The busy month of Feb

It's nearly the end of another month. This year is certainly going by quickly! It's been a busy one as well, with meetings, theatre trips (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - which I highly recommend) and friends getting married. I've also been pestered by some friends to do the "Tough Mudder" in October - but as I'm not getting far with the 10k training, and this is 13 miles (of torture - electric shock, icy water) I may give it a miss. Google it to see what I mean, it's certainly not something to enter into lightly.

I feel like it's been a resonably productive month. The bolero is coming along nicely, with the back and the left front finished. I started on the right front last night, and then I just need to do 2 sleeves and sew it together.

I spent the weekend working on the cross stitch of  M'aiq the Liar, and have realised that I'm missing most of the threads I need, so these were ordered last night. Hopefully I'll get a little more done of him next week.

Also, at least one of the swap gifts I made for Sprite Stitch was recieved, and as the other one was sent a couple of weeks earlier, I'm going to assume that's been received as well, and post some photos.

 

Silly me forgot to take a photo BEFORE putting it into the frame, leaving me with a nice shiny reflection. Gears of War logo, complete with dripping blood ont he bottom left. You can't tell from the pic, but I used DMC colour variation thread just so it wasn't all completely one colour. I really liked the effect, and the bf wants me to make one for his cousin (I politely suggested the bf learned to cross stitch if he wanted one for his cousin. He didn't seem so keen on that plan)

I had been wondering what to try out my punch needle on first, and decided that this was the project. A nice, fluffy Arcanine, which I then stitched onto a black cotton bag, securing it on with an orange and black border. Pretty happy with how this turned out, although I wish it was a little easier to pick out detail - for example he looks a little odd with completly black eyes. The trickiest bit was getting the design onto the aida - I'm no good at freehand drawing, and ended up tracing an outline from my laptop screen onto some paper, and then trying to transfer the image. Since then, I've found some simpler ways to transfer the image thankfully. The actual punch needle-ing wasn't too tricky, and quite therapeutic once I got going - stab, stab, stab into the cloth. The ladies at the craft group seemed to like it, and I said I'd bring the stuff with me to the next meeting so they can have a go.

Almost March - and I know for a fact that March will be a crazy month, with work travel and people's birthdays. Still, better busy than bored!

Long time no blog

Ooops, it's been a while since my last blog.  I've been busy with beer festivals and all sorts. I managed to finish both swap projects for Sprite Stitch, and will post photos once the recipients have got them. Started a small cross stitch kit of a lion cub over the weekend, as I didn't fancy a night out in Burnley with the bf and his mates, and didn't have time to collect all the bits and pieces I would have needed for any of the projects I'm in the middle of. This means that I have 3 cross stitch projects on the go, and can't see me finishing any of them soon sadly.

I've also started on a knitted bolero, using Sirdar Firefly yarn. Here is a pic of the yarn (it's ribbon like, but not too difficult to knit with) and also a blurry pic of the back of the bolero. The yarn is quite stretchy, and is a little "scrunched" together on the needles in the above pic. I'm hoping it'll stretch to fit! I even made a tension square for this project - although with the yarn being s stretchy, it wasn't very useful. Is a tension square supposed to stretch to the correct size, or is it supposed to just *be* the right size? I'm hoping it's the first one.

Another quick project I did this weekend was an earring holder. Really simple and easy to do, but displays earrings nicely, I'm really happy with how this turned out, as it'll save me time when I want to find a pair of earrings.

I was asked by a friend doing the 10k run how my training was going earlier today. My answer was that it wasn't going great! I did the first run of week 3 on the couch to 5k plan last night, 9 days after the last run of week 2. I really must make more effort to go down to the gym more often. Sometimes I don't feel like running, and tend to do more cycling/rowing etc, and it's nice to do the occassional class, but it's tricky doing those along with 3 runs a week! Must try harder. The bf is away with work some of next week - shall have to see if I can motivate myself to go to the gym alone and run. Wish me luck!