Where did the week go?

Here it is the start of another week and when I look at my crafting I can actually ask myself, where did the last week go. Yes, last week I was able to make progress on some things, but then again it was a different week as I focused on some other things besides the projects that I have to show.

Elizabeth Wood 1850 - I was able to spend some time working on this project and one of the goals was to try and get more of the border sections completed. I didn't get them all done, but at least I have been able to make a bit of progress on them. The outer board is how finished, so it is just a matter of filling in all the inside sections of the design.

I am enjoying working on this piece, and I am looking forward to starting to add the letters and words that are part of this design. Currently, I am not sure if I am going to finish the inside border rows before adding more of the letters, or if I am just going to work on the areas that make me happy when I have a chance to pick up this piece. I know that I am going to be working on getting this finished quickly, so I will see how it goes each time I pick it up. 

This project is a lot of fun to work on, but I do need to concentrate as there are little differences in some of the sections, so I need to focus on making sure that I don't mess up the sections.

Forage Shawl - well, I said I wasn't going to start another knitting project until I finished at least one of my current projects, but over the weekend I started this project. Part of the reason I started this shawl was it looks like it would be a fun stitch as well as a little different. I think I needed something that was a bit of a challenge, but also something that I could see progress on it pretty quickly. It did take didn't a lot of time working on this shawl to get some results, but already I have started to see the sections of the design appear. I think before I continue to work on this shawl, I need to finish the Simple Scarf. So this shawl is going to have to be put down for at least a couple of days so that I can focus on getting something finished.

Simple Scarf - here are the results of my knitting on the scarf over the last week. I have now finished the variegated section, and I have also finished the light grey section. I have one more part ball of yarn to add to this scarf, and then it will be finished, so I would like to see if I can get it done early this week. 

Now that I have another project on the go it means that I need to focus on getting this scarf done otherwise I am going to feel like I have too many knitting projects on the go. If I can sit and spend some time each day working on this scarf, it shouldn't take me long to get the last ball of yarn added, and then I will have my first knitting project completed for the year.

This scarf has been a great project as it has helped me use up some part balls of yarn, and it was also something pretty simple to knit. Now to see what other part balls of yarn that I have because maybe I will see if I can work on another one of these scarfs before too long.

Other Projects - I have been working on joining motifs to the English Paper Piecing throws, but neither of them look like I have done a lot. I am thinking that I will try and take pictures of the throws closer to the end of the month, and maybe they will look like I have made some progress on them.

I hope that you continue to find that bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy doing. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you remember to take that bit of time for yourself.  This past week I did make sure that I took that time even if my crafting didn't move forward a lot. The time I took was very important, and some of it was just spending time with my husband, and that was nice.

Hopefully, I will have some progress on things to show you next week, and it might not be lots but at least I am going to be working on getting bits of progress on things as I take that bit of time each day to recharge my personal batteries.

Moving things forward

We have now completed the first week of the new year and things are slowly starting to get back to normal for all of us. Well, the normal that we are now going to be having. Of course, as I write this I know that things will probably change again, but at least for now we are starting to get into a routine that is going to work for us.

This last week seemed to go by very quickly, so we will see how things go moving forward, but at least for me, I am thinking that I am getting into a routine that might work. I am going to be continuing to find a bit of crafting time most time.

Mini the Forgotten - here is a project that I have been working on, and it is making me feel good. Of course, I am not sure how much time I will be spending on this project, but will see how much I can get done this year on it.

I am going to continue to work on adding more of the colours to this piece, and hopefully I will see more of it done before too long. This past week I only added one colour to a couple of sections, but at least I have moved this piece forward and that was my goal. I would love to see this project finished, but there are still lots of stitches left to go, so it won't be a quick finish. If I continue to work on this project I will get closer to a finish by the end of the year and that is what I am going to try and do.

Elizabeth Wood 1850 - here is a project that I am enjoying working on. Having a project that is just one colour is nice, as it means that I don't have to think about what colour I need to pick up and work on. As it is a reproductive sampler, there are challenges with it, so it does require me to pay attention to the pattern. The funny thing about writing that sentence is I didn't pay attention to the border for a while and ended up having to take out quite a bit of the border because I didn't see where there was only one stitch in the inner border instead of two.

After a lot of unstitching (frogging) and then restitching, I was able to get the inner border finished, and then I started working on getting the outer border completed. I am going to be trying to make some more progress on this piece this week as I am enjoying working on it and, of course, now I am going to be paying very close attention to the rest of the pattern and not just assume that it is a simple repeat.

My target is to have this piece finished by the end of January, but that is just a rough idea. I am not putting the pressure on myself because I never know when something else will impact my crafting time.

Simple scarf - here is a project that I am trying to work on a little bit each day.  Having the variegated yarn that I am currently adding to the scarf means that I just have to knit and not think about colour or anything, as the yarn is doing all the work for me.

I am going to be working on getting this scarf done, and then I will be picking up another one of my projects that I have on the go to see if I can get it finished. There are projects that I would like to start, but until I can get some of my knitting projects finished, I am not going to be trying to start something new. This scarf still needs another two sections added after I finish this ball of yarn, so it isn't going to be finished within a couple of days, but I am going to continue to focus on it so that I can get it done before too long.

Other projects - I have started to join motifs to both of my English Paper piecing throws, but neither of them look like they have changed much since the last time I took a picture, so I will wait until I have more done on them.

This week, I am not sure how much time I will have each day to do things that I enjoy doing, but I will make sure that I spend a bit of time doing something and recharging my own personal batteries.  I hope everyone else continues to find that bit of time each day to do something that you enjoy. 

If things go as planned, I hope to have some more progress on things to show you next week. Have a good week and remember that we all need those bits of time for ourselves so that we can be there to help others around us.

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.

 

Progress and a new project

It is hard to believe it is the start of another week and the last week of 2022. For a lot of us in North America, these past few days have been very cold and windy. I know that for us, we didn't get hit as hard as other parts of Ontario and Quebec, but we have had the wind and cold temperatures. It has been a time to just hide and stay inside. For me, it has been a time to sit and find some time to do some crafting.

Mini The Forgotten - this past week I have had a goal of getting as much of the black done on this piece as I could, and I think I have been able to achieve that.

The focus was just trying to get all the black stitches on this piece before the end of the year, and it looks like I should be able to do that as I only need to complete the top section of one wing. It has been nice being able to focus on one colour and see how much I could get done. Once the black is completed I think I will put this away for the rest of the week, and maybe I will pull out some other projects to work on, but I will see what really happens.

Simple Scarf - now this project got started this week as I have been going through my yarn and found some yarn that I could make into a scarf, so that is what I am doing. As most of these balls were only part balls I am going to be using up each ball and then going onto the next ball and I will see how long this scarf ends up. It is nice to have a project that I can just work on and there is no idea how long the scarf will be. It is just a great way to finish up the odd balls of yarn that I have had lying around for a while.

I had five part balls of yarn for this project, so will see what it looks like by the time all the yarn has been used up. It will be fun to work on this project, as I have no idea how big each of the sections is going to be.

Simple Triangle Shawl - I have continued to work on this project, so will see how much I can get done on it again this week as well. This is another project that is trying to use up some yarn, so will see how large this shawl ends up. It feels great having some projects that are ones that I can just pick up and work on, and I am also use up some of the yarn that I currently have.

This coming week I know that I would like to see if I can continue to work on this project as I want to see it getting closer to being finished before the end of the yarn. 

Other projects - this last week I didn't work on any other projects as I was focusing on making progress on just these. Also, it was Christmas, so getting everything ready for that also took some time. 

This coming week, I am not sure what I will be working on other than getting the black done on Mini the Forgotten and spending some time knitting. Other than that, I think I am going to figure out my other projects as I have the time to work on them.

I hope everyone has been able to continue to find that little bit of time each day to do something for yourself. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's taking those few minutes each day to relax and take time for you.

As this is the last blog for the year, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and all the best in 2023. As someone wrote this week, "May the best of 2022 be the worst of 2023". Have a good week and I will see you again in 2023.