January 16, 2009

And it continues ...

... to happen every time a new Fox Collection Catalogue arrives in the mail.

That's right, I put in another order for cross stitch kits. Last time I told my self no more for a year. At the time I was thinking a twelve month period starting from that date. Well, it hasn't happened. The new year started and a new catalogue arrived, and as they say, "The rest is history."

I've put most of the pictures in my 'Projects to Start' list - except for one that I can't get a picture for.

So there you have it. I'm beginning to think I'm addicted to buying new cross stitch kits.

I was talking to a friend about this very thing - 4 days before my latest order - and she has the theory that we are planning for our retirement!! Lets just say that I have at least 40 years before that day arrives, so if I was to keep buying kits at the rate I am and my current time spent stitching remains the same, I think I should be able to do at least 3 per year in retirement, as well as one a year during my working life. Of course the assumption is that I will still be able to see to do it, I won't have arthritis in my hands and I will still love doing cross stitch by then.

Hmm ... I think I need to invest in a new storage box for my 'Projects to Start' collection.

January 13, 2009

Holiday Projects and Progress

Ok, so I know you have all been wondering what I have been doing over the past 3 weeks.
Well, there were Christmas, birthday and New Year celebrations, hanging around at home, watching TV and DVDs, sewing, stitching and decluttering (see the link to my other blog).
I decorated our family calendar. I guess you could call it an off the page scrapbooking project. This year I branched out a bit and some pages have some 3D bits on them. I discovered that you can colour the Kaiser Craft Fozz Felt with textas and it looks great.

I won some of the white daisy chain several months ago and wasn't sure how to use it, but this worked really well for February.


My mending bag was getting rather full, so I did some of the mending while thinking about a couple of other projects that I wanted to get done. I bought a new set of sheets in the after Christmas sale (normally about $250, I got it for about $75). It is plain blue and there are a lot of other blue sets in our house, so I wanted to jazz it up a bit. I decided that I'd applique a butterfly onto each sheet and pillowcase. Out came my Fiskars Butterflies-1 shape template and I traced the one I wanted onto a piece of paper. After tracing the smaller one, I realised that I didn't really like the shape all that much, so I tried the larger one. That one didn't quite work for me either. So later that day when I was in Spotlight I found the second butterfly template and purchased it.
I haven't traced this one yet, so the sheets are still waiting to be adorned. I also need to decide what fabric to use.
And then there were the new PJ shorts that I was sewing. I bought the fabric months early on a clearance sale, but hadn't had the time to make them. One morning I got out the fabric, cutting board and all my bits and peices and cut them out (after making a couple of adjustments to the pattern). I had forgotten to buy the right colour thread, so I couldn't finish them that day. Once I had purchase that, it only took a couple of hours for me to finish them (although my sewing machine broke part way through and I had to change machines). So here is the finished product.
I haven't worn them yet, probably next week.


Finally, as promised here is an update on my progress of 'Sweetheart's Gate'. It is coming along quite nicely.
I have stitched up to the top on the right side and am now working on the more central parts at the top (all on the same page of the pattern which is divided into 4 with some parts crossing over because of how I photocopied them). There is part of the stitching that you can't see on this photo because it is rolled down on the scroll frame. You can just see bits of it at the bottom. I have done a little more since this was taken last night.
So that's about the extent of my crafting over my holiday.