that was Monday evening.  I decided that I wanted to get the gun outlined so I sat and worked on it until the outline with the black was done.  Now I just need to finish filling in his arm and gun and I will be done.

Schlock with Gun - Nov 8th

The original idea was to have the piece finished by the 8th of November but with everything else that I have been doing that deadline had to slide.  I am now just going to work on it and get it finished as quickly as I can so that I can back to work on a couple of the other projects that I would like to see finished.  I have three other projects that I want to finish up quickly as well so that means I am going to have to focus on each of them and get them done.

Besides trying to find time to cross-stitch I have started a baby afghan that I would like to get done before Christmas.  The baby is due at the end of February but I want to ensure that we can give it to the expectant mother before Christmas so she has it in time.

Baby afghan - Nov 8th

The baby afghan is the v-stitch pattern that I have used in the past and I enjoy working on this pattern.  I am able to sit and work on this afghan without having to remember what row I am on as each row is the same and it means that I can watch tv while working on this afghan.

The other nice thing about this afghan is it really doesn't take me too long to make one if I can focus on it for a little while.  I have already finished one ball of yarn and think it is about 15 inches long.  I haven't measured how wide the actual piece is but it will probably be around 34" x 46" by the time I finish it.  No I don't make a baby afghan small because I like it to last for a while.

These are the projects that I was able to work on last week and can see a bit of progress on.  I also worked on making a few more baby hats when I had a little bit of time to stitch.  I am happy to be able to see that I am getting back to stitching now and hopefully soon I will start to see various projects get completed instead of them all sitting at various stages.

Work now needs to be done so that I can hopefully find some time this evening to craft.

Finally seeing a bit of progress

Schlock with Gun - Oct 25th

Finally, I am starting to see progress on a couple of my projects and I am feeling a little better.  Of course whenever I say I am finally seeing progress somethings comes up and I don't get a lot of stitching done.

This past week I was able to continue working on Schlock with Gun so that I could get it done.  Well, I didn't get it done as I still have the gun he is holding to stitch but at least the main part of him is completed.  If I can find some time this week I should be able to make some more progress on it and that would make me happy.

Schlock with Gun - Nov 1st

I am trying to get this piece done by the end of this week or the 8th of November so that means I better find some time to stitch this week otherwise it won't be done by when I want it done.

Besides working on Schlock I decided that I needed a bit of a change from greens and I pulled up the Butterfly that I have been working on.

Butterfly - Oct 14th

Butterfly - Nov 1st

Of course with it being one colour it does make it a little easier because I don't have to make sure I am picking up the correct colour and I can just stitch.  I was able to get some done on the other side of the butterfly but again not as much as I wold have liked to get done last week.

This week I am going to focus on working on Schlock to see if I can get it done but the butterfly may get a little bit of attention when I need a break from all the other colours.  It is always nice having a couple of pieces that I can work on at a time.  It gives me a chance to see the progress that I have been making as I also don't get too tired of one piece.

Now besides working on my cross-stitch I have been continuing to stitch baby hats for a hospital.  It is nice being able to make the hats while I am a passenger in a car.  Some of the hats are done in the car and others are worked on when I have just those few minutes in the evening.  Sometimes I find that while I am waiting for dinner to get ready I will pick up a hat and at least get a couple of rounds crocheted on it.  These are the times when I don't have enough time to sit and do any cross-stitching.  The crocheting is also good at the very end of the evening when the eyes are too tired to focus on finding the holes in the fabric.

Maybe now that baseball is over for another reason I will be able to focus more on the cross-stitch in the evenings.  Baseball is a lot harder to watch and cross-stitch during, especially the playoffs.

It is now time for me to get some work done so that I can spend some of this evening curled up with my stitching.

Stitching happened

Schlock with Gun - August 27th and October 25th

As I wrote in my blog entry yesterday morning I was really hoping to be able to find some time to stitch this week.

Well, I figured out that the only way to do that was to really make it happen early in the week so that I could see some results.  What I didn't expect was to see the progress that I was able to do in one evening.

Last night after getting home from work I decided that Schlock with Gun hadn't seen a needle for quite a while so it was time to put some stitching in on it.  This piece had been sitting since the 27th of August without any work so figured it was time. 

Schlock with Gun - October 26

The good thing was after sitting last night and getting some stitching done I can see some good results.  I am now looking forward to getting this piece done and then I can start working on another project that hasn't seen any attention for a while.





I am now going to try and get some more stitching done this week but there won't be any updates again until Monday.

Now I must go and get some work done and then I will see what stitching I can do tonight.

Slow stitching progress

Polar Bear - August 9th

Over the last week I have been able to do a bit of work on three projects which has felt really good.  I haven't been able to spend a lot of time on any of the projects but at least I have been able to make a bit of progress on all of them which makes me very happy.

Polar Bear - August 16th

Polar Bear Face On of course is going to take a long time to actually see some really good progress but at least I was able to spend a bit more time stitching on it and got a bit more of the water completed.  The water is going to take forever to do as it is all over the piece but at least I have a bit done.  I need to add a few more blues to it and then maybe it will start looking more life something.

Butterfly - August 9th

For this project I decided that I wanted a scroll frame because of the size of it.  I got the scroll bars on Wednesday so now to just sit and tack the piece of fabric onto them and then I will be able to see the entire width of the piece at once.  I am still trying to work on one page at a time but have to admit that the blue at the top is onto a second page of the pattern.  Now to work on getting more of the first page done and I may feel better about this project.

Celtic Butterfly is coming along and I was able to spend a bit more time on it than any of the other projects.  I like this version of the design but still like the blue one the best.  The piece is taking longer to do because of the overdyed silk and maybe that is what is getting to me.  I liked the other one because it stitched up so much quicker. 

Butterfly - August 16th

A few people have told me how much they like the butterfly and that is making me feel good about this design.  I wasn't sure at first how it was going to turn out but now I am happy with it.

The other piece that did get a bit of attention this week was Schlock with Gun.  I didn't spend a lot of time on this piece but at least I made a bit of dent in it.  I am hoping to be able to find some more stitching time this week where I can focus on a project for a while and see some more good progress.

Schlock with gun - August 9th

Of course having a lot of pieces on the go means that no one project really gets a lot of time but that is OK with me.  I would like to get the butterfly finished before the end of the month so I guess I better try and focus on it just a bit more.

Schlock with gun - August 16th

Now besides the cross-stitching I did last week I decided on the weekend to start crocheting a shawl for myself. The shawl is very simple and something that I can work on while sitting outside in the heat.  The weather has also been one of the reasons why I haven't done a lot of stitching.  I just get comfortable with the frames and floss in this heat so my cross-stitching has been put down.  I hope that it gets just a little bit cooler soon so that I can get to stitching and enjoying it.

I have missed finding the time each evening to stitch so this week I am going to try a little bit harder to find at least an hour an evening where I can lose myself in a project.  I know that I have a few projects that I am working on for work so that is where my days are spent .

This week I hope to see a bit more progress on my cross-stitching so now to get the work done so that I can think about stitching this evening.

A bit of stitching

Celtic Butterfly - Aug 3rd

 This past week I was able to find a little bit of time to stitch but didn't get as much done as I would have liked.

I was able to work on the Celtic Butterfly and am seeing some changes in it which is making me happy.  I hope to be able to work on this again this week so that I can see more of the wings start to appear.  The colours are so nice and I am enjoying how they are turning out so far.

Celtic Butterfly - Aug 9th

This pattern has been nice to work on because I can work on it a little bit at a time but still some changes on it after each stitching time.

Schlock with Gun - Aug 3rd

Besides working on the butterfly I have been able to put a few stitching in Schlock with Gun as it is also one that I can work on a bit at a time.  Now the only things about this one is I can work longer without seeing much of a change in the piece but I know that I am setting parts of it done which is nice.

This week I am not sure what I am going to work on but I know that just being able to find some time to stitch without all the other distractions would be really nice. I thought last week was going to be a good stitching week only for too many things to get in the way and prevent me from really stitching most of the week.

The weekend was also busy so I didn't get much stitching in either so now to see how this week goes.  I do know that I have stitch night at Gitta's this week so that is one evening where I do some stitching.  I hope to be able to make some good progress on at least one of the pieces that I have on the go.

Schlock with Gun - Aug 9th

Now the good thing about this weekend was I picked up some floss for another project that  I want to work on.  I am not going to start this new piece until I have finished either Schlock with Gun or Erasmus.  I would like to get both of these out of the way before I start another piece. 

Now, today I hope to find a bit of stitching time as just seeing a bit of progress on something would be really nice. My stitching is sitting and waiting and I know that spending a little while relaxing and stitching will help me regain a focus for work so that might be what I do part of today. 

As for now I have a few more things that I need to do so off to get them all done.

Projects on the go

Schlock with Gun - July 26th

This last week I decided that I was going to try and work on a couple of projects instead of just one and that is what I did.

Schlock with Gun - Aug 3rd

Schlock with Gun got a bit of attention during the week because it is something that is easy to pick up and work on when I don't have lots of time to stitch.  Of course, I didn't get lots done and part of that was due to the heat but also I had other things bouncing around in my mind that were distractions.

Besides working on Schlock with Gun this week, I figured it was time to try and start the second version of the Celtic butterfly so that is what I did. This version of the butterfly is using an overdyed silk thread and I am looking forward to spending a bit more time on this project so that I can see it really come to life.  I am working on this butterfly a lot differently than the first one as I want to take full advantage of the colour changes in the thread. I am stitching the piece as if I was drawing it so it is taking a bit more focus.

Celtic butterfly - August 3rd

Well, the weekend came and after not getting much stitching done I decided it was time to pick up something different and see how much I could get done in part of a day.  Yesterday was a holiday, so I figured it was a good day to try and focus on a project for a little bit. The project that I picked up meant another start but that is fine because this project is going to take some time to finish. I have wanted to stitch a picture of a polar bear so I am using a picture that I took and have now converted it into a cross-stitch.  The final piece will be 18"x12" so I have a lot of work ahead of me to get this one done.  The polar bear is a piece that I am hoping to be able to hang in my office so that is what I am thinking about.

Polar Bear face on - August 3

This week I hope to be able to find a couple of evenings where I can lose myself in my stitching.  Not sure what project will get the attention but I know that at least one of them will be moving forward before the end of the week.

I know that I have a lot of projects on the go but each of them provides me with a different type of stitching and that is what I enjoy.

Today is a busy day work wise for me so it is time that i focus on the work so that maybe I will be able to find a little bit of time this evening to pick up a project and work on it.