Craft to do list

Currently, I'm working on about several separate projects, all of which, surprisingly, are for me! I therefore am lagging behind in completing (or making real headway) in any of them. So, here's a list of what I'm currently crafting, or am meant to be crafting:

1. H.M.S. Victory model

This plastic model kit is one I bought for myself at Christmas with some Christmas money. It's been out of its box and occupying this coffee table since the very beginning of January. This is my weekend project at the moment as I don't find the light good enough in the evenings (even with a table lamp) so it's taking a pretty long time. I'm really looking forward to having this one finished (hopefully soonish) as it takes up a whole table! There are pretty much just the masts and sails left to do though so I'm hoping I'll have it done before too long.

2. 'Sampler des 4 saisons' cross-stitch

This is a cross-stitch I started back in March of last year, and has been packaged away until now, and blogged about here. I've been working on this again for about two weeks now, and am nearing completion of the middle section of the design. After that there'll just be the two borders to do. I'm currently finding that this is an excellent evening craft as it doesn't stop me watching TV and is also something I can do even with cold hands!

3. Hexagon quilt

As mentioned here, I'm intending on making a hexagon quilt, and as this is the craft I've most recently decided to do, it's the one I'm most excited about! So far, I've just decided on making the hexagons 7/8" and have printed out 480 little hexagons on regular printer paper. They now all need cutting out before I can start making the fabric hexagons so this is something I've been doing some evenings when I haven't felt like cross-stitching. I've done about half of the hexagons so far, and have been placing them in an origami box that I made from the box for my H.M.S. Victory model so it's nice and sturdy. This is taking a fair while, and it probably should be the last craft on my list, but I'm too excited about getting properly started on it!

4. Knitted Whippet

Like the pug I made in December (see here), this is a dog that I'm knitting for my friend (well, actually, her Mum). I haven't yet started this project, but have recently bought the wool. The whippet I will make was requested to be completely mink coloured, so that makes it easier in terms of the knitting as I won't need to change colour. This project doesn't need to be finished until mid-April so it's not particularly urgent and therefore I'll get to it at some point. 

5. Knitted English Bull Terrier 

Again, this knitted dog is for the same friend who wants the whippet, and is even less urgent as she doesn't need it completed until the summer (i.e. July). Again, I've recently bought the wool (at the same time as for the whippet), and will start it once I've at least finished the other knitted dog.

So, there you have my current craft list. I'm pretty excited about each of the projects (which helps), and they're keeping me plenty busy! I'll keep you posted about how each of them goes; I just don't know how long they will take!

Bad at being crafty

Since moving back to England, I've been surprisingly bad at being creative. I haven't yet finished the cross-stitch I started in Spain, or the Birthday Blanket that's been ongoing since last October in France. I also actually haven't started any other projects, as surprising as that is!

All I've managed to do is do some baking, such as this apple and cinnamon cake:

Aside from the lack of crafting I've completed, and the baking that's been done, mostly my wife and I have been settling into the apartment. We've still been doing some tidying and organising of our stuff, including buying things for our new home like the microwave we picked up today:

But speaking of being crafty, I've been having a little look at what Christmas gifts to make for people and decided on what to make my mother and grandmother so as soon as I've managed to finish the cross-stitch from Spain, I'll be making a start on those. I will get better at crafting again, promise!

Toby Fox

At the beginning of 2011 (although it feels much longer ago) my local fabric and haberdashery shop was announced to be closing after 40 or so years. There, as there always is, was a closing down sale, which I inevitably went to several times to try to catch me a bargain. While looking through the various leftover items at one of the later stages of the sale, I found a fair number of Woodland Folk cross-stitch kits. I immediately thought they were super cute and decided that the four smaller kits I'd seen would be mine. 

I started one pretty much at once, but then with packing-up and moving a couple of times since, the cross-stitch I'd started was packaged in a box in our storage facility along with the majority of my wife and I's belongings.

Feeling a little more settled over the summer, since returning home from France, I recovered that started cross-stitch, knowing that it was smaller and therefore more portable than the 'Sampler des 4 Saisons' I'd started in France this year. 

So, out came Toby Fox. Over the course of a couple of weeks, stealing time in the evenings after my youngest sister had gone to bed, or weekends when everyone else was out, I made progress with Toby. Finishing all the cross stitches, but not all the backstitching, I decided that Toby and the other cross-stitch kits would be useful to bring to Spain as standalone projects to keep me occupied here. I figured four weeks without any kind of crafty hobby to do might be a bit hard to maintain!?

And, here he is, in his finished state, just waiting to go back to England and for a frame to be found for him.

Who Doesn't Love a Freebie?

Not a whole lot has been going on over here what with having less time to complete projects than I had in France. The Birthday Blanket is slowly getting sewn together and I also completed a mini cross-stitch project over a couple of evening last week. 

The cross-stitch kit came free with CrossStitcher magazine that my mother picked up with the shopping one evening, and made a sweet little bookmark that I have given to my wife (she generally reads more than I do).

Working with linen

I have a new cross-stitch to do, this one also being an Isabelle Haccourt Vautier, entitled "Sampler des 4 Saisons".

Gathering the supplies

All the cross-stitches I have previously completed have been done on Aida, so this will be my first cross-stitch worked on linen. I have a piece of 32 count Belfast Linen -colour Dirty- to work this design on, and hope that it will go well.

So far, the cross-stitch seems to be going well, although I am finding that I am working slower than I did on the previous project.

Finishing up with the mountains

Just as it's starting to get into spring seems an appropriate time to have finished the 'Un Jour à la Montagne' cross-stitch I've been working on for the last three weeks. 

It was stitched on DMC 6/cm aida in Ecru and ended up using 5 skeins of embroidery thread, DMC 815. 

Here's how it looked a week ago:

And after adding the border:

Now it's been masking-taped to the wall, as we've not been able to find it a frame despite looking everywhere here we can think of!

I know, it still needs a good iron!

A Ribba too small ...

So, that unfilled photo frame that we bought at Ikea on Saturday? 

For the cross-stitch I've nearly finished, I said. 

Unfortunately, that didn't fit! (Not that it's finished yet, either, but shhh)

Instead, change of plans: we decided to get some wedding photos printed and put them into the frame, simples, and, we think, gorgeous :D

Now if only we were able to hang things in our little apartment. 

Off to the mountains

Time to get on with the next project, this time a cross-stitch.

This cross-stitch is Isabelle Haccourt Vautier's 'Un Jour à la Montagne', which is pretty appropriate as a representation of our time in the Alps.

We bought the chart in a sale at the very end of last year with money given to us as a wedding present :)

I've assembled my materials ...

... and already made a start