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. 

Let's have a coffee date!

 This type of blog post is for when I have a lot of little things I want to share, or when I feel the need to catch up. 

So, grab your coffee/beverage of your choice and join me. 

It's been a while since I've written.  I have a few of little tidbits to say, so let's have a quick coffee date!

If we were having coffee ... I would give you a bit of a health update. I'm better.  I'm not going to say I'm healed.  Not yet, anyway. I've seen a handful of health care providers over the last few months, including one specialist. I've done a lot of reading and research and I've started some supplements that I think will help my body in the long run. Having a bit of a medical mystery going on has been incredibly frustrating and I think it's going to be a long time before I can say I'm healed. I have something going on that I think is the result of the long-term infection. So, for now, I'm better than I was. 

In the meantime some of my pep has returned and I don't feel a constant feeling of being worn down and exhausted. Just the regular exhausted. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd tell you my hubby woke me up one morning a few weeks ago and said "get in loser, let's go buy you a greenhouse."  

No, it wasn't really like that.  We were on vacation and it was a Friday morning. ... He walked into the bedroom, noticed I was awake, (I was processing being awake) and he said something along the lines of "Hey, let's go get a greenhouse for your birthday, and build it over the summer." Totally unexpected and a heck of a way to start the day. But I loved the idea and got up straight away and downed some coffee.  I've been wanting a greenhouse for such a long time. 

So we went and got me a greenhouse! 

We started working on it that day and thought we'd take our time.  It pulled together so much easier than expected. I belong to a few hobby greenhouse groups on the book of Faces, and to hear some people talk ... 

My husband got the foundation set up. (You like my sassy stance?)

Then the walls and roof went up lickity-split. 

The next day we finished the little things and ran to town to get materials for shelves. 

As soon as the shelves were complete I started moving a few things in. 

I'm really excited for the next seed starting season and I want to try my hand at starting some perennials this year and plant them in the fall. 

Unfortunately, we have had rotten weather the last several weeks. SO much clouds and rain. Which means not a lot of sun or desire to spend time outside.  In fact, last night the region had the next round of nasty storms go through. I've been keeping an eye on newsy things online and seen/saw there have been a lot of washouts, flooding and people needing help with flooded basements, etc.

This morning the newsperson said today is the 12th anniversary of the major flooding of 2012. THAT was a crazy time.  Maybe you remember hearing about the seal that was out on the highway? 

My work building flooded as well.  

I'm ready for things to dry out a little bit, for a little while. 

If we were having coffee ... I would say all the rain has been good for the garden, but it's also making the garden not grow very quick. It feels like the garden is a bit behind right now. 

AAAAnnnnndddd ... I don't have any recent photos of the garden. 

These are from a couple weeks ago. 

I have a few things that I'm experimenting with.  In this photo you can sort of make out the "little greenhouse" as I'm now calling it. I debated on taking it down. However, I have a few garden things that I need to store somewhere and I'm not willing to start filling the new greenhouse up with things that will make it cumbersome to be in there. 

I do like seeing all the green in the yard and all the trees. 

Way in the back I have cucumbers and squash plants growing in the containers in the back.  

Sometime soon I will take proper photos of the garden. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd chatter about how my crafting hasn't gone like I planned this year, thanks to the health stuff.  For a while I didn't touch anything.  Then crafting was sporadic.  

I was feeling a little bit of stress an anxiety about this.  Then I remember/reminded myself that there are no deadlines on the things I'm working on.  Only goals that I wanted to reach by the end of the year. 

With reminding myself of this I started feeling better about the whole thing. 

A few nights ago I completed the last block on my sandpiper quilt. 

Now to assemble the quilt top.  I have the sashes and borders ironed and ready to go.  I'm debating on the backing. Go with something wild and unexpected, or be sedate with my color choices for both the backing and the border? 

I do want to update my goals list.  That will be for another day.  I need to gradually get back in to the habit of writing. 

If we were having coffee ... Speaking of goals ... Social media is reminding me that the Tour de Fleece is just around the corner. Do I bother with it this year?  I can't remember if I did anything with it last year.  I haven't touched my spinning since ... February ?  Back when I first learned to spin (100 years ago), and heard of Tour de Fleece, online teams and whatnot were not nearly as ... "fun" as they are now.  Tiaras and T-shirts with fun logos and the year stamped on them.  Looks like TONS of teams you can choose to spin on, and a butt-load of prizes and giveaways. 

The one spinning group I'm a member of on Fa*ebook has been pretty quiet for months and months. I don't know what's going on there. I suspect there was a change in adminning and the new person may not be as active on social media. That's fine.  At this point I'm using social media now mostly to look at pretty things or to be inspired.  Sometimes to know what is going on. 

If we were having coffee ... Books ... I started listening to an audiobook yesterday, "A Single Thread." I'm about an hour and a half in to it. The voice actor is good. I heard about this book from a flosstuber.   It's been tough on the book front.  I haven't known what book genre I want to listen to.  I've started listening to a few audiobooks but haven't finished them.  One, "Speaker for the Dead," I had started listening to a few years back, and never finished it.  I started listening to it again and with being more "seasoned" of a reader, or more life experience (whatever you want to call it) I found myself hearing what  the author is saying about a few things and it basically left a bad taste in my mouth and I wasn't really enjoying the story anymore.  

If we were having coffee ... I'll give you little update on the chickens.  

We rehomed our older girls and Roo.  Someone called us up and asked us if we have any adult roosters available.  We said yes, and then said "Hey, do you want his girls, too?"  

"Sure, the person said."

We still have a Barred Rock rooster and 10 hens. The hens are fat and sassy. The rooster is a jerk to me.  It's the first time I've had a roo that sees me as a rival, I suppose you'd call it.  I have to walk around with a stick in my hand, at the very least. Otherwise he feels like facing off with me. My son named him but I can't remember the name, for sure.  James Charles?  I guess it's a youtuber, or twitch streamer? ?? I no longer know who or what is it and happening. Or, trending ... 

There are also some babies that joined the flock this spring.  Totally adorable.  They don't care for being held, though.  They are free and wild buns, apparently. 

Speaking of buns ... Feffer is still with us.  I think he's at least 6 years old now.  Maybe 7? 

He goes through spurts of being friendly and wanting scritches, and being an aloof bun.

Regardless of his mood, he's my good little boy and I tell him that every morning when I go out to see him and the chickens. 

I'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to ramble about. I'm sure there's something and I will think of it as soon as I hit publish. 

Crafty news I'm going to break up a little bit and put in a few blog posts so I don't overwhelm myself trying to write one massive blog post. My hope is that breaking this up will help me update my goals list, figure out what I'm working on, what other things I want to make, and maybe make a gameplan so I can get my ducks in a row and be bit more organized on the things I have on the mental "I want to make this" list. Like, I want to make some project bags and have the fabric for them.  Then there's a few little things I want to make that are crafty and will help me while I'm being crafty. Like a phone pillow and a little fabric ort tray. Oh, that reminds me ... do I want to buy the snaps or should I just sew the corners? I doubt I'll ever travel, so maybe there's no need for snaps.  See, what I mean? 

Okay, I think that's everything I want to blather about. Yeah ... I'm off to go get my ducks in a row. 

Later! 

Getting into the swing of things ...

 And trying to set myself up for success.  Set myself up for reaching goals, I mean. 

Yesterday I started working on the DayDreams wall quilt I'm making for my bedroom. 

I started my day off with Pat Sloan keeping me company. 

Sewing the pieces together. 

The first phase of my quilt making. 

Looking good so far. 

Probably the easiest piece of the whole thing. 

First square

All sewn together. 

Close to being able to sew this square together. 

I was a good girl and went a grabbed a bag of spinning fiber. 

Wool fumes is a real thing. ... I opened that bag it the smell just brought me back to when I was first learning to spin. 

I weighed it to ensure I had at least 4 ounce to spin this month. 

It's so pretty! 

In other news, I set up my indoor greenhouse and gathered almost everything I need for seed starting. 

And I made a quick little video showing the garden. 

Last little bit for this one ... 

My son ordered my Christmas gifts and they arrived yesterday.  When he asked me what he wanted for Christmas I said stuff for the garden.  

He found me some cute things online and ordered them. 

And a planter.  

I need to think of what to plant in there.  It will need to be a low growing plant.  Succulents, moss? 

Very last thing: I created a blog entry that will list the books I read this year.  A personal goal for this year is that I wanted to read and listen to books again.  The last few years have been very dry and I think my brain is starting to atrophy.  I set it up so there is a direct link to this entry just below the blog header. I did the same with my Goals for 2024 post.  

Until next time! 

Crafty plans and goals for 2024

 First of all, let me share this: 

Last year I wrote down all the stuff I wanted to do in 2023.  Wanna guess how much of it I got done?  yeah, I don't know how much I would be able to cross off that list. 

The list was overwhelming. 

I LOVE lists, and being able to cross items off lists.  I tried to bite was more off than I could chew with this one.

I also stopped doing Words of the Year a long time ago, too. 

I do my best. That's what I do. 

Recently I either read or heard a phrase along the lines of "Goals you can actually reach are ones that require little effort." and said to myself. "That makes a lot of sense. That's what I'm going to do." 

*Minimal is attainable* 

Sounds like I'm taking the easy way out, doesn't it? 

Well, maybe. ... maybe not.

I'm going to set my goals and then figure what I need to do to make reaching those goals realistic. 

So ... what is it that I want to do this year. 

*Quilting*

* My two quilt WIPs I have going right now. I want them done this year.  I need to break it up into bite-size pieces so I'll be able to have it complete by the end of December. 

Sandpiper quilt - Finished 7/26/24

Dancing Stars quilt

I also have the wall quilt for my bedroom.  I started it at the beginning of 2023.  I think. Yeah ... I want that finished ASAP.  *DONE!* - Jan. 18, 2024

* My snowflake cross stitch - I want that done!  I started the project back on 1/1/23. - Finished 4/17/24

* A WIP project page I have the fabric already cut for.  *DONE! - Jan. 19, 2024

* An apron that I've had the fabric for for two years, at least, with the intention of making it for when I need to harvest produce from the garden. *DONE!* - Jan. 20, 2024

* Sweaters - I want to finish the Harvest Cardigan I'm currently working on. - Finished 2/10/24

Bly sweater pattern I have picked out for my handspun. 

Another crochet cardigan, like the grey one I made a few months ago. 

I need to find a pattern to use with some of the yarn my husband ordered for me from Temu. - Finished 7/19/24

Ideally, I'd like to get 6 sweaters done this year. 

*Spinning 

I want to be consistant with my spinning, and not go in a burst during Tour de Fleece, and then drop it again for months at a time. 

If I spin ast least 4 ounces a month by the end of the year I think I will have enough for a sweater. 

   *UPDATE: 2/8/24 - I didn't make my 4 ounces for Jan.  The goal is to get caught up by the end of February. 

    *UPDATE 7/31/24 - I'm super behind on this goal but I've been working on it a little bit each week for the month of July 2024.aving

I haven't touched my loom in years.  I need to rectify that, STAT. My loom is out in the she shed so it's not like I can just sit down and start weaving.  In the wintertime I need to make a fire.  Oh, and there's warping the loom.  I struggle with warping.  I need practice.  

If anyone has suggestions for loom projects, let me know. 

*UPDATE 7/31/24 - Haven't touched it yet. 

A few years ago I discovered a charity (Make Bundles for Babies) I wanted to stitch for.  I want to make one hat and blanket set a month.  Then send off a box at the end of the year. I have plenty of yarn for making this happen. 

*January - done!

*UPDATE 7/31/24 - I have 12 sets done and I'm holding on to them until the end of the year, in case I have the urge to make more sets before the end of the year. 

*Knitting machine

More than a year ago my hubby brought home a knitting machine from one of the rental properties he was working on, I think.  

It needs some TLC.  I've spent time on it, trying to get it to work.  I have joined a few Facebook groups and will be doing some research to learn more about how the machines works and to verify that everything is in working order. 

If I can get this machine working as it should, I can make a TON of sweaters. Wouldn't that be awesome?!

*UPDATE 7/31/24 - Haven't touched it yet. 

These are the *big* goals I want to reach by the end of the year. I'm not going to micromanage myself and say "oh, I  can't start anything new until I finish one first." Nope, that's not gonna happen.  I need to be kind to myself and remind myself that I have other things going on my life, too.