Crafting was slow

Baby afghan

This past week I can actually say that crafting wasn't something that really got accomplished.  I thought that I was going to have time before Christmas to sit and enjoy an evening or two just crafting but that didn't work out as planned.

I was able to find little bits of time since the 20th to craft but I haven't been able to get a lot of stuff accomplished.  The baby hats are still something that I can work on and they do make me happy because they don't take me long to finish so I can see some progress on something.  The pile of baby hats were mostly made over this weekend when I was sitting as a passenger as we did some running around on Boxing Day.

Baby hats

The baby afghan is a project that I started last Monday and I haven't been finding a lot of time to work on it either.  I would like to be able to get this one done quickly but will have to see what this week has in store for me. I know that I am going to be working some of this week so crafting will have to be done when I can fit it in and I hope to be able to do that at some point.

I am always thankful for the time I can find to craft.  It may be a half hour sometimes but at least my crafting is how I relax and think a lot of various things through.  While I don't find a lot of time to craft I am very thankful that I can crochet quickly because when I do find the time I can actually see some results.

So it is now time for me to get a couple more things accomplished.  Today is still a holiday for a lot of businesses but there are some that took last Thursday off instead.  Now it is off to get a bit of stuff done today.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

Stitching and some progress

Lady - Dec 13th

This last week I was able to find a bit of time to actually sit and stitch which felt very good. The stitching was actually done on the weekend when I sat down and didn't think about all the various work projects that I should be working on.

Friday evening I started to work on Lady to see if I could make a bit of progress on the one area that has been taking forever for me to complete.  I haven't been spending a lot of time stitching lately so it felt good to see a bit of progress on Friday.

Lady - Dec 20th

Saturday was when I finally was able to get the cape finished and I have to say that I am so happy to know that is finished now.  I am now starting to see the face appear and then I have the hair to complete on this project. I am looking forward to seeing that the Lady looks like when she is finished as it has been a project that I have been working on for a while now. (Started September 6th)

Blackwork Knight by Jennifer Aikman-Smith - Dec 20th

I had another project that I wanted to start this weekend and it was Blackwork Knight by Jennifer Aikman-Smith.  I have stitched this piece before but wanted to do it again so that is what I am doing. This time I am just using DMC floss instead of a silk and want to see what it looks like when it is done. I started working on the Knight on Saturday and have been able to get some of it done

It feels so good seeing that after spending some time this weekend relaxing and crafting that I was able to make some progress on two projects.  I don't have a lot of time normally where I can spend crafting so taking this weekend or at least part of it to cross-stitch felt really good.

Now work is still around so that isn't going to stop but at least I may find a little bit more time to craft over the next couple of weeks.  I am hoping that there isn't as many work demands over the next couple of weeks but time will tell.  Sometimes I have some time to relax over the holidays and other years I have lots of projects demanding my attention.

Today, it is work so off I go to get some stuff off my desk and sent off to some clients.

A bit of progress

Lady - Dec 6th

This week I was able to make a bit of progress on Lady which was nice.

Of course, going to stitch night on Wednesday meant that I had some time where I was able to focus on stitching.  A lot of this area was completed then but I did find a bit of time to stitch yesterday as well.

I have been trying to find little bits of time to sit and craft.  I would have loved to been able to work on this piece each night last week but the rest of life got in the way.

Lady - Dec 13th

This week is going to be another week where I will see when I will be able to stitch.  This coming weekend I am going to try and spend some of it stitching as I would like to see some changes to at least one of my projects that I have on the go.

Hopefully I will be able to spend some of the holidays also stitching.  I am not sure how much time I will really have as work will still need to be done during that time. Work never goes away but there are times when I need to take an evening to myself to craft and relax.

I haven't been able to spend a lot of time crafting but when I can find that little bit of time I really do value it.  My crafting time is my way of relaxing and thinking through some of the things that I am working on.

Now it's time to get to work and answer some of those emails that need my attention.  

Crafting

I was recently told that all I do is Craft and blog about it. Boy, do I wish that I had the time to just craft and blog. My blog and crafting are an escape from my work which is what I do during the day. My crafting is something that I do in the evenings when I have time and sometimes on the weekend. If I could craft more I would have a lot more accomplished.

What I did was a bit of an analysis to see what I could accomplish if I was able to craft a minimum of 35 hours a week.

Baby hats:

	Preemie hats	Newborn	Large baby hats
Per week	93	54	36
Per day	18.6	10.8	7.2
Per hour	2.66	1.5	1

If I was able to crochet 35 hours a week I would be able to keep quite a few hospitals supplied with baby hats but I don't have that much time to crochet.

Reality: in 36 days I was able to finish 47 newborn and 15 preemie hats so I crocheted around 36 hours on hats or roughly an hour a day.

Baby afghans

To complete one afghan

26 hours

This is making an afghan approximately 32” x 42” in size and doing the v-stitch pattern that I don't need a pattern for.

Reality: in 36 days I was able to finish 68 rows on an afghan so around 13 hours of crocheting on the afghan.

Cross-stitch patterns

If I was able to cross-stitch more than I currently do I would have had a minimum of 12 patterns designed, stitched and released this year instead of the 1 that I was able to release.

Reality: This one is very easy in the month of November I stitched 5 hours on a pattern so not a lot accomplished.

Now what you can see is if I was able to spend more time crafting I would be getting lots and lots of craft items finished on a weekly and monthly basis. Of course, people see me crafting on a weekend and think that is all that I do but in reality the weekend is the only time where I can find time to escape from work.

No, I do not talk about what I am doing for work here on this blog because this is a crafting blog. I also don't write about my work as I do that enough during the day and don't want to deal with it here on my blog. Now, the final reason there isn't any discussion about what I do for work is due to NDA's (non-disclosure agreements) which means I am not able to talk about what I am doing and non do I want to discuss it.

Now that I have explained that I don't craft all the time and I do have a job that requires my time maybe people will understand that my crafting is my hobby.

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.

A crazy week

Well there are no pictures for this week and part of that is because I didn't get a lot of crafting done.

I was able to sit and crochet some more hats but that is it for the entire week.  I would have loved to sit and cross-stitch for a while but just didn't have the time or energy to do it. This coming week I am  hoping to be able to find a bit of time to sit and cross-stitch as I would like to see some progress on at least one of my projects very soon.

Of course, part of the reason for not getting crafting done is due to the fact that I am now trying to finish up a course that I am taking.  The exam for it is December 16th so that means that I will be spending time studying for it between now and then.  I am hoping to be able to balance my crafting, work, and studying through the next couple of weeks. 

So the pile of baby hats is growing and that does make me happy because it means that more baby's will receive a hat when they are born. Making all these hats also means that I am using up some of my yarn which is also a goal for me right now.  I don't get through a ball of yarn very quickly because I am working with multiple balls of yarn at a given time.  I figure keeping a selection of hats on the go means I shouldn't get as tired of making hats as I would have if I only used one colour at a time.

Well today I have a few things to finish before I find a bit of time to craft.  I am not sure what the project will be later today but I will try and do something even for an hour.

Another week of crafting

v-stitch afghan - Nov 22nd

baby hats - Nov 22nd

This past week I wasn't really in the  mood to cross-stitch so I decided that I would like on a few other projects.

The v-stitch baby afghan is coming along and I am now just over halfway complete on it.  I was able to finish a second ball of yarn so that is nice as well as that helps me see that I am getting somewhere on the afghan.  I am still looking forward to getting this done prior to Christmas so that means I am going to have to work hard on it.

drawing - Nov 22nd

Besides crocheting on the baby afghan I worked on a few more baby hats.  Now these hats are finished being stitched but they still need the ends sewn in but that doesn't take me very long to do.  I hope to get the ends sewn in tonight so that these hats are out of the way and will go into the bag for a friend to take to the hospital for me.

The hats are something that are very easy to do and I do those while a passenger in a car as well as when I just need something very easy to work on at home.

One thing I did this week which I haven't done for a very long time was to get my drawing material out and actually do something.  I have had the drawing material out a few times but I just sit and look at everything and then put it away.  This time I decided to get a bit of drawing down and will see how it goes.  The picture is no where close to being finished as this is just a rough drawing so far.  Hopefully now that I have this much done I will be able to sit and enjoy filling in all the different things.

This week it felt good doing some different things and not even really thinking about cross-stitching.  I know that I have a lot of projects that I need to complete but taking the break probably did me a lot of good.  I am not sure if cross-stitching will get done this week but at least I have things to keep me busy.

It felt very good being able to accomplish what I did this week and I know that I have other projects that still need my attention but they just needed to wait.  Now it is time to get some work finished up so that this evening I will be able to curl up and craft.  I don't know what will get the attention this week but at least I have a few things to work on.

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.

No progress

Butterfly - October 18th and 25th

I can sum up this week's progress by simply saying that I didn't get anything accomplished.

My cross-stitch pieces were left untouched and even the amount of crocheting that I did wasn't very much.  Now part of the reason for this is because I was busy doing some other things which mean that my crafting time was limited.

One thing I did do last week was worked at a polling station on election day.  This was something that I had always thought about doing so this year I decided that I was going to apply for a position and I got one.  The day is very long as you are at your polling station before polls open (1.5 hours) and then you are also at your polling station for at least half an hour after the polls close.  Yes it is a 14 hour day minimum and there aren't the breaks that you get when you work a normal job.

The rest of the week was spent trying to get some work done as well as spending some evenings watching television.  I am a Toronto Blue Jays fan so that meant that last week I was spending evenings watching the games hoping that they would win.  The one thing that I found was that during the playoff games I wasn't able to focus on crafting most of the time.  Sure, I was able to crochet a few baby hats but they also weren't made at the normal speed.

Now that the Blue Jays are out of the playoffs (which I am not happy about) I might be able to get back to doing some crafting in the evenings.   I have a couple of projects that I want to get done quickly so I am going to have to focus on them to do just that.

It is now time to see what work I can get today so that I can spend this evening hopefully crafting.

Busy week

Butterfly - Oct 12th

Where did the week really go?

Last week I thought that I was going to have lots of time to sit and stitch at least in the evenings but I was wrong. I know I said it was going to be a busy week work wise but I figured in the evenings I might be able to find some stitching time.

I was able to find some time to get the first half of the butterfly completed and that was great.  Since getting to that point early last week I haven't been able to find any more time to stitch.

Butterfly - Oct 18th

The crafting that I have been able to do is working on a few baby hats but even that hasn't been very good.  Hopefully now I will be able to find a bit of time this week to stitch.  I am not going to say I will have lots of time but I do hope that I can at least find a little bit of time to stitch on something.

Part of the reason for the lack of stitching is also because I decided this semester to take another course so that is also taking up some of my free time.  This course runs until the 18th of December so I am going to be juggling crafting in between assignments and reading for the course.

I know I am late posting this week and that is because yesterday was Election Day here in Canada and I worked at a polling station all day.  It was a very interesting experience being at a polling station.  Now I have quite a bit of work that needs to be done in the next couple of days so that is going to be where my focus is going to be.

Crafting will happen at some point this week but I am once again now sure when.  I am now hoping that things will get a little more organized and I will get back to stitching soon. Until then, I am off to try and get some work done.

Another week and a bit of progress

Butterfly - Oct 4th

So I finally was able to make a bit of progress on the butterfly this week.  Well, actually all the progress was made on Thanksgiving Monday as I sat and watched some playoff baseball games. It was great having the time to sit and stitch while watching the games on television.  I quite often do my crafts while watching some sort of sports on television be it hockey or baseball.

It feels really good seeing that I was able to make some good progress even in one day, so I am going to see what progress I can make over this week.  I am trying to get this butterfly done quickly so that it can be framed and ready for display.  It always feels good when I can see some progress on something even when I have been extremely busy with other things.

Besides working on the butterfly this week I have also been working on making a few baby hats.  The baby hats are great when we are out and about and also when I just can't focus on doing any cross-stitch.  Hopefully this week I will still be able to get a few hats done but I think when possible I am going to be trying to get some cross-stitch done. The baby hats are something that normally goes with me when we are out in the car so as a passenger I can sit and crochet.  The hat pile is starting to grow but I know that they won't be going to the hospital for a while yet but that's ok, at least I will have a pile ready to go.

Butterfly - Oct 12th

Of course, work is one of the things that can change what I am working on in the evenings.  If I get something that needs to be done for work that comes first so my crafting has to wait for another day.

This week sounds like another busy week for me work wise but I am going to try my best to find some crafting time most evenings.

Speaking of crafting time and evenings, it is now time for me to finish up this post so that I can craft this evening.

Hopefully all of you will have some crafting time in the evenings as well and if you aren't a crafter I hope you will find some time to yourself.

Butterfly

Butterfly - Oct 4th

This week I had another week where I didn't get a lot of stitching done that it was starting to really get to me.  I have been extremely busy with other things and just haven't found the time where I can sit and stitch.

Today I actually found a bit of time and the project that I picked up was my butterfly.  This version is one that I first put a few stitches in just after I found out that a friend of mine had passed away. Of course I didn't get much stitching done then and that was the end of August.  The piece just got put aside and I figured I would pick it up again when I was in the right mood.

I guess, today was the day for me to pick up this butterfly again and really work on it.  I had a little bit of the right wing started but that was it before today.  Now I see that I made some progress on it and I am happy that I did. This butterfly has a meaning behind it, because my friend was someone that I could talk to but I had never met in person.  We were friends through the internet and he was someone that I was very happy to get to know. This butterfly has started after hearing he had passed away from lung cancer.  For me he was finally free and wasn't going to suffer any longer. Today my stitching was done while watching the Blue Jays.

A butterfly to me is freedom and a new start.  I am going to work on this butterfly and know that my friend is looking down on me and watching as I put the stitches in.  I will especially work on this piece during Leaf games as that is one thing we always talked about.

A new week is just about to start for me and now I hope that I will be able to get back to stitching a little more.  My butterfly has given me wings again and maybe now I know why stitching has been so hard.  This butterfly needed some attention and it finally got it and now I can move forward.

I will always miss the talks I had with my friend but I know he is in a better place now.

It is now time for me to wrap up for the weekend but now I hope to get back to stitching a little more. This butterfly finally came out of hiding and maybe now I can as well.

A crazy week

Baby hats

What can I say other than the last week has been extremely crazy for me.

I haven't picked up any cross-stitch for a week now and I am hoping to be able to do it again soon.  I had really hoped to be able to stitch last week but things just didn't work out the way I had hoped so just did something else.

I was able to make a few baby hats over the week and that did make me very happy.  At least seven of them were made over the weekend while travelling to and from Montreal for a quick trip.  I am very happy that I can crochet while a passenger in a car because that is how I got as much crocheting done as I did.

See, one of my clients is a charity and they were having an event in Montreal on Saturday, so I was asked if we could go out and see how the event went.  We heard this news Thursday morning and left Friday afternoon so yes a very crazy schedule.  Of course, there were a lot of little things that needed to be accomplished before we headed out so that took Thursday and Friday to accomplish.

My cross-stitch did make the trip to Montreal with me but after running around at the event all Saturday afternoon I didn't do anything Saturday evening.  I am also not totally sure where the rest of last week went because I was just trying to accomplish quite a few things which meant crafting wasn't something that got a lot of attention.

Now that I am back from Montreal and getting back to my own routine I hope to be able to get some crafting in this week.  I am not sure what crafting will be accomplished but at least I hope to be able to spend a little time most evenings just curled up and doing some of that.

I now need to try and get a bit of work done today so that I can find the time to craft later.

Stitching results

Lady - September 13th

This week I can say that I finally found a little bit of time to sit and stitch and that made me extremely happy. Of course I have to admit that a lot of the stitching was actually accomplished on Sunday. I had some of the outline on the face done prior to Sunday but the lower part was basically worked on Sunday during the day.

Lady - September 18th

I had said that I would love a day where all I did was sit and stitch and do things like that so yesterday that is what I did. I have wanted a day like yesterday for a while but of course the other demands of life got in the way and I didn't get a day like that for a while.  So yesterday I curled up and watched baseball games and stitched.

Lady - September 20th

I was very surprised when I looked at the piece last night and realized how much stitching I had really accomplished during the day. I think just sitting and doing helped me see that yes I can get stitching done when I have the time to just sit and do it.  Over the last few months I have been fitting stitching into a rather busy schedule so that is why progress has been a lot slower on the various projects.

I am really hoping that now that the weather is a little cooler I will be able to find a bit more time to stitch. Well, the stitching is going to be fit in between a lot of other projects again for a while as of course I found something else that I have tried and am enjoying it.

Clay yarn bowl

The bowl in the picture is from modeling clay and I did the actual bowl a couple of weeks ago.  I had to wait for the clay to dry and considering the humidity it did take longer to dry and then the decision of how I was going to paint it came next.  Finally yesterday I was able to put the flower in the middle of the bowl and then put the glaze on it.  I now have a yarn bowl that I am going to be trying out.

With the clay I also made two other bowls but they aren't quite finished yet so I will take a picture of them when they are completed.

I am enjoying all the various crafts that I am doing and now it is just finding the time to do the things that I really enjoy.  Work of course is always the top priority but the evenings am going to be when I try and fit in the crafting that I want to do.

Speaking of work, I better get moving so that I can get a few things accomplished today so that this evening I can work on a project.  The project will probably be stitching of some sort today as there is a baseball game on that I would like to watch.

Another slow week

Lady - September 7th

As you probably guessed by the title of this blog I didn't have a lot of time to sit and stitch this last week.

I am not sure where the time really went but it sure wasn't sitting and relaxing and working on my stitching, which is what I had hoped to do.

Lady - September 13th

The weekend was spent helping organize and run a charity run/walk (www.aaiatakeaction.ca) in Oakville so that did mean the weekend was almost all gone.  I did get a few stitches in on the weekend but not the amount of time I wold have loved to have had sitting and stitching.

The weather is finally a little cooler so maybe I will also be able to do a bit more stitching in the evenings.  Also now that the event is over I will be able to sit and enjoy some stitching time in the evenings.

I am looking forward to spending one evening this week curled up and seeing how much stitching I will be able to accomplish.  Yes I see that I got some stitching done last week but would love to have some time to just lose an evening sitting with my stitching.  The other thing about this project is right now I am using two shapes of grey so that means I don't see a lot of variety in the project.  Once I get one of the areas completed I will start adding some of the other colours so that I can have some variety on this piece.  Also the areas I am working on are easy to do while sitting outside or at stitch night.  I don't want to get all of these areas finished before I have some time to stitch outside.

It is now time for me to get some of the work done that I need to be doing today.  I will see what stitching I get done this week but hopefully at least one of the projects will change a bit.

Moving projects along and a new start

Erasmus - July 1st

This past week I decided that it was time to start working on a project that I haven't touched since the beginning of July.  Erasmus has been sitting in the same state since July 1st so I decided that if I want to get it finished I really need to start putting some more stitching on it.

Over the last week I was able to get the very bottom of the piece completed and that meant that I was able to move the frame and start working on the top section of it as well.  I am finally looking at the piece and seeing that I am making progress on it and that makes me extremely  happy.

Erasmus - Sept 7th

Erasmus - Sept 7th

Lady - Sept 7th

Of course with the heat that we have been dealing with sitting and stitching isn't something that I have been able to do a lot of.   I have been really trying to make sure that some projects are getting attention because otherwise they sit for too long without any progress on them.  Erasmus was going along very good until I found the Butterfly and did that pattern.  Now to see if I can continue making progress on this piece over the next while.

Besides working on Erasmus I decided that I needed a project that I could take with me to stitch night, which is this week.  When at stitch night I really enjoy having a piece that I can just fill in some areas and not have to worry about counting stitches and figuring out where on the pattern am I. This is another pattern that I am doing using some art by an artist that I met.  This is a lady that goes along with Erasmus so figured it would be a good project to work on next.  What I ended up going was outlining a couple of the larger areas that need to be filled in with one colour.  Now I have three areas that I can just sit and work on without having to follow the pattern every few stitches.  This will also make a great pattern to work on while sitting outside because I won't have to keep catching the pattern as the wind decides to move the pattern.

This week I hope to be able to get a bit more stitching done besides what I do on stitch night but it is a busy week for me.  Let's hope that at least one evening I will be able to find a bit of time to sit and stitch and not deal with the heat and humidity.

A finish and a bit of progress

Butterfly - August 23rd

It's hard to believe but another week has passed.

I was able to get a bit of stitching done which makes me feel pretty good.  I was busy with a lot of other tings as well so it meant that I didn't have a lot of time to stitch.

Butterfly - August 27th

The butterfly was one project that got the attention this week because I really wanted to have it finished before the end of the month. I decided that this was going to be the piece that I worked on until it was finished.  Of course, when I sat down on Thursday to work on the butterfly I was able to actually finish it in one evenings which was wonderful.  I am happy that I was able to get it finished so now I will see what project gets started next. I do  have a couple of projects that i would like to work on so now to figure out which one is going to be put on a frame next and added to my work in progress.

Butterfly biscornu - August 30th

Besides having the big projects on the go I decided that I needed some smaller projects that would be quick to finish. I worked on getting a bunch of them ready to stitch so that I don't have to look for floss, fabric or a pattern when I am in the mood to just stitch on something quick. The result of this kitting of projects means I have either 7 or 8 small projects that I can work on and get finished quickly or at least I hope they are quick to work on.

The first project I decided to work on is a Butterfly biscornu that I saw on the internet.  Of course, I loved the idea of a butterfly biscornu but I couldn't locate the pattern no matter what I tried.  Well considering this is a piece just for myself I sat down and looked at the picture on the screen and tried to figure out the pattern.  I don't have the exact pattern like the biscornu I saw on the blog but at least I have one that I am enjoying working on.

So besides working on the butterfly projects this week I actually got a bit more done on the shawl that I started a couple of weeks ago.  I was making pretty good progress on it until Saturday when I found a colour of yarn that I liked more and some different yarn.  Now I have two shawls on the go and hopefully will be able to get one of them done quickly as I would like to be wearing one of them by October.

Tonight I hope to be able to find a little bit of time to stitch and hopefully will be able to do it most evenings but it will really depend on the heat.  The forecast is for another week of hot and humid evenings so that makes stitching very difficult but I will just have to wait and see how I do.

As for now it is time to try and get some work completed so that I can get home and hopefully enjoy some stitching time.

Stitching progress

Celtic Butterfly - August 16th

Where did the last week go?  

Celtic Butterfly - August 23rd

It's hard to believe that another week has gone by and my stitching progress has one again been slow.  Of course, being busy with work and life in general it has meant that I haven't been able to get as much time for stitching in as I would have liked.

I was able to spend some time on the butterfly and am happy to be able to say that I am now seeing the end of this project.  I love the butterfly it is just the overdyed thread that is getting to me.  I have to keep remembering what end of the floss I put in the needle and how any threads have been used on each side of the butterfly.  Theses are the things that have mean a bit slower progress on this version than on the blue version of the butterfly.

I do have one more version of the butterfly that I would like to stitch but it is going to wait for a while as I think I need a break from this design.  I also have a couple of other projects that need some attention so will be trying to get back to them after the butterfly is completed.

Polar Bear - August 16th

Besides working on the butterfly I was able to spend some time one evening working on the polar bear.  Of course I can work hours on this project before it will look like much but at least I am slowly making some progress on all the blue that is in the piece.

Polar Bear - August 23rd

This week I hope to be able to put the polar bar onto the scroll bars and then I may be able to make some progress a little faster on the piece.  Well, at least that is my thinking but considering the size of it there is a lot of work ahead of me on this project to even get it partly done.  I have been trying to continue to work on no more than two of the pages of the design at once.  I think if I can get at least the first page done I will feel good but that means I have to focus on the lower part of the water and get it done.

This week I am not sure how much time I will have for stitching but am going to try and make a bit of progress on at least the butterfly.

The shawl that I started last week is also starting to look a bit better so hopefully I can work on that as well this week.  Most of the crocheting on the shawl this week was done while sitting in a car as a passenger.  It's great having a pattern that I can do without really looking at it. I think the shawl is around 12 inches long and I need to get it to 60 inches before it's done.  So maybe next week I will remember to take a picture of it so that I can add it to the blog.

Now it's time for me to get to work and get some things off my desk.