Saturday, September 07, 2013

An Important Flower, framed Octopus, and goals

I haven't done goals in ages!  This should be interesting...

First, progress on my AAN project, An Important Flower.  I'm hoping to finish the fairy-ish looking part of the greenery on the bottom this weekend.  It feels good to finally, for realz, be over half done with this.  I feel like it's gone on forever!  It's not tedious, though, just BIG!


Oh, I was going to post my colors... I'm using all Dinky Dyes silks, and the colors are Peach, Taylor's Sweet Pea, Spearmint, and Christmas Pines.  Most of my skeins are from a junk/misdye pack but the flaws are so minor they don't affect anything, just some tiny dye spots here and there that are easily avoided.  So the floss actually ended up being pretty cheap for this project!

And we finally framed my Octopus Treasure Cave.  The picture is awful but you get the idea... it's supposed to look like a porthole!  It doesn't quite get there but I can reframe it later... can you believe this frame was actually a $15 plastic clock from Ross?  Haha!  We took out the clock parts and stuck the octopus in there right on top of the clock face!


Finally, my goals for the rest of September:

- finish An Important Flower
- no new starts unless it's a small that I can complete in a couple of days (floss samples!)
- no shopping unless it's with money earned from online sales (no touching the bank account)

Seems reasonable!

8 comments:

  1. Good luck with your goals! I'm also trying not to buy anything (Thank goodness my Mom has given me some money for a gift as we're headed off to a Knitter's fair next weekend!). I'm trying to knit from my stash and use up some of the yarn that's been sitting around for years.

    I love your octopus frame, it does look like a port hole to me! Fantastic reuse of the clock frame!

    I can't wait to see more of you AAN project, it's a bit spaced out now and a little hard to see what it's going to look like when it's finished but that makes it more fun.

    BTW I do some cross stitch, what are you favourite resources (Magazines, websites, etc) for patterns and materials and tips and such?

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    1. Hi Jessie, we're trying to do that with the massive yarn stash around here as well. I bet both of us could go a few years without buying anything and still have tons left to do. :3

      Hmm, for stitching here are some good sites. A number of them are freebie pattern sites (all legit) so it's good for the budget too. :) If you look around on Blogspot, there are a lot of free patterns to be found.

      http://freebiegallery.blogspot.com/ (has links to free patterns)
      http://thesnowflowerdiaries.blogspot.com/ (patterns)
      http://www.brookesbooks.com/crossstitchfreebies.html (scroll down)
      http://www.themakingspot.com/patterns/crossstitch (filter for freebies)
      http://www.picturethisplus.com/store/products.php?cat=20 (fabrics)
      http://stephsfabbys.com/ (fabrics)
      http://www.123stitch.com/ (all sorts of XS supplies)

      For magazines, I like Cross Stitch and Needlework, and Cross-stitcher (a UK magazine). Just Cross Stitch is a popular US magazine but their style is stuck in the 80s or something. I gave up subscribing to that one a long time ago.

      And if you use Facebook, the group called "Stash Unload" has a lot of members selling patterns and supplies for good prices. Me too, haha :)

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    2. Cool I'll have to check it out, also I just realized my real name is used on this... This is Saffity from Moonlight Legend in case you were confused about this weird person commenting to you :P. Thanks for the resources! I'll definitely be checking them out.

      Also just noticed you said you'd check out our blogs too, if you want to watch my knitting (Including the row counting bracelet you made me ages ago that I still use when I need to count rows), it's over here: http://jessieknitsandsews.blogspot.ca

      I'm really looking forward to seeing more of your cross stitch, I'm currently heading backward through your blog looking at all the pretties.

      I also peek in at ML once in a while to see what's going on there, but I'm so super busy that while I whine that I can't join, I know I wouldn't be a good player right now.

      Anyway, thanks again! I'll be putting those links in my bookmarks.

      Saff

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  2. Good luck with your September Goals. xx

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  3. Great progress. I really love the Octopus frame, it is like a porthole to the sea.

    I'm amused that you like Cross Stitcher mag because I've just cancelled my long-time subscription to it as I didn't like anything for over a year now. They have lost their "Britain's No 1" on sales title to World of Cross Stitching too. I do like JCS and subscribe to that now. I do think there is a certain amount of "fatigue" from seeing the same style of designs though. After three years of getting the Hallowe'en and Christmas ornie issue I am not quite so "wow, wow, wow" at everything. I can see where some people are churning out the same old same old each year now.
    The style of the writing is also rather dated compared to the Cross Stitcher mag.

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  4. Good luck dear for your September goals
    Happy stitching x

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  5. Good luck with your goal which look very similar to mine, though I do not always honor them, expecially the ond on new starts...
    Bye!
    Cinzia

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  6. I've always admired your octopus and you've been quit creative with it's framing.
    Maybe a little bit of advice since you don't seem 100% contempt ... you can always spray paint is in white or a combo white/blue ... But for now you just need to sit back and admire your beautifull finish!

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