Happy New Years

 

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and all the best in 2018!

Finishes in 2017 - lots of pictures

Me just being silly

 I decided that I was going to try and collect some of my finishes for 2017 into one post so that I could see what I had worked on and finished in 2017.  The pictures are in no order as I just wanted to try and collect them.

This year I have had a lot of fun with my stitching and have seen what makes me happy and what doesn't.  I have been enjoying getting the stitching done that I have been able to do and will see I can accomplish in 2018.  I do have a list of things that I would like to work on getting done in 2018 but will see what actually happens.

Sabbatical Beauty

Braver - I recharted

I do have more projects that I have charted that I want to stitch and then there are the different patterns that I would love to work on so will see what happens when the bells ring in 2018 and what the year has in store for me.

Cecilia shawl

Schlock with Gun looks like it might be my last finish for 2017 but there are still a couple of days left in the year so will see what happens.

I hope everyone has had a good 2017 and if you are a crafter that you have started to figure out what you will be working on in 2018.  If you haven't that's ok as well because plans change as the years goes on anyway.  Until I write again I hope that if you have some time to stitch you are enjoying your time.

Day Dream - I charted

Fluffy Meringue Shawl

Growf - I charted

Lady - I charted

Quotes to Live By - Stitchrovia

Reflections of Canada - Ink Circles

Schlock with Gun - I charted

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

Hope you received everything that you wanted.

If you do not celebrate Christmas, All the Best of the Season to you.

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.