Done, Done, Done

Well I felt fairly productive yesterday. Since we had the day off I started straight away on my  framing project. So here's the new wall. All the frames are the ones I painted black, the newest one is the big one on the altered cross stitch. The rest of the wall is still blank, much to the husband's chagrin. I think he thinks decorating any wall is an all or nothing prospect, but I'm happy with my little corner of odd cross stitch for now.


Once that was done I finished up the embroidery project I was working on as well. I think I'm really getting the hang of consistent stitching. I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing with this now, but I think there may be more laser cut wood frames in my future, because I do have plenty more wall to fill.







I also got the tatted necklace finished and listed. I was apparently much closer to finished than I had thought when I put it aside due to tatting fatigue. I only had one more motif section to add and then it was just pressing, getting the hardware on and photographing. I am getting progressively more lazy about that last point though. I did also get the matching bracelet photographed, but I was saving it to list today. That way it'll look like I accomplished things two days in a row and I can spread out the feeling of productivity even if it's a lie.

All I have on tap for today besides schooling, is another embroidery design. I can really hardly wait until the shop gets a little more consistently busy for the holidays. At least I really hope that that is coming soon, because I think I really would rather be tatting with purpose.

Embroidery Again

Things went in a decidedly different direction than I had planned over the weekend. I thought that I would get the new necklace finished up, but the sheer size of the thing found me too bored to keep going with several motifs needed to finish it. I needed a diversion, so I found a bunch of them. First there were video games, damn husband bought me Animal Crossing...I curse him forever, then there was a frame project. I finally found one for my last cross stitch, but it was turquoise, so I made it black. Hopefully I'll like how it turns out and I'll take a picture of it. Lastly I turned to embroidery again.

I keep being tempted by the designs on Urban Threads. I don't have an embroidery machine and clearly couldn't afford to get one right now even if I wanted one, so hand embroidery is it. They released a new collection of designs on sale and when I got the email I downloaded them straight away. Then I had to find a better way to transfer the design to fabric than last time. An internet search and one trip to Michaels later, I was stitching this. No, there is no real reason for this diversion other than I wanted to see if I had skills enough to do it justice.

So I suppose that gives me two things to work on this week. I can finish the tatted necklace and I can work on the embroidery. I guess that's a start.

Twilled Again

Nothing new and interesting happened to break the monotony. No sales nor ideas and with the last embroidery kit done, I was at quite a loss for something to do with my sitting time. I would like to thank everyone for the lovely comments regarding my embroidery attempts and especially SWtrompeter for the idea of sewing it to an existing pillow, which is right up my lazy alley. As soon as I'm able to get a suitable one, that's most likely what I'll do.

I remembered late in the afternoon that I had quite a lot of scrap muslin and I decided to do some more twilling. I used a free PDF pattern from Urban Threads and made this little piece of nonsense. It's their logo, so that's why it's free, but it certainly looks like something I would make regardless. It's far from perfect, but it gave me something else to do with the time devoted to clearing off my DVR with the kids. 

I think I am going to buckle down and maybe try to get back to some designing today. I did a bit of tatting yesterday, but nothing of consequence and I really need to do something to jump start sales in the shop if I don't want this year's holidays to be ramen and i.o.u.'s. Hopefully the Muses will be kind.

Done With That

My day was a bit thrown off yesterday by one of the cats exhibiting the symptoms of a bladder infection. Not the kind that one can politely ignore either, the messy, obvious, take me to the vet now, kind. So that's what we did. As soon as the office was open we made an appointment that was right in the middle of schooling. This drew schooling out much longer and I didn't even really sit down until well after lunch. The cat seems fine by the way. A few shots and she seems right as rain.

Once I did get a chance to sit down and work I was finally able to finish stitching. Here it is in all it's unwashed, unpressed, straight off the hoop, glory. Of course I looked at the directions for turning it into a pillow and I'm afraid the concept seems far too fiddly for me to even bother. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it other wise though. I suppose I could frame it, but that seems silly somehow. I'll figure something out...eventually.

Well, that brings me to the end of my stalling project and leaves me with little to do. I think I said that I'll work on snowflakes until a sale finally distracts me, but hopefully I find something more interesting to do instead. At least I managed to learn something new while stalling this time.

Twilling

As predicted, there were no tatting tasks for me at all yesterday. After schooling was wrapped, it was
straight to the stitching project. I worked on it on and off all day and I'm still not quite done yet. There is a hell of a lot of twilling on thing. Good thing I find this stitch enjoyable.

I've made so many small mistakes on this kit that it's probably going to look pretty bad when I'm all done with it though. I'll still finish it and turn it into the pillow it's meant to be. Then, when people ask about it, I'll just claim I made it when I was first learning and fail to mention how recently that actually was. They can assume I made it as a kid and I won't correct them. Well either that or I'll just hide it away somewhere. I just want to finish the thing.

Again, no orders in queue and no ideas for new tatted pieces either. That means another day of stitching and I'm hoping that I can finish today, or at least get really close to it. Then I guess I'll get back to using my spare time to make snowflakes for my mother-in-law and continue to cross my fingers for sales.

Weekend Recap

I don't think I touched a tatting needle all weekend, but I certainly managed to keep busy with other projects and not just the embroidery. On Saturday I finally put together the headpiece for my oldest daughter's Halloween costume. She decided on a Dia De Los Muertos costume. We're still not sure how she answers the question, "What are you?", but we're still doing it. I was pretty impressed with myself for figuring how to do this with absolutely no technical knowledge on the subject. I used two different kinds of silk flowers, some lace fabric left over from a formal dress my mother made me in high school, a headband, hot glue and lots of wire. It appears surprisingly sturdy.

That wasn't the only costume accessory I put together this weekend either. The other daughter wants to be Gamora from Guardians Of The Galaxy. The costume I could buy, but she needed rings and I wasn't going to spend money on many rings for a child who wont be able to wear them in a year. So I got some thick, flat, craft wire, some metal files, and I fashioned a half dozen adjustable rings with it. Yep, I was on a Halloween roll, never mind that it's still well over a month away.

All other sitting time I devoted to the embroidery kit. I am on the last stitch and it's my new favorite stitch ever, twilling. It's that stitch in cream at the top of the photo and I still have plenty of it to do before I'm well and truly done. My new least favorite stitch ever, the bullion stitch. It hurt my fingers and even though I got better at it as I went, it still looks nowhere near as good as the example photo. If I never do that one again I'll be pretty happy. Back to the twilling though, I kind of want to do that all over the place.

I'm still without any new orders in the shop, so that just means more stitching today. I'm afraid if sales get any further apart I'm going to forget how to make things. Maybe I'll pick up the tatting needle for a while today just so I don't lose my edge. Or maybe I will get an order and I'll have to pick it up. Here's hoping.

This and That

After schooling much of my day was waiting for Apple devices to update. Of course that does come with it's fair share of sitting about, so I got back to stitching. I did indeed make it to the next stitch in the design. Unfortunately it's the one I'm pretty sure I'm bad at, the satin stitch. My daughter looked over and said, "That one looks much easier than the other one." I proceeded to explain that somehow it's simplicity makes it the easiest for me to screw up most visibly. I still managed to get most of that section done though.

About this time I got a new order from the shop. I didn't hear it come through because apparently the new update to my phone has messed with my notifications. Hopefully that all gets sorted soon, because I do adore that cha-ching sound, but I digress. The order was a piece that I actually wanted to remake, so down the embroidery needle went and out came the tatting one.

I'm still only about halfway through remaking this necklace so that gives me some tatting to do today as well. Then it's back to the stitching. I've become rather determined to prove I can finish this thing even though it's clearly not my strong suit. I can be a wee bit obsessive when I put my mind to it.

Stitching

As predicted schooling took up the morning and then I got the custom order finished and in the mail. This just left me with the stitching again. I'm still on the same stitch, but three colors in now. Of course the second and third color were just slight variations of the same color, so it's hard to tell that I've done anything different.

There was nothing new from the shop to do, so the stitching was all I did and it's the plan for today as well unless someone surprises me with an order or something. If I'm stuck on the embroidery, I'm hoping I can finish all the chain stitching and move onto something different at least. Though as usual, I would be pleased as punch to be distracted from this by some tatting. You know I just keep writing it so that maybe the Universe gets the hint and drops some benevolence. Here's to it then.

Weekends

Another tatting free weekend, but this time it was kind of on purpose. With no orders in queue, I chose to hone my stitching skills when I had time to sit. I even managed to finish one color of the design and move on to the second. I've still only worked the same kind of stitch though, so clearly I'll be at this one awhile. Saturday we went off to the Renaissance faire for the morning and the evening was spent in a fairly rare bout of socialization with friends. In the middle, there was being tired, some stitching and even some reading. I had watched a movie on Friday that made me want to read the book it was based on and thanks to the wonders of modern electronic books, I could read it immediately.

Sunday was our normal errands and probably due to the usual amount of energy expending on Saturday, it was mostly sitting about after that. Also I think that the kids gave me their most recent cold, or whatever it is. I've got the 'it'll hurt if I swallow' throat, some lovely cold sores, and a quality headache right now. If it follows the same pattern, I'm about to get quite congested and snuffly. Really looking forward to it.

Late in the weekend I did receive one custom order request that managed to get all the way to ordered, so I do have a tatting project for today. Hopefully I won't be too under the weather to get it done quickly and get a photo to share. Aside from the sick, it's a good way to start a new week.

Something Else

Yep, it's yet another one of those, I got nothing for you days. After schooling we headed off on some Halloween errands. Yes, I'm aware it's barely the middle of September. The children have been contemplating their potential costumes for months though and after some killjoy, reality checks from me, they settled on some. One was ordered and the other required a trip to get large silk roses to make a headpiece. That's what we were off buying. I could have gotten straight to work on making that, but I think I'm still sussing out the details in my head, so something for another day.

After some wandering of the house and searching for long lost things, and the subsequent allergy attack from the dust, I sat down to do some candlewicking.  Why? Well mostly because I had been gifted someone's needlework stash that included cross stitch, embroidery and candlewick kits some time ago and I ran across them while searching for something else. I had nothing better...that I actually wanted to do, so that's what I picked. It's a kit for lilies on a pillow and since I haven't worked any of these stitches since I was taught as a child, it's at least a little challenging. It's also blissfully time consuming. Maybe after I relearn all the stitches, I can get some of the clever embroidery designs I've seen about and make those in my increasingly frequent spare time.

I've nothing better, that I want to do today either, so more stitching instead of knotting is likely. Hoping to take a trip to the Northern California Renaissance Faire this weekend as well, so that should keep us busy and then exhausted.