Category: Fiber Arts Joy

As I shared on Wednesday, it had been a bit since I posted anything, but thankfully I am much better and back to my regularly scheduled program, including a Sunday Stitches & Stuff post! Originally, I thought maybe I would do a three week update, but that would be a long post, so I am just gonna pick things up with this past week and move forward from there. Additionally, I am experimenting with a new format for the Sunday Stitches post, so I am going to give that a try this week. So with no further ado let’s take a look at my week. (more…)

Gosh, it’s been two weeks since I’ve posted anything! My how time can get away from you, especially when illness and injuries are involved. Things started 2 weeks ago with a mild sinus irritation, that lead to some type of bug, then allergy season began, and this past weekend was a pretty bad flare up of my chronic back injury. Thankfully, I am feeling better and have started to get back into my normal routines again. The only good part about all the sickness and stuff, was that I spent a lot of time sitting on my heating pad and stitching! So today I have two updates to share, progress on my Happily Ever After SAL and my Spring Seasonal Quilt. (more…)

This week I am attempting to make progress on my Happily Everafter SAL.

It’s only been 2 weeks since I worked on this project, in fact I have two other projects, plus my knitting, that should have been next in the rotation, but the February pattern was released this month and I haven’t even finished January, so I want to see how much I can get done this week, then I’ll pull one of the other projects. Plus, (more…)

The theme of this week seems to be getting stuff done, together, while waiting for Spring. We’ve had a great time enjoying the sun, when it peeks out, and I’ve been slowly but steadily getting the house in better shape, from an organization & minimalist perspective. This past week I have also been able to find consistent time to read, stitch, and scrapbook (i.e. Project Life). Additionally, hubby & I were able to find time to just hang out together, both on Valentine’s Day and during the weekend, which can be difficult some weeks with his schedule and my never ending To Do list. Anyway, here are some of the highlights from this week. (more…)

This week I am working on the Spring Quilt from the Five Seasons of Quilts by Leisure Arts pattern book.

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So Sunday evening I switched to a new project in my rotation, A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine and designed by Cathy Habermas, starting with the February/March pattern.

This piece is actually stitching up very nicely and fairly quickly so I’m thinking I might actually get it finished, if not this week, fingers crossed, at least by the end of February. Here are some progress pics:

 

Right now I’ve finished the larger portion in the center of the heart, on the February motif, and have started the postage stamp section. So far I’m really glad that I chose to use the variegated floss. The shading is very interesting, especially because I chose to continue to use the loop method for starting my floss. I know you’re not “suppose to” use the loop method with variegated floss because the shading will not line up once you loop the strand. But I’m actually enjoying the fact that some of the crosses have different color combinations while other sections have more of a solid color. We will see if I continue to feel that way once it is complete. Who knows, I might do the entire series in variegated threads!
Thanks for reading and happy stitching!

The second installment of Mani Monday actually has two sets of nails. Last week I was sick and never did get around to posting my manicure of the week. So first here is the set of nails I had on last week:

I wanted to play around with color blocking and fell in love with this color combination. The teal color is Morgan Taylor “Stop, Shop, & Roll”, the black is China Glaze “Liquid Leather”, and the gray is China Glaze “Recycle”. The design is my own, in that I didn’t follow a specific tutorial, just taped off the nails and painted. As always though, I am inspired by Cutepolish’s videos on YouTube and the pins on my All About Nails board.  (Check out my All About Nails board on Pinterest and my Nail Art playlist on YouTube.)

For this week, I wanted something simple and a different shape, plus I was really digging the Morgan Taylor color on my nails, so I went with a simple color polish. Here are my nails for this week:

Thanks for reading and check in next week to see my new set of nails!

So I was sick most of the week. I had a runny nose, the chills, and my back was “acting up”. It started out last Friday morning, which was already looking to be a very busy day at work, so I really couldn’t rest. Then Saturday I ended up having to go into work for a few hours, still not feeling well. Sunday I finally got to rest up a bit, but at some point on Monday, things took a turn for the worse when my chronic back pain (long story) flared up and stayed on & off all week. It wasn’t until just last evening when I really started to feel myself again.

Needless to say I did not get much time to stitch. However, I did try to work on my Happily Ever After SAL in small chunks. Progress is progress after all and I really wanted to finish at least the center section of the pattern before moving on to the next project in my rotation. Amazingly, despite having to frog two whole letters, I did finish the center section early Sunday evening. Here are some pictures of my progress:

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After taking the final picture, I put Happily Ever After away and pulled out the next project, A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine and designed by Cathy Habermas.

As I discussed in a previous post, I changed from the recommended linen fabric to 14 count Aida and converted the threads to DMC. February is the motif I am starting with, in hopes of finishing before the months end, and until last night I had not decided if I was going to use the solid color conversions, or substitute in variegated floss, which could make for a gorgeous motif. Well, I decided to go with the varigated floss, so we will see how it turns out. Last night I had intended to just get the fabric on the Q-Snap and thread my needle with the first color so it was ready to go, but I just could help getting a few stitches started right away. Here is my “starting point” on the February motif:

It feels like this pattern will stitch quickly for me so I am exited to see how far I get this week.
Other aspects of my life were also slow to progress due to my week of illness/injury. The chores backed up a little, and I still have some Christmas decorations that need to come down! My plan is to switch them out for Valentine’s Day this week.
Progress on my Project Life “project’ is moving along, as I have been using my early morning coffee time to work on pages. It is my plan to do a regular monthly/bimonthly Project Life Update post to share my pages, but for right now here are the few pages that I got done this month, most of them are from the end of 2016 and two are “catch up”pages from 2015:

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One last thing, I wanted to brag a bit about my new “charging station” set-up. Since moving into the house last January, I am still learning how best to have things set up, and this one corner of my kitchen counter always seemed to collect junk, while also being where I plug stuff in to charge, if I can find the cords. So I decided to clear off the counter, empty a beautiful decorative box from the craft store of it’s junk, and fill it with all the necessary charging cords for our electronics.

Now the pretty box sits on the counter by the outlet, with a picture frame, my Bluetooth speaker, and the candy jar. When something needs to be charge, I just pull out its cord, plug it into the wall, and let it “rest” on top of the box while it is charging. I wish I had taken a “before” picture, but this task was accomplished in between sniffles and cups of hot tea. Anyway here is my charging station that I am so proud of, next on the agenda is to make the “junk drawer” underneath suit my purposes.

     

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic week full of whatever brings you joy!