Projects, Projects, Projects!!!

I have had a very productive week and finished another one of my Christmas Round Robin pieces, which means I have caught up with the posting dates! The main theme for this RR was penguins as you can see from the picture, and I was very pleased with how this looks. Rather than sticking to the original charts, it is the first time I have amended them, using the two together, omitting the backgrounds and Christmas sayings.

I think the sparkly aida fabric looks great, and I'm on the look out for some of my own to use for my Christmas cards. I think these penguins would look fab as pattern repeats on an aida band for Christmas, maybe for a cake or as ribbon to wrap presents with.

I have also brought some new wool this week to start yet another knitting project! It's a Sirdar pattern using their Escape wool which I think is gorgeous, and I love the colourways. The pattern I have chosen is knitted all in one, and I also brought some new needles so I can knit in luxury.

As well as this lovely yarn, I also discovered some lovely cards this week; I seem to buy hundreds of cards, not just to send as correspondence or as a thank you, but for inspiration to put on my notice board which I love to fill with inspirational images. It is a UK based company called Stop the Clock Design. Their cards are beautiful and are all designed and hand finished by two designers.

I have brought a few to put in with my own round robins already! I'm making great progress with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and am thoroughly enjoying it! It is so un putdownable!!! It's one of those books that you simply can't wait to get back to reading, and I can't wait to get hold of the sequel.

Round Robin

IMG_0298
Originally uploaded by bells9

This is one of my pieces for the numerous round robins (rr) I am involved with on Craftbubble, it is a Christmas themed rr as we need to start the robin now so they arrive home before Christmas.

It took me a couple of afternoons to stitch, so not too long, especially as I seem to be a fairly slow stitcher! It is from Cross Stitch Crazy Issue 67, and was designed by Durene Jones.

I did use parking in this project which I'm finding more and more easier as I use it, more so on smaller projects like this one, where the colours are not similar and there aren't hundreds of them.

For the first time in this project I did backstitch alongside cross stitching. Usually I complete all the cross stitch and then do all the backstitch after, only this time I was worried with how it was looking as it just looked like blobs of colour, so I decided to do a bit of the backstitch to see if it was going to resemble the picture in the magazine!

I think it looks fab, and I am really pleased with the result, there are six other designs and I think I'll stitch them all for Christmas cards this year if I can find the time. However, in the magazine, only after I realised the shopping list says to use pastel green and lilac aida fabric, which is hard to see on the pictures, but maybe I will give that a try when I stitch them next. So it's already to post tomorrow morning for the next stitcher in the round robin.

Just for fun

I saw this on littlebird's blog, its a quiz with a twist! All you have to do is answer these 12 questions and then you type your answers into flickr and then choose an image, but only from the first 2 pages.

Then you upload your images on to Big Huge Labs' mosaic maker, setting it to 12 images, 4 colums by 3 rows and it creates your own personal mosaic!

These are the questions if you want to have a go:

What is your first name? Clare
What is your favourite food? Steak and Chips
Where did you go to high school? Penair
What is your favourite colour? Cornflower blue
Who is your Celebrity crush? Ben Afleck
Favourite drink? Champagne
Dream destination? Paris
Favourite dessert? Chocolate Gateau
What do you want to be when you grow up? Elegant
What do you love most in life? Piano
One word to describe you? Creative
Your flickr name? bells9

Cross Stitch Challenge

This is my cross stitch challenge for 2010:

1. Finish all current WIPs* and UFOs*

2. Put order to my STASH, sell them, swap them, give them to charity or even stitch them, just get them moving!

So I have come up with some steps to help this along, firstly a rotation of projects, by day or week depending on how I feel. Starting with projects that are nearest to completion, I will have categories too, so there will be small, medium and big projects in rotation.

I need to go have a root through all my stitching and make a list of my stash, UFOs and WIPs. Then I can update the list of current projects, and what projects will enter rotation.

Also I am going to try and stick to a few rules, but only if I can! So I'm imposing the one in - one out rule, which basically means when I finish a project I can start a new (if I really want to) otherwise I am going to try and aim for only 3-5 projects in my rotation by the end of the year.

The other rule is to stick to a monthly stitching budget...yet to be decided the amount! To help me decide I have put a poll on my blog so feel free to vote and I will trial the winning budget for two months to see if I like it! In light of the stash bust goal, I will try not to but any unneccesary kits/stash for as long as possible, if I can only buy essentials for the rest of 2010, I will reward myself with a large kit at the end. This will reduce my stash and save me money :).

I will post my progress and update lists regularly.If anyone else wants to join the challenge or offer any tips do comment and post on your progress!

*WIPs = Works in Progress
*UFOs = Unfinished Objects