Cards

While my recent posts have all been about cross stitch or knitting, I do other crafts as well.  Lately I’ve been in the mood to do some papercrafting, and have made three cards I wanted to show off.

First, the inspiration for this card came from buying a brown ink pad and having kraft cardstock, which lead me to wonder what I could do with tone-on-tone stamping:

Then I needed a card for my grandmother, so I painted her a rose following this tutorial from the Frugal Crafter:

Finally, I love the look of heat embossing and decided to play with it and a stamp I have:

(The rose obviously went to my grandmother, but the other two are or will soon be in my Etsy shop if you want one of them.)

Letting go

I’ve never been a one-project-at-a-time type of crafter (which is probably obvious if you’ve read any of my posts).  I start multiple projects and work on them as I like, and it sometimes takes me years to finish something, but I do finish it.

This week I decided to let one of my projects go — you may remember this horse cross stitch:

I started it because I wanted to start something and I’d wanted to do the pattern for a long time.  And it was fun at first.  But then I just lost interest — looking at it didn’t excite me and working on it felt like a chore.  This past week, it’s even prevented me from working on some of my projects that I do really want to finish, because I felt like it’s nearly done so I should be working on it, even though I didn’t want to (and I didn’t actually have a need to finish it).

After thinking about it for a bit, I decided I wasn’t going to finish it.  I put the embroidery floss back in my general storage and tucked the mostly completed piece and the pattern away (I’m thinking I might eventually want to use the finished part of the horse’s head in another project, so I didn’t want to get rid of it entirely).  I’ve felt a lot better about my crafting after I came to that decision.

I feel like I could have come to the decision to stop working on this project sooner, as it wasn’t fun for a while.  How do you know when you no longer want to finish something vs. you’re just temporarily bored with it?  Do you consciously choose to stop working on something or keep it around in case you change your mind later?

Stitching update

As promised, here’s the update on my cross stitching and blackwork projects.  First up, my Save the Stitches blackwork sampler.

I love this thing — it’s a ton of fun to work and it’s going to be amazing when I hang it on my wall.  My camera sometimes has trouble picking the patterns up, so here are two close-ups to show you the stitching better: 

Next, you may recall that I was working a horse pattern that I’d wanted to do forever but didn’t have the exact right materials for.  It’s coming along well:

My only real issue with it is that I don’t love the reddish brown I created with a blended needle:

I don’t feel like ripping it out and I don’t really have a better option, so I’m just not going to worry about it — it looks okay from a distance, and I suspect part of the reason I don’t like it is that I’ve seen the original pattern so I know what it’s supposed to look like.

Finally, I don’t think I’ve actually worked on my Morning Flight since last time you saw it, but I’m including it here for completeness’ sake (plus pulling it out to photograph made me really want to start working on it again!).

Knit all the things!

Wow, it’s been a while.  I’ve been busy crafting, but never seemed to be able to get pictures to have anything to share (mostly because I was knitting late at night and never thought about it during the day).

Almost a year ago, I’d talked about a system of bags I’d created so I’d could only have five projects going at one time.  I’m still using the bags, and I really like how they keep my projects contained and in sight but not taking up table space.  However, I’ve got way more than five projects at the moment…  The last couple of months I’ve been in the mood to start a ton of things, and I decided to just go with it.  (And now I’m working on finishing things so I can get back down to five.)  A lot of the things I’m going to be showing today were started in that time.  (You can click on the pictures to go to my Ravelry project page for more details on any of them, or the links to see the Ravelry entry for the pattern and designer.)

First off, if you read my last post on the hanging storage, you’ll remember that I had a pair of cabled knee socks I was knitting.  Since then, I’d realized the yarn I had was terrible for cables, so I restarted them as a pair of lace socks.  Then I decided I didn’t really like the lace pattern.  So I ripped everything out and started poking around Ravelry’s pattern database for ideas.  Turns out, the yarn is perfect for a beaded lace shawl that I’ve been wanting to do ever since I first saw it — Boo Knit’s Out of Darkness.

If you look at the top edge, you can see I’m finally past all the garter stitch and on to the lace!

I also made myself a little rat out of some of my oldest yarn.

I love the realism of the pattern, by Rabbit Hole Knits.  However, after making this little fellow, I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate working on tiny things that need to be pieced together, so I suspect this will be my last toy.

I also started a really nifty colorwork hat by Liat Hessel — I love the way the pattern comes together at the crown of the hat!  I’m using this as a project to use up some old yarn that I have, and am planning on donating the finished hat, as bright red really isn’t my color.

Speaking of using up some leftover yarn, I’m also making myself a lace earwarmer/headband out of the leftovers from another project.  I started it back when it was freezing outside, but of course I didn’t get it done in time to wear it.  I’m hoping that I can get it done before it gets to be freezing again!

I also ended up starting two scrap projects, one for my aran-weight acrylic and one for my fingering-weight sock yarn.  For the acrylic, I’m using Frankie Brown’s Ten Stitch Blanket (which is a brilliant design).

For the sock yarn, I’m using a slight variation on the Beekeeper’s Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits.  I’m not stuffing the hexagons, and I’m planning on sewing them together rather than just tying the corners.  I haven’t made much progress, but it’s a really great project to keep in a little pouch so if I’m running out somewhere and want to grab something to do, I have all my supplies.

Last, but certainly not least, is my rug.  You may recall when I mentioned that the knitting needle I’d bought for it broke.  The manufacturer sent me a replacement, which is showing no signs of trouble (I am being careful with it, especially as the rug gets heavier and heavier).  I’ve not made a ton of progress since then, but I have gotten several more color stripes done:

For the record, I did not force my dog to lie on the rug instead of the couch (where she has been in past photos).  If I leave the rug out somewhere where she can get to it, she will lie on it (she’s currently lying on the folded up rug).

Whew!  That was a lot of knitting to get caught up on (and it really gives me more motivation to stick to my current projects instead of starting more!).  My next update will probably be a progress report on my cross stitch and blackwork, as that’s the other main category of crafting that I’ve been working on.