Crafty catch-up

I need to start finding more creative titles for these posts. 😁

As I expected, my stitchy/crafty productivity of the early-to-mid pandemic fell off as everything at work started getting back to normal. And by normal, I mean completely hectic. And then I moved in May, which certainly didn't help (especially with a longer commute)! But the positive side of the move is that I finally have a real home office/craftroom/library and I'll eventually post some pictures of that once I get things a little more to the final layout and organization I'm aiming for. It's actually not that far off right now but I'd really like to replace one of the tall cabinets with some shelving instead so I can SEE my stuff all the time. Even if I don't have as much time to use the stuff, I can at least look longingly at it on the days I work from home.

FFOs

I actually have a few FFOs since my last update, several of which were stitched, finished, and FFOd this year. I also finished and FFOd the Sun and Moon Mask by Olga Antropova that I posted as a WIP back in January. I made a few small changes to the backstitching and extended the beading from the design to make the hanger. You can see that here:



My next set of finishes were my Tiny Van Gogh paintings by XStitch Obsession on Etsy. I decided to do them on perforated paper, so I had to make a small adjustment to the backstitching on Cafe Terrace. They are all backed with felt and made into magnets and are currently stuck on a filing cabiet at work.



And an FFO from just last week - yet another Mill Hill kit! This is the second of their butterfly designs that I've done and I'll be on the lookout for more to go with the ones I've already done.



Finishes

I have a few stitching finishes that need to be FFOd, but I'm still making decisions about that. So here are the stitched pieces in the meantime!

First up is Wakanda Forever by Parkhopper Bart. I made one main color change since I really wanted to use this fabric and the original yellow (which I changed to green) just completely disappeared on it. I also changed the original white around the Black Panther mask to silver Kreinik braid. This one will probably end up framed eventually, and maybe I can get it to fit in a standard frame size!



Next is a cute little picture I bought on Etsy from Craft Time in Arkham and it will probably end up in a hoop frame and will go to my office. I made a small goof on this and did the backstitching on the dino in black instead of the dark-grey-green-blue it was supposed to be. And I did the lettering with flower thread since it's a little bit thicker.



And finally, Nightmare Before Coffee, from the 2021 Just Cross Stitch Halloween magazine. I had this nice orange-y fabric from Fortnight Fabrics that I really wanted to use for this, but the lettering kind of got a little lost, so I outlined it in a medium orange color. I probably should have used a slightly darker shade, but I think it will show up okay with decent lightling (which I didn't have when I took the photo). This is the one that I'm still trying to decide how to do the final finishing on, but I'm leaning towards a little flatfold since this will probably end up in my office too, over by my little coffee-making area.



WIPs

I didn't take photos of my WIPs today, but I have a couple of things that I've been working on since I finished the Mill Hill butterfly. I'm still slowly making my way on Mill Hill Moonlit Kitties, which I'm pretty sure I've been plugging away on for about 10 years at this point. (Admittedly, there were several years of almost no stitching while my eyes got gradually worse.) I've also started on a little kit by Bent Creek called Candy Corn of Mischief that I ordered a month or so ago and it just arrived this past Friday. It's stitching up pretty fast so that might be a finish next time!

Haul

I won't detail all of the stash aquisitions I've made so far this year - and there has been quite a bit of it - but I did want to mention that joined the Fortnight Fabrics "Oodles of Ornaments" fabric club for 2022 so I've expanded my selection of fabrics for smalls. Expect even more ornaments in the years to come!

That's it for this catch up post. I'll try to get at least one more update in before the end of the year - which is approaching rapidly!

I have actually been doing some stitching!

This was a Mill Hill kit that I picked up when my LNS closed last year. In hindsight, I shouldn't have backed it with a dark felt since now you can't see the antennae, but I'm happy with it.

I've started on another old Halloween design that has been in my "to do" basket even though we're now past the holiday itself. But it's a small project so maybe I'll have it finished before the urge to work on Christmas stuff takes over. :)

Happy New Year!

I was shocked to see how long it had been since my last post when I went to write this post today! Of course that also means that I haven't been doing a lot of stitching lately, but hopefully I'll be able to get some more in for this new year.

Looking back on 2010, I did meet at least one goal and finished Halloween Fairy, although I still have one large project left that I need to finish (Catherine of Aragon) which will have to be a goal of 2011. I also want to start to make a dent in some of the old kits I still have around.

In lieu of recent stitching, here are two older projects that I was recently able to finally get some photos of. The first is, I think, the first "over one" on a small count (28 ct in this case) project that I did. It was originally a gift for my grandmother and now is at my dad's. The pattern was from a British magazine from the 1990s, but I don't know which one.



And the second is the largest needlepoint project I've ever done. It was from a kit and I probably stitched it at some point from the late 1990s to early 2000s.



I'm almost done with the first of six kitty cat Christmas ornaments that I picked up last year and I think I'll set it aside after I finish the one I'm working on. I just hope they don't turn in to another set of "15 year ornaments" like the batch I finally finished a few years ago!