Kat with a K

2008 Goals: Other Crafts

1. Get back into cross stitching and finish at least two things. Started this yesterday, actually!
2. Start spinning again. I have a beautiful wheel and I've barely touched it. I really need to just put the kitten in another room and get it out.
3. Get better at needle felting. I have a cute little penguin kit to start with. Whee!

Hey, look, a new hobby!

So today Tracy and I headed down to the Lowell Quilt Festival. Wow. The exhibits were amazing - I took tons of pictures, and I'll get a link to them up ASAP.

And it didn't take long for me to be convinced that I need to become a quilter. What I have so far for my first project:

I've been working on the design - I'm thinking basically a nine-patch theme with solid strips in between. I have a few more things to pick up, and then I'm heading to Tracy's place on Thursday to get started. I'm excited!

And, of course, I had to start a fabric stash:

Two different Twelve Days of Christmas prints, with mottled purple and purple snowflakes coordinating. Fun!

Indisputable Evidence

I've been making a good show of the "oh, there's plenty of time until Christmas" thing. But I can't do it anymore. Because look what has taken up residence in my living room?

Isn't it pretty?

Oh. What's that on the top, you ask? Well. I had no tree topper, and it was looking a little bare. Plus, it's COLD in my apartment. So what do you do when you have someone bareheaded and cold in your house? Think about it for a minute.

Yeah. I thought so. You knit it a hat. It's really only logical.

How very strange.

Does anyone else have the Cross Stitch Pattern-a-Day calendar? Is it just me, or is today's pattern really odd-looking? I guess it's supposed to be a shell...

(Trying to deal with the spam comment issue. For the time being, I'm closing comments on older entries.)

Hey, I can crochet!

That's my first "real" crocheting project... the first I've made from a pattern, at least. I'm more interested in thread crochet, but I wanted to start with something simpler. Of course, now I've jumped right to a doily, but oh well. At least I learned a little from the dishcloth first.

Stash Enhancement Alert!

I didn't mean to. Really. I went to A.C. Moore to stock up on yarn for charity knitting because they had all their yarn 25% off. And I did get plenty of yarn. (More on that later. This is a stitching post.) But I also saw some ornament kits on sale. They ended up being even more on sale than I'd thought--25 to 40 cents each. If I'd known that, I might have gotten more. As it were, I thought they were around a dollar and got three: "Mistletoe," "Log Cabin," and "Glad Tidings." Oh, hey, it just occurred to me that I could just stitch those three little ornaments and meet my goal for the year. ;-) Something to keep in mind come December. Anyway. I also saw Needleworker at Heart and just had to have it. I like how it incorporates various kinds of needlework. (Hmm. My boyfriend's mom might like it too. Interesting.)

Then we went to the Borders store where I used to work. There I found the Easy Cross-Stitch Pattern-a-Day Calendar 50% off. I hadn't gotten it at full price because I wasn't sure how many of the projects I'd actually want to do, but at half off, why not? I looked at the patterns for the days I'd missed when I got home and I like them pretty well so far.

And then (still at the bookstore), I was looking at the craft magazines and saw Cross Stitch Crazy. And right there in the top right corner of the cover, it told me I could STITCH MR. DARCY. MR. DARCY. Be still, my heart. I can't find a picture of this miraculous chart online, but believe me, you'll see it soon enough. Mr. Darcy. I get to stitch Mr. Darcy. The Colin Firth Mr. Darcy. I simply cannot believe my good fortune.

2005 Goals Part Three: Stitching

In this area, my goal is basically just to stitch more. But since that's not terribly measurable, let's try a few others.

1. Finish at least three things. I hope to finish many more that that, of course, but last year I finished two, so three seems a good goal.

2. Finish Frederick the Literate. He's my 2005 challenge piece for one of my cross stitch lists. It's not the biggest piece I've started, but it will certainly be the biggest I've finished thus far.

3. Keep track of what I finish. Shouldn't be hard, given how few things I expect to finish, but that's my across-the-board goal this year so I might as well be consistent.

4. End the year with fewer UFOs. I, umm, don't know how many I have, so this will be tricky. But it basically means I have to finish more things than I start. Since I started Frederick already, I have to finish two things before I can start another.