Oh look, it's raining again ...

I mean, "Hooray! July is here!" 

*ahem* 

I meant to write yesterday. The day got away from me.  I spent the evening working on my bunny stitch. 

I told my hubby that the closer I come to completing this stitch the more goof ups I make. 

Over the weekend I started stitching up the bee. 

And quickly realized I had made some mistakes stitching up the leaves.  I thought "I can make this work." until I realized I couldn't make it work.  

Bah!

So yesterday I spent my lunch hour ripping out stitches.  

Ugh ... no matter how I try to rip out a large number of stitches, it turns into a mess and then the mess takes longer to clean up than if I had been able to just take the threads out. 

Last night I diligently worked on this little bee and put the final stitches in around 9 p.m. 

Finally! Now the back stitching can commence. 

This cross stitch project has been my main focus. 

When I wasn't working on my February Lady Sweater.  Mostly I've been working on my sweater in the mornings, before getting ready for the day and work. 

I am done with the sweater body.  Yay!  Time to start the sleeves.  I have just over four skeins of the Temu yarn to work with.  I'm optimistic that each sleeve will need only 2 skeins each. 

I had the idea that I would write a post at the beginning of the month stating what active projects I have, and what I hoped to get done by the end of the month.  Overly enthusiastic, perhaps. The list will help me get things in perspective since I'm still kind of all over the place, project-wise. Frankly, until I get this bit sorted out I don't feel I can move forward and make a flosstube. 

So things that are currently in the works/percolating along. 

Knits

February Lady Sweater - I would like to get this complete by the end of the month

Monkey socks - Another project I'd like to get done by the end of the month.

Princess Passenger socks - No deadline since I'm only going to work on them when I'm a passenger.  I will pick up stitches on the heel flap in the house.  I don't think I'd be able to do so in a bouncy vehicle. 

Quilts

Sandpiper quilt - I have the top all sewn together and the backing sewn together. I'm debating on whether to put a label on, or not.  The binding still needs to be cut. I would like to have this done by the end of the month. 

Just picture all my squares with sashing and borders around them.

Yes, this is my quilt backing, all in a heap. I think the color will look fantastic with the front. 

Dancing stars quilt - I have about half the quilts squares to sew, still. ... I think I'm going to hold this one until August, unless I get the other things done. 

I have no current photos of completed squares. Sorry. 

Sewing projects

I now have fabric for five WIP project bags.  I want to make them by the end of the month.  I could maybe accomplish this.  It's something to strive for. 

Spinning

My spinning has been pushed so far to the back burner that I haven't touched it in months.  I would like to spend one evening each week of July spinning my little heart away.  Currently the Tour de Fleece is going on.  I've never been good at following any kind of a-long, so I didn't even try to start it this year. 

No current photos of the wool I'm working with. 

Cross Stitch

Currently there are three cross stitch projects going. 

Bunny stitch before the back stitching. 

Where One Piece is. I haven't touched it in a while.  The goal is to get it done by Christmas, at least.  If not, then February next year. 

You may be surprised to read that I *finally* started my porkie cross stitch.  I decided to make it a birthday start.  Well ... I started it during my birthday week. 

It's not much but it is a start. I was still a bit intimidated to start it, and then I just went ahead and set up the aida cloth on my q-snap and started it. 

All the colors ... all 49 of them. 

I've been on the hunt for a porcupine needle minder.  Most of what I find are hedgehogs or images that really don't look like porcupines.  I may end up making my own.  Though I'm not sure how I will go about it. 

Project Name: Porcupine cross stitch

Chart purchased from Etsy: Purple Stitching
Started: June 2024, during my birthday week, 

Finished: 

Floss in called DMC colors: 167, 168, 169, 310, 317, 318, 413, 414, 415, 433, 437, 451, 452, 453, 524, 535, 611, 612, 640, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 762, 779, 840, 841, 842, 844, 927, 928, 934, 935, 939, 3021, 3023, 3031, 3032, 3041, 3072, 3371, 3756, 3787, 3799, 3828, 3863, 3864, 3866

Needle Size: 26

Made For: myself. 

Against my better judgement I kinda kitted up a few more cross stitches up that have come across my social media the last month or so. ... I'm really tempted to clear the cache, so to speak and take them out of the bucket until I get less projects on my plate.  As I keep reminding myself, there are no deadlines or urgent reasons to work these projects. So I just may file the floss back in to my storage system and put the charts away for now. 

My WIP bucket. My February Lady Sweater is in the blue daisy bag. 

I have this other project going.  It hasn't been touched for a while.  

A month ago, or so, I saw something on a few flosstubes and I thought "Hey, that's a good idea."

What, you may be wondering ... 

Putting a master set of floss on floss drops and sorting them by color families. 

I don't remember who came up with the idea but it took flosstube by storm, I think. 

This is a set of floss from Temu. The colors match DMC.  It's amazing! 

So my idea is to use this floss for my master set of colors and fill in the few that may be missing with regular DMC.  Also, if I need some floss in a pinch, I can use the floss from my master set. 

I think it will also be helpful to make color subs in the event I'm not wild about a color listed on a chart. 

I don't know how many I have put on floss drops yet.  I sort of burned out on it after a weekend of punching out floss drops.  I think I might have done some damage to my punch. Or, the card stock I was using for making themed floss drops was thicker than what I'm used to.

I'll post more in-progress project photos on my Instagram

Something just happened and I lost the tail-end of my blog post. I guess that is my cue to go work on my back stitching. 

We have reached that point of winter ...

 It's too cold out to really do anything.  Too much snow, but not enough for anything fun. 

Unless you are in to ice fishing on the bay.

Winter doldrums ... the Monday of winter. ... whatever you want to call it, we are in it. 

I'm not even sure what I mean anymore.  The cold snap (and I use that term loosely, considering the area I am in) is done.  Today we had a high in the upper 20s F.  The rest of the week the high temps are supposed to be in the 30s.  I'm just waiting for spring fever to hit me. 

Okay ... 

Last week I had Thursday and Friday off of work.  I have vacation time to burn before my work anniversary in February.  I'll have been at the paper for 21 years. TWENTY-ONE years! Can you believe it?  I can't. 

I decided to make use of this time to catch up on some of my crafty endeavors, and maybe knock a few things off the list. 

My last blog post talked about how I measured incorrectly for my binding on the Daydreams wall quilt. 

I went to Walmart and looked for the fabric.  They did not have it.  I was disappointed but not surprised. It's been a year since I purchased this fabric.  A yard of plain white fabric was purchased, to ensure I did NOT run short this time around. 

Wanna take a guess as to how much binding I would have needed for the original fabric? 

Here, it may make you weep. 

Maybe six inches?  When I set that up to see how close I was I immediately went looking all over the craft room and out in the she shed to see if I had ANY scraps of this fabric left.  I don't have a problem with piecing fabrics together. 

Nothing. 

Here's my finished wall quilt. 

Daydreams Wall quilt

Started: 2/5/23

Finished: 1/18/24

Designer: Sew Sampler Box, Jan. 2022

Fabric: Beautiful Day by Corey Yoder. Background fabrics from walmart. 

Made for: myself.  Will go up on the wall in my bedroom. 

On the bright side, it is my best binding job, to date. 

I put the binding on Thursday night.  I'm very pleased with it, overall.  This was my first time using the walking foot, with the bar, instead of drawing out all those lines.  I used a hera marker and pressed the first line, going each way.  Then used the bar to space them out about an inch apart. 

Friday I decided to tackle the apron I've been wanting to make for around two years now. 

I had the video going, and wasn't feeling stressed at all.  

Bam! The piece I had cut out for the body of the apron. ... I accidentally grabbed that piece and cut the straps out of it. 

Seriously? 

I posted about it in a few places on my social media and a few people gave me suggestions, since I did NOT want to have to buy more fabric. I promptly folded this fabric up and put it away until I could think more clearly about it. 

I figured it would be a good time to break out the WIP progress bag I wanted to make. The WIP-style bag I like, and have made several of, is the one that Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop shows how to make. 

Cruising along with it, and quilting the back of the bag was going easily enough. 

 Then I about 25 percent into the quilting and I thought 'Hey, did I check that both fabrics are the right way?  You can see in the upper photo, to the right ... No, they are not!

I'm pretty sure I said out loud "Are you freaking kidding me?"  

I sat there for about 30 seconds and thought to myself "I should have stopped after the apron, and just gone and knit." 

Then thought "I don't care." The bag is for me.  No one is going to see the back of the bag.  I use vinyl on the front to help showcase the fabric." Then I continued quilting the fabric. 

There may have been an email to my mom's group in the interim about this. ... *ahem*

Before I trimmed down.  I thought I'd take a photo to show how the fabric was. 

After it's all trimmed up. 

The finished product.  I'm thrilled to bits with it.  Naturally, I want to make another one. I also want to put a Valentine project in it.  Cross stitch or sock, it doesn't matter. I think I'm ready to be done stitching Christmas charts. 

Spring WIP bag

Started: Purchased fabric from walmart in early 2023

Finished: 1/19/24

Used tutorial from Fat Quarter Shop

Made for: myself

Gotta say .... my new Janome came with an awesome zipper foot.  The zipper foot with my older Janome is a bit confusing to work with and I'm never quite sure I'm using the right side of it. 

I finished my WIP bag on Saturday. Friday night I worked on it until 10 p.m. and only had the binding left go to.  Thankfully I had enough. ... 

Sunday I tackled the apron again.  Since I had stepped back from it, I was able to go "Oh yeah, just sew the pieces back on!" 

That I did! 

And here you go.  You may not be able to see the three pockets I have sewn on there. I'd love to figure out a way to sew snaps on so I can fold the apron in have and use it to haul stuff in from the garden. 

Farmhouse apron

Started: Purchased fabric at walmart in 2022

Finished: 1/20/24

Designer: Sewing tutorial from Cosmopolitan Cornbread. 

Made for: Myself.  I've wanted a harvest apron for some time, and i think this will fit the bill. 

Would you believe that as soon as I hung this up I realized there was something that I forgot to do when I was assembling the pieces together on this.  Yeah ...  I'm not going to say what, however, because I firmly believe in not pointing out your errors, especially if they aren't obvious. 

And, yes, now that I've struggled through one of these aprons I want to make another.  One in a lighter color. 

I'm a glutton for punishment.  It's a really nice design, though.  Simple and you don't have to worry about ties. 

This weekend I worked on few of my knitting projects.  I'm hoping to record a video this week, and I'll share about them in the video.   Naturally, I had some battles with a vanilla sock and my harvest cardigan. This wasn't my week for crafty things. 

In other news, my hubby is hatching an idea for our solar set up and the ability to charge up the batteries with a generator when the solar panels are covered in show, or when we haven't had sun in several days.  That's kind of exciting.  We haven't had any new homesteady-type projects in a while. Unless you count expanding the garden.