{Getting Stitchy} Hopes, Dreams, Love

While away I managed to fit in some crafting time and I mainly packed some simple stitching as it's lightweight and extremely portable.

Some of that stitching was these simple word hoops.

I just need to get to the shops this week and I then I will be mounting them above our bed.

Do you take crafts with you on holidays?

P.S Please excuse the grainy instagram photos. I only used my phone for photo's for our whole trip as we were mainly at the beach and wasn't keen on getting sand in my big DSLR.

Happy New Year!

It's a bit early to call it, but I think my craft of choice for 2014 will be stitching!

Closing followed by quilting, but I think I have found a new love in stitching and have so many projects in my head already. Now just to put them into action.

What will be your craft for 2014?

Around here

We are 3 days into my solo parenting week and things are going surprisingly well. *touch wood* The kids are being helpful and doing more jobs for me than usual. Bed times aren't going that bad AND I have had plenty of crafting time.

I finally finished some stitching that I started way back in January.

And I started a new quilt that I am making for our wedding anniversary next month.

It involved cutting 231 coloured 2.5" squares, you probably heard me whinging about it on facebook or instagram yesterday...

And I played catch up on my Fat Quarter Shop BOM's.

I'm hoping to get more crafting time in today, but first my clean washing pile is begging to be folded...

Stitching is good for the soul

I've been one great big ball of stress and tension this last few weeks. I can feel it in my head, neck and right down to my soul.

I've been short with the kids and just a big ball of cranky. We have a lot going on at the moment and that is contributing to my moods. But what has been calming me down is being creative.

It always does. But this is a new way of being creative for me, I am only knew to stitching.

I have been working on my kits that I bought myself back in January..

The act of stitching is calming, it's slow, repetitive. Up, down. In and out. It's slows my mind and calms my thoughts.

It's just perfect for me at the moment.

What calms you down and clears you head?

Making

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag craft wise.

I've done some sewing for the kids quilts

I've been crocheting- I started to make a simple stripe blanket

but I put that on the back burner and decided to just focus on some dish cloths first. That seems like a much easier project for my skill level!

I've painted and then let the kids take over my project with some coloured buttons. 

It's not finished yet though.


I even had time for some stitching!

What did you get up to this week?

Me, elsewhere

Some of you may know that I have another blog. It is a blog where I solely talk craft. Be that sewing, quilting, stitching, painting, my measly attempts at crochet and occasionally knitting when my wrists and hands let me.

BUT many of you don't and I just wanted to share what has been happening over on And Sew We Craft of late.

Last fortnight we welcomed Anne of Domesblissity to our fabulous list of contributors! We are so happy to have Anne on our team and can't wait to see what yummy recipes she has to share with us.

Some of my most recent posts over there have been:

11 Ace Mod Podge Projects To Try

Stitched Notebooks

 I played with some spray paint and made this Neon Patterned door mat

And I shared my haphazard quilting techniques after I spilled some secrets about my fear of quilt patterns!

The stitching bug

I've been bitten by the stitching bug... I declared at the start of the year that I wanted to learn embroidery. I have never done it before and the only experience I have of it is my Mum doing some cross stitch and embroidery when I was about 5. I don't think she has done any since.

I picked up some kits on Etsy and then I spotted some more...

And well now I have many kits to choose from and I am just loving the differences in all of them!

I received these in the mail yesterday

 And whilst I haven't finished the giraffe yet, I couldn't resist these little notebooks so I cracked them open last night and made a start on them. They should both be finished this afternoon..

Stay tuned!

I am linking up here:
And Sew We Craft
Reasons to Skip The Housework
Tuesday to Do link party
Too Cute Tuesday
My Creative Space

Smiley Happy Giraffe

I really wanted to learn some new craft skills this year, and one of them was to start stitching.

Now I am a complete stitching/embroidery newbie. So I thought the best way for me to start was to grab some simple kits.

Except I couldn't decide on just one or two so I got... 6.

These kits are from here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/rubyinthedustnz

And I started on one yesterday. This giraffe is just gorgeous and pretty straight forward to do.

I made some more progress on it last night. And hope I can show you it all finished and pretty soon.

Do you stitch? How did you learn? 

I am linking up here:
And Sew We Craft
Reasons to Skip The Housework
Tuesday to Do link party
Too Cute Tuesday
My Creative Space