Three on Thursday: Considering monogamy

What a week it’s been! It’s been full of surprises, and not really in a great way for me. But… we’re chugging along.

Joining with Carole today for Three on Thursday – so here is my list of three things from this week:

One
I ordered a beautiful bright green dress for my daughter from Primary this week, with the intention of it being a St. Patrick’s Day dress that will have a longer life than one with shamrocks on it. I ordered short sleeves so it can transition into spring, and I had the somewhat crazy idea that I could finish her Chains cardigan in time for her to wear it over her new dress at a St. Patrick’s themed piano lesson event she is going to on March 15. I initially dismissed this idea immediately – no way would I finish it by then – the rows are so long! And then I thought, if I stopped working on all my other projects, it just might be feasible. But…

Two
I already have two active projects in other crafts, the Halloween SAL cross stitch and a Girl Scouts quilt. I’m enjoying both of them, but splitting my time between these and knitting is not leaving much time for me to finish either of them.

Three
For my birthday, I asked my mom to buy me the supplies to make the St. Patrick’s Day Countdown and Easter Countdown from The Sugar House Shop. (You may remember I’ve already made an advent calendar and a Valentine’s countdown from her shop. I’ve also made a birthday countdown of hers… but I just realized I never blogged it!) They arrived this week… and I’m also itching to try to start and finish the St. Patrick’s Day countdown before the beginning of March. Which again, I could do, if I quit working on everything else!

Ah… if I was good at being project monogamous, things would get done! I’m willing to give it a go, I just can’t decide which one I should go for. What do you think?

Running behind

I hope everyone had a good long weekend. We attended a birthday party for one of our Girl Scout friends, went roller skating, and played A LOT of board games. Turns out that those are the best activities when the high outside is 12 degrees F. 🙂

In the last week or so, my daughter very pointedly asked me if I was done with the Halloween SAL I joined last year (Tiny Modernist Halloween SAL). Ha. Short answer is no. 🙂

I started after the start date of the SAL because I didn’t know about it when it started, and then I had to order and wait for the supplies to come in the mail. I am also still a newbie at cross stitch and slow. Then my momentum slowed a lot when I realized I would be absolutely no where near finishing by Halloween 2018. But my daughter’s question gave me a little kick to get back into the project in hopes of finishing it for Halloween 2019.

And you know what? If you actually work on a project a little every day (instead of leaving it abandoned in a bag by the side of the couch – cough), you start to make progress!

Three on Thursday: Projects

Oh my friends. I stayed up late watching the British version of Sherlock. Somehow, I have never seen this. I do not know how that is possible, but it’s true. I watched the first episode last night, and Netflix sneakily auto started #2, and I ended up watching half of it! Of course, with the intention I would be working on my cross stitch (see above), but in reality I put it down and started focusing on the show entirely. Not much progress to show, and I have all the yawns, and am drinking double my daily coffee allotment. *yawn*

So here are 3 projects I’m working on now: 

1.)  The aforementioned cross stitch. I have joined the Tiny Modernist Haunted Mansion SAL. Three rooms had already been released when I joined, and I’ve only been working on the project since last Friday, so I am VERY behind. It doesn’t help that I ordered the materials from the suggested online store and it took nearly 2 weeks to get my materials. It didn’t ship until I called the store a week after my order to ask why there had been no shipping confirmation… and 2 hours later, my order magically shipped! So anyway, between the two, I highly doubt I’ll be finishing this for Halloween 2018. Oh well, maybe I can get some cute Halloween fabric on sale in November — because my plan is to turn this into a throw pillow.

2.)  My daughter’s Weasley sweater. This projects has been a bit of a to do. All I have left is to finish duplicate stitching her initial on it, and I think I should redo the collar cast-off. It’s a little snug, and I think if I redo it to be a little stretchier, she’ll be more willing to wear it more. 

3.)My quilting class quilt. This week, we learned Flying Geese and Square in a Square. I hadn’t done either of these techniques before, but it was really fun! Head over to Instagram for some sneak peaks of the blocks I’m working on this week. 

My knitting and I haven’t really been on speaking terms lately (not sure why), but I will be starting a 4th project soon: my daughter’s Christmas dress. I bought yarn for this back in the summer during my LYS’s sale, and didn’t start. I wanted to measure her closer to Christmas. But I just remembered last week that I wanted to do this project — and it’s a fingering weight dress! — so I guess I better get cracking on that.

FO: More Cowbell

There was a time in my life where I used to watch Saturday Night Live live when it was on, but I would also record it on VHS (I know – back in the day!) and then watch it again in the morning so that I could learn all the lines to the best skits. My best friend did the same, and then on Monday morning, we could basically reenact the whole episode together at school. 

These were the days of the Spartan cheerleaders, Mary Katherine Gallagher, the Butabi Brothers, and Mango (who you can’t have. :-)). Good times with nog. 

I’ve been feeling a little lackluster about knitting, and I enjoyed that reindeer cross stitch ornament so much, that I thought it was time to pick up my first real cross stitch pattern. After a quick browse on Etsy, it was obvious my first choice should be More Cowbell. 

I really really enjoyed stitching this. It was a great pattern (thanks, LindyStitches!), I love the recommended colors, and I was addicted to finishing it. 

I found the perfect little 5×7 frame at Ikea. It has a little detail to it, but not too much. It goes with the overall feel I’ve got going in my craft room, which is where it’s going to live. The frame came with a mat that could size it down to 4×6, which was the perfect thing to stretch the canvas around. I kind of just faked it in the framing department. After I finished I looked up the proper way to do it, and I guess I was supposed to stitch it in. I might still do that, but for now, it’s fine. 

So happy to have my first completed cross stitch. And it is guaranteed to make me smile every day. 

“I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!!”

FO: Reindeer ornament kit

We visited Niagara Falls and Toronto for our summer vacation. My main excitement about this trip was visiting yarn stores, but I unfortunately only made it to two shops. We had limited time in actual Toronto, and a lot of the places I wanted to visit were out of the way of the other attractions we were visiting.

I did manage to get some time in Ewe Knits, which I was thrilled about. However, I got TOTALLY overwhelmed by the yarn and fabric in the shop and could not make any decisions. I even tried to plan in advance and had a couple of priority knitting projects picked out so I could focus on yarn for those projects, but couldn’t settle on the exact right thing. I wanted both everything and nothing. 

So I went for an adorable bite-sized reindeer project instead. I love slightly more modern takes on Christmas colors (especially raspberry-pink) and reindeer are my FAVORITE thing to decorate with at Christmas. I also loved that all the decisions were made for me because everything I needed was in the kit. It was the perfect fit for a lady with decision fatigue in the middle of a fabulous shop!

The only problem I had with this kit was that it took nearly no time at all to finish! I was sad when I was done. 

I love that it even came with this lovely pink felt to cover the back, and the sweet little chain to hang it. It was fun and super easy to make even for a very beginner cross stitcher like me. It’s also very practical, as it’ll be a beautiful decoration on the tree, as well as a memento of our trip. 

Three things: Back in the saddle

Hi everyone! It’s been a long time since I participated in Three on Thursday, but I’m glad to be back joining in with everyone.

Here are three things going on now: 

1. 1. Until this month, I was blogging as knitsnips. I’ve moved my archives over to this site, and will from now on be blogging from here, poppyspotcrafts.com. I’m excited about this new blog and sharing an even broader range of my crafty pursuits! 
   
   
2. 2. I am signed up for a beginner quilting class that begins next week. I have already completed 4 quilts and pieced half of another. But I’m finally going to learn to do it the “right” way. Though I’m sure I will also discover a few things I’d like to keep doing “wrong.”  🙂 The above picture shows the fabrics I have chosen for my class project. I can’t wait to cut into these beauties!
   
   
3. 3.I am in the midst of my first cross stitch project, which you can also see on my Instagram. I picked “More Cowbell” because this sketch was very important to me and my junior high best friend during our very intense SNL phase. Just seeing it makes me very happy and I can’t wait to frame and display this in my craft room! If you haven’t seen this skit before, or even if you have, watch it to make your day.