Craft Update

Yep. Still being crafty. First I will update on the Christmas stocking I am making for E. This is where I was last month. And this is where I am now. Good progress being made, I think. I have finished Santa and have started working on the bag of toys.


And I finished the quilt I was making for E. Here it is:

It isn't perfect. I didn't square up the squares as well as I should have and the binding is only s0-s0 but this is really the first real quilt I have ever made. I call it a quilt but it was really designed to be a wall hanging. Doesn't matter. E likes it. Next time I might tackle a full-size quilt.

I have also finished the top for a fleecy quilt/blanket for my niece's baby. I think it came out really nice. It is similar to a blanket/quilt I made before except this one I personalized with the baby's name. I just need to put the backing on it, quilt it and bind the edges.

I am also crocheting a blanket and a little dress for the baby. The blanket will match the dress which matches some booties I have already made. This is what the dress will look like except I am not using pink. I am using a really pretty variegated yarn. I haven't decided if I am going to make the hat & booties either (and that's not the blanket I am making either...just the dress...maybe the booties & hat). I have a pair of booties already made using the variegated yarn so if I make these I may just make them in pink & white. This pattern is a 6 month pattern so if I make it it should fit little Ava in December. Perfect, I think. Booties & baby hats don't take very long to make anyway. I can whip them out in an evening or two.

I hope to finish all the baby things by the end of this month so I can get them mailed to her by May sometime. Baby is due in June.

Craftiness

It seems I am always working on some crafty thing or other. For instance this past Christmas when I should have been working on this:

...and I was working on this instead:

I haven't quite decided what to do with that little birth announcement thingy. I initially started it for E (since he is now seven years old I thought it might be time to finish one of these for him), but I found another one in my stash that I might make for him. I might put this up on Etsy (yes, I have a shop there tho' I haven't put anything up for sale there or anything...) but I am sure I can't get out of it the effort I put in to it (I'll bet there are a couple of hundred of hours of work in that). Even if I charged a hundred dollars for it (would someone pay a hundred dollars for that??), I am making way less than a buck an hour. Not exactly a get rich quick scheme.

After I finished the birth thingy I went back to the Christmas stocking (obviously didn't finish it in time for Christmas but I will for this year). Anyway...then I found out that my niece was going to have a baby, so I made this:

(yes, I ran out of blue ONE ROW before finishing; I think it looks good this way too...)

I made a little pair of booties too (I can finish a pair of those in an evening) and am trying to decide what I want to make next for her.

Oh, yeah...E decided he wanted me to make a quilt for him. I have the top almost all done (no pic yet...maybe next week). It is a pattern called 'radiating squares' and looks pretty cool.

Well, that is some of what I do in my spare time.

Other things

I do have an interest (and can write about) things other than the crap that my life has been recently. As I mentioned once before, I like to do handicrafts...sewing, knitting, crocheting, needlework, etc. Lately I have been into cross stitching.

I was first introduced to cross stitching quite a few years ago from a colleague who said she enjoyed it. So I went out and bought a cross stitch kit...one of the stamped ones wherein the pattern is stamped on the cloth and you merely follow the lines and stitch where ever there is a mark on the cloth. So I bought one.

And never finished it. Then I bought another. And didn't finish that either.

So I left cross stitching alone for quite a while.

About 10 years later, B's brothers started having children...and I wanted to make those cross stitched birth announcements. So I bought another kit only this time it was counted cross stitching (god this is boring). The difference being that in counted cross stitch you start out with a blank canvas and count the stitches (get it? Counted. Cross. Stitch).

And I finished it. And then I finished another. Hey! I can do this!

As boring as that may sound, I find it very relaxing and quite engrossing. I have stayed up very late because I just want to finish This One Section.

One of the things that I finished lately is this picture that I am going to hang in E's room (once it gets properly washed and framed). It is from the book Guess How Much I Love You. I know that some people don't like this book (i.e. "...why would a father try to 'one-up' his child?"). To those people I say, phlbbbbttt (*wipe drool from chin*). I think it is a sweet book that speaks of a parent's boundless love for a child.

And I finished this piece this past weekend. I actually started this about 5 years ago. I got it about half done and then it got put aside and then we moved and I couldn't find it for quite some time. I found it when I was unpacking all of my craft stuff. This is one of the bigger and more complex things that I have done. It has a lot of colors and a lot of outlining; I still need to add some beads to it, but I think I will wash it and iron it first. It is a bell pull so I also have to find some hardware to put at the top and the bottom. I think a trip to the craft store is in the offing...

The next thing I am going to work on is this Christmas stocking. I actually bought this last October hopefully to finish before the holiday, but only got this far when my interest was highjacked by staring at legal documents and trying to understand how the f$#% someone's life can get tweaked out of control so quickly.

It will be ready for next Christmas.