First Post of 2016!
Life has been soooooo busy! We got moved into the new house and pretty much have everything unpacked! The new house is great and my kids absolutely LOVE it! We have switched rooms quite a few times all ready but I believe we have everyone situated where they are going to stay. I have been working hard on organizing and getting things put away. My kids or I seem to have been sick a lot since about September. This has slowed my stitching time down quite a bit along with the holidays and such. I also started working for my roommate at nite for a short time. He had to fire someone who was cleaning the floors at the local mall overnite and I was already approved through the background check and such so I filled in until he got it covered! It was hard to work all nite and taking care of the boys 24/7. We have also been having a lot of issues with my ex (their dad, who I live with). He has NOT been setting a good example for the boys with bringing girls around or being gone to be with them more than being with the boys. (He left for 10 days after I got on him for bringing a girl around the kids. He got extremely mean and it was just better that he wasn't around unless he wanted to be. His loss). He has turned extremely mean and hurtful especially to me but also to the boys. It got pretty bad there for awhile so I was in full momma bear mode. We're still not great but there's not much else I can do than set an extremely good example for the boys and make sure that their lives are consistant. My roommate has really stepped up when I needed the help and has stepped in for the boys. I am extremely blessed and grateful for all of his help he has given me and continues to. So this takes me back to my stitching!
Organizing
A lot of the slow down with my stitching has been that everything is and was packed so it is hard to get to. Most of my stash is in 2 of the clear plastic towers with 3 drawers which are still taped from the move and hard to get to in my closet! LOL. I have bought something that I am going to put together to put in the back on my closet to help get everything out of the way. I have also been working on organizing my thread. I have always been a very minimalistic stitcher. I would much rather spend my time actually stitching than messing with getting stuff organized. Another part of that is the normal plastic bobbins and divided craft boxes that most stitcher use to store their floss...I can't stand putting my thread on the bobbins. Most of the time it gets tangled and it just aggrivates me and with 4 boys I have to utilize any free time I have and I want to spend that stitching! I was known very well for having disappeared from my online stitching friends because I would have my head burried in a plastic grocery bag searching for just one color! So I finally found a system that will work for me so I don't have to bobbinate the threads and they are organized! I just finished putting the labels on yesterday and I'm still working on getting my thread inventoried in my stash app on my phone and put away. Here is what I have been working on for that!
As you can see each DMC color has it's own drawer with label and they are stacked in numerical order. I had a hard time with placement of these due to how this corner is thanks to the window and my heat duct is right between the brown dresser and the 2 stack of these drawers. These are originally intended for nuts and bolts for a garage or tool bench but they are nearly perfect! I love it already.
I found a great app for Android called Stash Cache which allowed me to input each color of thread and how many of each I have. There will be no more of having to search for an hour or more in my bags of floss. Now I just have to keep my kids out of it! Haha! I think it will be okay because they don't usually come in my room unless I'm in there already and it's in a corner that isn't close to my door or the side of the bed I sleep on.
Going back to the not wanting to put my threads on bobbins, I had to come up with a solution for my HAED projects so that I can keep each color separate and so I don't waste a whole bunch of thread in the process. Here is the system I have come up with for that!
Each color for my HAEDs have their own spot in the box. I'm not sure if this is extremely lazy or I'm a complete genious, probably both! But it works for me!
Now for the updates on my projects!
I haven't really worked on sapphire very much but I do have a little update! I seem to be sticking with my HAEDs mostly. Here are the update pictures for that!
Now for my big update and what has been my main focus when I have had time to stitch. Cake Shop by Aimee Stewart. This was my new start from my last post. Here are the update pics for that one!
I have my first page finish for Cake Shop! I love stitching this and the colors, as you can see, are just amazing! I got quite tired of pink but I'm not really a pink person anyway! I did get my fabric gridded for my next page! Gridding really does seem to make a big difference when stitching these HAEDs!
I participated in a challenge in the HAED Facebook group and the Supersized HAED Facebook group and I got it complete in both groups working on Sapphire and Cake Shop. As a reward I got this chart in both the regular size and the Supersized version. This one is also by Aimee Stewart.
I have my eye on two more charts from HAED. The first one is of an owl family but the way this project is set up is almost exactly the same if it were me and my 4 boys in the pattern. Even the personalities of them match my kids. I kind of wish the biggest blue owl was shorter than the mom one but it's sooo close I still want to get it! Here is a pic of that one!
As soon as I saw this next project I fell in love instantly.
I love everything about this project! I am going to RAK three of my very good friends who also stitch and we will work on it together! It just recently got charted and they updated their website but I wanted to wait for a sale before I get them all. This one is ALSO by Aimee Stewart. I'm starting to notice a pattern here! I guess I like her artwork!
I have signed up for the Crazy Challenge of 2016. You are to start a new WIP every day in January and try to finish them by the end of the year. I did this a few years ago and that was the year I had the most finishes I've ever had so something about it I like. I will create a post for that all by itself as this one is getting long. I haven't started this yet because, as I mentioned earlier, my stash wasn't really accessible and I have to get my supplies and it took longer than expected.
I have also gotten into bullet journaling. I haven't had much time to work on this...not nearly as much as I would of liked but I know I can't work on it when the kids are awake as it takes quite a bit of concentration. I like the idea of having a place for planning, schedule and any projects or lists I want. I do have a bit of a creative side so I like that too. I may make a separate page on this blog to cover my bullet journaling. There is soooo much out there and it would be nice to have a place to keep track of what I've done and what I'd like to.
Okay this post has turned quite long between all the updates and the pictures. I will get to posting about the crazy challenge next and set up my page for bullet journaling! I hope, now that things have settled with the move, the kids are back at school from the holidays and lots of illnesses to be posting more often and have updates more often! Take care!
