This week's progress

Treasure Them Now...Or Eat Them

This week I didn't get to work on my cross-stitch as much as I wanted to but that is fine because I did make some progress on it anyway.

Here is the dragon before the weekend and hopefully I will be able to make a bit more progress on it.  It is still looking a little odd but considering I haven't got even half of the dragon done. 

Besides working on my cross-stitch I have also been working on a neck warmer for charity as well as trying to knit a pair of tube socks for myself.  I hope to take a few pictures of the items during the weekend and will post them once I have done that.  The neck warmer was a quick project which was great because it was something that I needed.  Having something on circular needles meant that I could pick it up and put it down for a quick project.  I also have the socks on the go for the same reason.  Being able to even put a few stitches in a project has helped this week because of all the different things I have been working on.

Now to see how much of the dragon I can get done this weekend.

Weekend Progress and Finish

Creating Yourself - Finished

 So the weekend is now over and I am happy to say that it was a productive weekend for stitching.  Creating Yourself is now completed and ready to be framed.  It was a lot of fun to work on and I am sad to see if finished in a lot of ways.  Maybe it was the saying that meant so much to me or maybe it was the butterflies but whatever it was I loved working on this one.

Creating Yourself - Butterfly detail

The two butterflies have metallic thread for the detail on them and the right one also has beads added for a little more detail.  The actual pattern called for french knots so I replaced them with the beads.  The pattern was also using DMC floss for all the colours.  The only DMC floss I used was the border and saying as all the rest was overdyed floss which I love working with.

Treasure Them Now...Or Eat Them!

After finishing Creating Yourself it didn't take me too long before I wanted to work on something else and of course I had a choice of working on something that was already started or starting something new.  I do have a new cross stitch that I really want to work on but I figured I better try and get at least one started project finished first.

The final decision was to work on something that I started in October 2011 at the Creativ Festival and that was Treasure Them Now...Or Eat Them! by Jennifer Aikmen-Smith. The pattern is of a dragon with her baby dragons so am looking forward to making some good progress on this pattern over the next little while.

Treasure Them Now...Or Eat Them!

So Sunday late afternoon I started working on Treasure Them Now and before putting it away for the evening I had to take a picture to see what I had actually accomplished.

This pattern also has some metallic threads in it so they will help show a bit of the detail.  In the final picture of Treasure Them there is a hint of some metallic threads in one area but it is going to take a while before the detail really starts to show up. 

Stitching will continue one evening this week but not really sure which night I will curl up and stitch again. 

Let's see how long it takes me to finish this cross-stitch and then a decision will be upon me again.  A started piece that needs finishing or start a new project.  Time will only tell.

Weekend progress

Creating Yourself progress

So this was a long weekend here and I have to admit that I didn't stitch as much as I would have liked because of course other things needs to be done as well.  I did however sit down and cross-stitch for quite a while on Monday which did feel really good.  I made some good progress on the border and how want to finish the right side of the design before I work on the left side.  The reason for this is because I need to move the design on my q-snaps and figure instead of moving it back and forth I will finish the right side and then move it once to finish the border on the left side.  The other reasoning is I want to see what the butterflies are going to look like after I add the metallic thread and the beads.

I hope that I will be able to pick this up again tomorrow (Wednesday) evening as it is so relaxing and I am enjoying seeing it come alive.  Time will only tell what happens tomorrow as I have lots of other things that need my attention so those things need to come first as they are the things that help pay the bills and let me cross-stitch.

Making sure I do take a bit of time for myself each day is very important because stitching my mind back together is how I deal with the stresses of each day.  Now off the computer so I can stitch my mind back together for today.

Thursday progress

Creating Yourself - Feb 16th

Well this last week I haven't had much time to cross-stitch or craft at all as I was taking yet another course.  It is now over and I am back to being able to spend sometime crafting.

Last night after the course finished I was able to pick up Creating Yourself and did a bit of work on the butterflies themselves.  I am finally starting to see some good results but still need to spend quite a bit of time on this project before it's finished.  I hope that considering this weekend is a long-weekend here in Ontario that I can hide for a while and work on this project.  I want to finish the background on the butterflies and get the border done soon.

I am still loving working on this project and have to admit that it feels so nice just working on one cross-stitch project for a change instead of bouncing between a number of them and never really seeing any progress.  I was thinking about what I would work on next but I think I will wait until I am closer to finishing this one before I start looking in my started box.

Hopefully I will be able to post early next week some more progress on Creating Yourself, until then have a great long weekend if you get it.

Weekend and Wednesday Progress

Weekend results

 I didn't post the results from the weekend because I was a little frustrated with myself.  I spent quite a bit of Saturday stitching and then unstitching.  Yes I made a major mistake so had to take it out and that meant that my results for the weekend is very little.  Of course after taking it out I figured I better take a break and not try and do too much in case I made another mistake.

Oh, on the positive side my DH did go and pick up some of the overdyed floss that I had run out of so that means I could stitch on Saturday working on the main part.

Wednesday night

Of course, Wednesday is my planned cross-stitch evening and instead of just cross-stitching in the evening I cross-stitched quite a bit of the day.  I have finished all the blue overdyed section now so just need to work on the butterflies, border and saying.  I am very happy with the results so far and can't wait to work on it again.  I hope to be able to get a little bit done today and then I know I am going to work on it again this Saturday so will see how far along I get on it.  I think once I fill in the butterflies I will work on the border before I put the beads and metallic threads on it. 

Creating Yourself is really taking shape so now it's time to start thinking of what project I am going to pick up after this one is finished.  Maybe I should try and work on something from my started pile.

Hard Work Paid Off

This is not a craft entry but it is something that I have been working on for a while and I can honestly say that the hard work paid off.  I have been working towards getting a certification that I have wanted for quite a while.  The exam was Friday and thanks to modern technology I already know the results and they are I passed.  I now have my CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management).

For the month of January, I was studying as much as possible so that I would pass this exam on the first attempt and wouldn't have to retake it.  I actually started this process about 3 years ago when I first took an Introduction to Project Management course and loved it.  See I have been doing part of project management for my job for a number of years and finally decided that I would put the time and effort into getting the certification.  This certification is for someone who doesn't do Project Management as a full time job but it still involves quite a bit of work.

I am happy to say that now that it's over I am going to be able to relax some and do a bit more crafting instead of spending evenings and days studying.

Wednesday's progress

Creating Yourself

Last night I was able to make some really good progress on Creating Yourself and I am still loving working on it.  My only issue is I am running out of the overdyed thread that I have been using so may not get much more done until I get to Gitta's to purchase more thread.  If I don't get the thread on the weekend I will pick it up next Wednesday for sure.  I can always work on the edging that I need to put on this anyway so it's not a real show stopped just a frustration.

The butterfly on the right is at the right edge and the flower that I haven't finished it almost at the left edge.

If I keep up with this project I will have it completed by the end of February which means that I can then start working on getting some of my WIP's finished instead of starting something new for a while.  It has been so rewarding working on this cross-stitch and seeing the progress that I have been able to make on it.  Hopefully this weekend I will be able to pick it up again and get some of the border done and will see what else I do on it.  I am trying to keep the butterflies until next Wednesday so that I can work on them at Stitch Night.  If I get that far on this project I will have to pull out another project and work on it for a while.

Time to work on getting some other stuff off my plate so that I can enjoy a weekend of stitching and relaxing.