A Variety Of Craftiness

For the past couple of months I haven't been too crafty. I do pick up my stitching on some evenings, but getting things done in the craft room has not happened. Working some extra hours, and working different times has thrown my routine off completely. I guess I'm one of those people who thrives on routine!

I did do some sewing for a gift at Christmas. I made this project bag for my group's December stitch day. As I mentioned in the past, we exchange gifts at each stitch day, and I thought that someone would really like this.

I used the Twisted Stitcher's project envelope instructions for this, and love the way it turned out. Because of a weird early snow, we had to postpone our special Christmas extravaganza stitch day until January. And that suited us just fine!

I opted for a magnetic snap for the closure for this one. You can get them very inexpensively at Amazon.

The snap shows on the outside of the project envelope so I needed something pretty to cover it. I looked around at Joann's and didn't find anything, but when I looked through my own jewelry making supplies, I found this! I think it's a connector of some sort, but it worked out perfectly because I could sew it right over the snap.

Don't you just love the lining fabric? You can't see it here, but it's sparkly!

Meanwhile, other people have been crafty! Here's another edition of Other People's Creations.
In case you're not familiar with this feature of my blog, I'll explain. Occasionally I like to show what other crafters are doing. They are mainly friends of mine and I do have some talented friends!

Let's start with some knitting. My daughter in law, Stephanie, always amazes me with her knitting skills. She was working on this sweater when she and Matt visited for Christmas, and recently sent me this photo of her completed project.

Wow, right? Not only is it something that can be worn, it's incredibly detailed. I haven't mastered knitting, so this to me is wonderful. As are these socks.

See, I told you she is amazing. I'd say she has a gift for knitting.

My sister, Sheila, crafted a beautiful gift for each of us at stitch day.

She made these rose ornaments out of polymer clay. Again, this photo doesn't show the real beauty of this flower. They're luminous and kind of iridescent, as well as very detailed. What a lovely gift to receive!

And all of us Sisters In Stitches were lucky to receive another wonderful handmade gift.

Thea presented us with these sweet pin cushions. She used deep red velvet fabric and a pretty button to crown the top.

This pin cushion is very solid as it's filled with a combination of emery and crushed walnut shells.

How lucky are we to receive handmade gifts? As crafters/sewers/stitchers, we all know what goes into handmade items, so it's pretty special to be gifted with something that someone made.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the craftiness of my friends and family, as well as my own! Please stop by again. I still need to find a good balance of work and working on my own creative projects. So hopefully, I'll get back to more regular posts. Watch for my Wipocalypse post coming at the end of the month for my stitching progress! Until then, have a great week!

January WIPocalypse

It's a little late; so what else is new? I've got a good excuse though. I've been working extra hours and it's cutting into my stitching/blog posting/crafting time. But what are you gonna do?

This year I am once again participating in the WIPocalypse, a cross stitch project rotation SAL organized by Melissa at her blog, Measi's Musings. I found this SAL so helpful last year for staying on course with all of my cross stitch projects that I knew I wanted to join in the fun again.

I have managed to get some stitching in however, and have even done a bit of project rotation. A bit. You'll see.

Some stitches were placed into a new project, Country Cottage Needleworks' Forest Snowfall.

This is a very pretty chart, and I started it with all of the intentions of being in the Priscilla and Chelsea SAL, but I'm pretty sure that 98% of the stitchers participating are completely finished with theirs. That's fine. I'll get into why later. But I have to say that I LOVE this fabric. It's 28-count Jobelan in Winter Wishes by Fabrics by Stephanie. Stitching on this fabric is like stitching on butter. Seriously.

Next, I got started on the Frosty Forest series, also by Country Cottage Needleworks. So cute.

This one is being stitched on 32-count Belfast Linen in pearl gray. The color is nice, but linen is not my favorite thing to stitch on. It's stiff and scratchy. I keep thinking that I should put this in a Rolaframe instead of using a hoop. But that takes energy.

I made some progress on Christmas Sentiments by Stoney Creek.

Oh, now I see a place on the left tree that I missed. I am still enjoying stitching this chart. 

And finally, I started on my Linen and Thread Mystery Sampler (2017). 

That's a pretty good start, but that January section is big. I'm sticking with it though and am very pleased with myself for my color selection. 

The needle minders are new to my collection and are from SewMuch2Luv on Etsy. Aren't they adorable?

And that is all that I've accomplished this month. You know, I should be very happy with what I've done considering all of my complaining about my reduced stitching time!

Question of the month: What SALs are you participating in this year? And if you are participating in the Olympic stitching challenge (see Measi's Musings January Check-In for info.), what challenge are you accepting? What are your goals?  

The WIPocalypse is the only SAL I'll be participating in this year. I've decided that I'm not a traditional SAL kind of stitcher. I stitch very slowly and will never be able to keep up with anyone else. I do like to hear about SALs though because I have found some very cute things to put on my stitching wish list. But anything that has an ending date is not for me. I do like the idea of the Olympic challenge however, but haven't decided which I'd like to do. I will be watching the Olympics and I will be stitching, so I'll probably choose one of them (most likely the Rotation Relay) and see what happens.

As always, thank you for visiting my blog today. I hope to get more stitching in before I check in at the end of February and I even think I may have a new start before then! Do I need that? Ha ha ha! No, but I want to stitch all the things!