New purse for me, and x-stitch update

As of yesterday, I am on etsy. I’m excited!
But not as a seller. (Think of how exciting that would be!) Yup. I’m only a buyer. But seriously. How did I not know about Etsy before now? It’s so fun! It’s soooo fun that I just might buy *all* of my Christmas gifts this upcoming year on etsy. That’s how cool I think it is. Why do I think it’s cool? Well, 1) The items are unique. 2) They are crafty and I love crafty. 3) The money (well, other than the money to paypal and to etsy) goes to individuals rather than companies. That’s all cool.

So here’s what I bought:

I’ve needed a new purse for like months, if not half a year. My present one, one that Corrie gave me that she got in India, is being held together with a safety pin. And it’s already been sewn back together once. I tried to make a purse myself a while back, but it only semi worked. That bag is now used for taking my lunch to and from work. It works well for that. But since it doesn’t have a zipper, I didn’t feel good about putting my wallet, cell phone, etc into it. Not that safe methinks. So when I saw this ‘slouch’, I knew it was for me. And now it is. I just have to wait for it to arrive. Probably some time next week. Oh I’m excited. I love crafts. Even when someone else is the one doing them.

But here’s a short update on my craft of late. The ever present x-stitch. It’s getting there! Almost done. Yup. I feel bad that I’ve been avoiding the girl’s hair, but since I’ve never seen the girl that my x-stitch girl is supposed to represent I’m timid about starting it. The girl in the x-stitch pattern has light hair, and from the one picture I saw for about 10 seconds of the real life girl, I remember her having dark brown hair. Oh, what to do? What to do? Should I make her hair dark, or make her hair light? If I make her hair dark too, it will blend in with the boy’s hair and that isn’t good. Solution: after some consulting I think I’m going to swap a few of the lighter shades for darker ones. I hope that works. If that doesn’t work then I’ll just take it out and do it via the pattern. Maybe just maybe I can have the stitches done by this weekend (I’d have to go to the store to get the one colour of floss I lost/misplaced somewhere along the way.) but I think I can do it!
Wish me luck.

Always looking ahead

There are always so many projects that I want to do! It's sort of like a grass is greener on the other side type thing. I always want to be doing a project that is different than the one that I'm doing now. I'm liking the cross stitch, but I'm also looking forward to it being done. I feel like I've been working on it FOREVER. It doesn't help that I took a 1 1/2 week break when I was on vacation. Oh well. It was worth it. 

But without further ado, here is the next sweater I want to try making:

Isn't it great? I saw mention of it on one of the knitting blogs that I read, and when I found out that on the original blog the pattern is available for free, I couldn't resist!! Now I just have to figure out what colour to make it. I love it in this green... but do I really need to buy new green yarn to make it? Maybe I should look through the TONS of yarn that I already have to see if I have something that could be used.

But if I don't, then I need to pick a colour. What colour? Oh decisions, decision. But whatever happens, I'm looking forward to making this sweater. Hopefully I'll be up to the task.

Random craft.

It's Memorial Day today. Yeah for long weekends.I've been working on the x-stitch pretty consistently (check out the updated slideshow a few posts down), but I did find the time to do a little craft I haven't done in years and years. Envelop making! I don't write nearly as many letters as I used to. I used to write tons. But for the few letters I do write, I still like to send them in fun envelops. Plain white is just so... plain. Coloured envelops are good. Pictured ones are better.

It all started when we had a ton of leftover paper from when my dad would bring my mom flowers. What are you supposed to do with that paper? I think I used it once as wrapping paper, but then one day I got this great idea that I could turn it into an envelop. After I made my first one I was hooked. I've made them out of tons of things. The flower paper, wrapping paper, newspaper, magazines, and calendars. So I got the idea to make some more this weekend when I was looking for something in my cupboard. I found a horse calendar. I have absolutely no idea how it got there. It's even a 2008 calendar, but I definitely didn't buy it. It's not the one I got for Christmas, since that is up at my desk at work. So the mystery of where this one came from remains. And since I wasn't going to use the calendar, I figured I should do something useful with it. Envelops. So, here's the general way that it goes. 

1) Rip open an old envelop that you can use as a pattern. (save this to reuse.)

2) Find the paper that you are going to make the envelops from. In this case, I ripped the calendar pages into individual sheets.

3) Decide what you want to have in the center of the envelop. Trace the pattern onto the paper so that you have the picture in the middle. 

Note: this can sometimes be tricky since the part you want is not in the middle. If that happens, then trace it like you would for the picture to be in the middle, even if the pattern goes off the edge. From the left over paper, trace what you need to complete the envelop.

4) Fold the paper into the envelop shape. Tape seams.

5) Marvel at your beautiful envelop. 

6) Write a letter to a friend so that they can marvel at your handy work.

Some mistakes...

See the red box? Well, every single stitch within that red box is all wrong. Wrong, wrong, WRONG. When I was filling in the spaces with the lighter blue, I realized that I missed two rows as I was going up doing the darker blue. Sigh.
So, now the question is: do I take all of those stitches out, or do I just continue and make it up as I go along? I can easily (possibly) just add two rows to the top variating between the blues so that it matches up with the other side eventually. I'd work the pattern properly on the other side. I want it to be the same dimension, so I wouldn't subtract two rows from the other side or anything. It's not like it really matters since it's just sky and cloud. It's not like the kid's faces are would be distorted.
It's only about 1hr or work, so I could rip it out in about 15 min and redo it... but is it really worth it? Will anyone notice? No. I won't even notice I don't think. It's not like knitting where the sleeves would be too small. I'm tempted not to redo it.
Thoughts?

Lovin' the slideshow

I'm lovin' the slideshow. Especially now that I've played with the contrast and brightness of the pictures so that you can actually see the x-stitch! That's very key I would think. Wouldn't you? I've gotten more done, and I think just because you'll notice it more in the picture, I'm going to start working on the sky some more next. Funny how now I'm thinking about what would be best for the slideshow, rather than just what colour is the most logical to do.

And I really do think that I will be ready for another knit project once I'm done this x-stitch. Now I just have to figure out what that knit project will be.

The slideshow has been updated in the last post. Look there for new (and improved) pictures.

The slide show (thus far)

Hunh. I thought I'd have more pictures than this, but it turns out I don't. Oh well. More to come, since I'm far from finished the x-stitch. But I think it's coming along nicely. Well, without further ado, here it is: (I hope this slideshow works...)

Coming soon to a blog near you…

I’m planning to post a slideshow of my latest project soon. The wedding x-stitch that I’m working on. I’ve been taking pictures of it as I work on it. In the beginning I was taking a picture every day after I’d finished working on it, but after a few days when I only did about 20 stitches, I got lazy. So there are some bigger jumps that have a few days shown.
But the cross stitch is going okay. I forgot how different it is to do a x-stitch than a knitting project. A lot more time is spent looking at the project, so it’s a little harder to watch tv effectively. I was watching The Kingdom yesterday, and I missed a lot of the subtitled parts because I was looking down rather than looking up. Made the movie less understandable, but at least I was productive during that time. Plus, t also takes a little while longer to see the results. Or so I think. But that’s okay because I’m enjoying the change. I think I will be ready for another knitting project once this one is done though.
Oh, and as a sneak preview, this is what the pattern is, but ignore the words. I am changing those. It’s not a traditional wedding picture, but somehow I think it fits. I just hope they like it.