Playing Catch-up

Well H-e-l-l-o!  Gosh it's been a while hasn't it?  I hope you all had a lovely summer!

Mine was good, all things considered.  As I mentioned we moved house in the first week of July.  I had forgotten how much work and time that all takes up.  I also realized just how much stuff we had tucked away in all those nooks and crannies of our last house.  It sure is something to see everything you own, out in the open, all at once!  All our previous moves generally went off without a hitch;  this time there were a few glitches, including the fairly major contract snafu nobody noticed until our things were being packed up.  For a few weeks we ended up owning two houses, which was really rather stressful at the time.   With the help of some good friends and former neighbours  we were able to leave the old house in safe hands until the new possession day.  Thankfully that is all over now and we are able to enjoy our new home and explore our new surroundings.

 (One of the many works in progress I have going on!)

Craft wise I have been starting a lot of things, which has been fun, but I need to focus on finishing some more things.  I had a bunch of works in progress and finishes I wanted to show you, but it was taking me so long to get everything organized for a blog post I decided to just sit down and put in what I could think of right now.   I can see now that I have forgotten to photograph some things, but that will just have to wait for another time.

I'll start with the cross stitching:  I have some finishes to show you!  Vintage Christmas by Country Cottage Needleworks is all done and I will be able to frame it up for this Christmas.

I love this design, but truthfully I'm feeling a little "meh" about the finish.  I think it might be the fabric colour that is putting me off.  I said I would frame it up, but I guess I'm not so sure yet.  I think I just need a little distance from it and maybe when I take it out in December I will love it all over again.

I wanted to dedicate July to Christmas stitching, so in addition to Vintage Christmas I stitched a few ornaments as well.  I only did two:  the seagull and snowmen trio, but with the house move in there and also the bigger design I am happy with what I accomplished.  Both of these designs are also by Country Cottage Needleworks.
 The mistletoe ornament is a recent finish, and it's a Lesley Teare design from Cross Stitch Collection, November 2015.

My Stitcher's Alphabet has not seen the light of day since we moved, but I did complete two more letters after my last post here and before we pulled up stakes.  'O' for Overdyed thread and 'N' for Needle:

This was my favourite row to work on so far.  I loved the colours and all the motifs.  After this there are only two and a half more rows to go, so I really should just knuckle down and get it finished.

This next design is from the September 2012 edition of Cross Stitch and Needlework, by Ursula Michael.  I took a photo of the finished stitch using a fall napkin as a back drop.   I liked the effect so much I  stitched the two together and turned it into a pillow cover!  Now I'm down to three napkins but I'll think of something to do with those.

On My Hooks...

 It was such a hot summer I didn't do too much crocheting.  Thankfully I was able to track down one more skein of the yarn I needed to finish my corner to corner blanket:

 I was hoping to gift this to my niece for her new baby this month:  wouldn't you know she had a sweet boy instead?  Off to the cupboard it goes, waiting for the next little girl to arrive in the family someday.

I made some new dishcloths for the new house:

 I am trying to reduce the yarn stash a little bit and these are always great stash busters.  I am finding though, that with the ever-shrinking skein sizes, pretty soon one skein will not be enough for a dishcloth.  I suppose if I learned to knit them instead I could stretch the skein out a bit more.  If you are a dish cloth knitter, do you find you have a decent amount of yarn left over?  These are all made with Bernat Handicrafter cotton, and in most cases I only have a few inches of yarn left over.  I have already had to reduce the foundation row count, and the border size.

I made a companion apple pot holder to the red one I made in 2014:

 This is a free pattern, available here.  The pattern makes one apple:  I crochet a second one in the skin colour so I can stitch them together and have a double thickness.

One nice discovery here was a lovely yarn shop where I have added significantly to their coffers!  On one trip I found this hand painted yarn by Briggs and Little called "Eggplant".  If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen the other colour way I couldn't leave behind called "Flamingo".  I am making the One Button Wrap out of the eggplant and am getting close to finishing.

 I have since pulled out the four inches on the right side:  you can see how the colour changes in that skein are much darker than the rest.  I didn't think it would be so noticable but once I took the photograph I could really see it.  I have another skein that should work better, and I can use the darker one in the border.

OK, that's all for today!  Thank you for sticking around and visiting me here in my little crafty space.  I see I am pretty far behind in my blog reading too, so I hope to visit you soon if you have a blog.  If you're on Instagram let me know!  I don't post a lot there but I love my daily dose of crafty goodness and pretty pictures.  My moniker there is Jenn's Crafty World as well.

Take care my friends, and,

 Happy Days!

Jenn