Cross-stitch and specialty threads

I have been doing a lot of cross-stitch recently and it got me doing some thinking about why I use what I use. I am one of those people that really like using the basic threads and on occasion I will use a specialty thread.

Now the reason I only occasionally use a specialty thread is I have a rather large collection of specialty threads that I purchased for different projects. I have found that quite often you purchase the specialty thread for a project and one of two things happens; 1) you decide that you don't want to do the project any longer or 2) you do the project and only use the smallest amount of the specialty thread.

I was looking at some of my stash recently and noticed that I do have a lot of the second category where I did the project and now have a large collection of partly used skeins. Now what do I do with all these partly used skeins of floss. I know that I could try and find another project that uses the same floss but that is very time consuming and some I don't like. It would be nice to have a method where people should exchange flosses for projects. I understand that it is a challenge to always find someone that you know that needs the floss that you have.

Of course with exchanging floss it means that the manufacturer might not like it because people might not seem to be busying as much. I think people might do more projects with the specialty flosses because they would be able to purchase some floss but know that they would be able to share it with others as well.

Please help me and let me know if you use specialty threads and what you do with the left over part skeins of floss that you have.

Car seat blanket

Car seat blanket - Nov 20th

As promised here is a picture of the car seat blanket that I finished on the weekend.  It was a very quick knit which was great.   The pattern called for worsted weight yarn so that I what I used and it also asked quick which really got my attention.

Car seat blanket - Nov 23rd.

I started this blanket on Thursday evening while watching TV and I finished knitting it on Saturday afternoon while watching curling.  It sure didn't take very long at all to make it and the pattern turned out really nice.  I still need to block it a bit but at least it is finished.

The yarn I am using for this blanket is the yarn that was left over from the shawl that I made for myself.  I had almost 300 grams left so figured that I wanted to use it up quickly.  The first blanket is now done and I still have enough to make another blanket so it is now on the needles. 

It is great when I can have a couple of items ready for when I hear someone is expecting or has had a baby.  These car seat blankets will go into that area where all those items are kept and ready for when that call or email comes in.

The blanket is now sitting in the living room waiting to be worked on but right now there is other work that needs to be completed first.

Another day and hopefully I can make a bit of progress on my to-do-list.

Belted wrap and car seat blanket

Belted wrap - finished Nov 20th

I can actually say that I finished the belted wrap that I started in April 2014.  April 4th post

The best part of finishing the wrap now is that I can use it immediately as it has been pretty cold here in Toronto this week.  I think most of the time I am going to wear it without the belt but at least I have the belt to keep it on if I want to use it.

The wrap is nice and wide so it covers most of my arm when it is on and it also covers a lot of my back.  I have already started another version of this shawl but this time instead of using worsted weight yarn I am using lace weight yarn.

car seat blanket - started Nov 20th

Once I finished the belted wrap I discovered that I still had almost 3 - 100 gram balls of yarn so figured I wanted to use it up so looked around and discovered a pattern for a car seat blanket which didn't look too difficult.  The car seat needs to be around 19 inches before you do the final 6 rows and I think I knit 12 inches on this blanket last night.  I guess it won't be long before I have this finished and then will see what else I work on.


Work is still keeping me busy so now it's time to focus on it for a while and then I can hopefully spend part of my weekend crafting.

Stitching Progress

This week I decided that it was time to really try and focus on a project and see how much stitching I could get done.

Well I picked up the needle once during the week but the weekend meant that I had time to sit and stitch and now I am seeing some really good results.  The bottom portion of the dragon is almost done other than a few stitches that I need to do but that is it.  I now can focus on the wings and hopefully will be able to continue on them this week.

Omi's Rose - Nov 2nd

I am really happy with how much I was able to get done this week because it looks like I really don't have a lot more to do if I can focus on it for a few more days.  Now the words focus on it were working really well until this morning when I decided to pick up another pattern and put a few stitches in on it.  This new pattern is once again something of my own and is based on a picture of a rose that I took a couple of years ago.

I called the pattern Omi's rose because it is from a picture of a rose from a basket of flowers from her memorial.  I loved the rose and wanted to capture the beauty of it so I took the picture.

A different project

Canvas Trillium - Diane Scott

Yes, this is a different project that I started this week.  This is a class that I took at the Creative Festival and it was called Canvas Trillium.  The pattern was what caught my attention and that meant that it was a class that I had to take this year.  I know that I have worked on canvas before so that wasn't something new for me but it was the pattern that I liked.

As you can see I really didn't get too much done but the class was only three hours and by the time you get the canvas on your stretcher bars and the instructor does a lot of explaining it means you don't have a lot of time to actually work on the project.  I know that I want to finish this project so may be working on it on and off over the next couple of weeks until it is finished.  I know that once I sit done and work on it I should be able to get quite a bit of it worked on.

The class was offered on Friday afternoon so I decided to take two classes this year and this was one of them.  The other class I took was Toss and Tumble Colourways with Charles Voth.  The second class was dealing with how to work with scraps of yarn and be able to put colours together that you normally wouldn't think when together to make a lapghan.  I now have a pattern and some ideas so will see what happens.
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So today I am going to try and do a bit of crafting but will have to see if I can fit that in with everything else that I should be doing.

Thanksgiving weekend progress

This weekend was a three day weekend which meant a little bit of time for stitching. 

This week I hope to be able to spend a bit of time stitching but this will all depend on how much work needs to get completed.  I know that it is going to be a busy week for me as it is only a four day work week instead of the normal 5 days to get things done. 
 Part of the weekend was Thanksgiving Dinner with the family and also some more organizing around the apartment.
Hope everyone had a great weekend and you were able to get things that you wanted to get done completed.

Now to get some work done that needs my attention today and then will see if there is any time for stitching this evening.

Where did last week go?

This is a question I am asking myself as I have to admit that crafting was very limited since last Monday. I really can't say where last week went other than I know that there was work done but other than that I really didn't have a lot of time for crafting or anything else.

I understand that with being a co-owner of a business there are going to be weeks where crafting is something that I can try to make time for but that is about it. I had thought that this weekend I was going to find time to craft but once again things came up and no crafting time. Juggling all the different things that we do juggle means that days just slip away.

Right now I am looking at some crafting time this evening and I am going to grab it as soon as I can because otherwise it might just slip away with work. There are days like that where I can see the time and then the email comes in or a phone call and then the evening is taken up with another project.

I better run away from the computer now and see what I can do craft-wise otherwise tonight will be gone and I won't have accomplished any crafting. Hope you are able to get a bit of crafting done as well.