WIP Wednesday - 8/10

It's been an awesome day :D I got a lovely necklace and a gorgeous headband from the kids this morning.

To make it better I spent the morning crafting and working on my blanket. Until I realised that I had left the one colour I needed at home and I wasn't there. So then I swapped to working on my cross stitch.

My blanket is getting so big I'm only one colour away from starting a new rotation.

My Tiki is getting closer and closer to a finish! I'm almost finished the green and then it's just the border and back stitch to go. I've already done the back stitch on the bottom tiki so there is just the top one which makes me even happier.

I'm exploring working with my phone camera more and getting it to take better and better photos. I hope with some work on lighting I should be able to get better photos and with much better camera programs too. I didn't realise until today that you could get other programs to actually take good pictures I've always just used the base camera. The photos are going to get slowly better.

Then I went to a trumpet lesson which was awesome as I feel like I have some clue about what I'm doing now for tomorrow. Running through stuff away from band makes life so much easier I should heed my own advice more often!

Now I need to go get ready for dinner tonight.
I'm going to enjoy not having to cook :D

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

It's My Birthday!

Well not today ... on Wednesday but since I want to put up my normal WIP Wednesday post (I want that to become my new thing then at least you know when I'm definitely going to post.) I am going to celebrate my birthday on my blog today.

I was trying to think about what I could do, something special since I usually forget about it, and I looked through my patterns and came up with this.

I made it as a companion to my witch a couple of weeks back now but I never managed to get it over to my big computer so I could turn it into a PDF. So now using my little computer I turned it into a PNG and you all get to share in my awesome Ghost. (don't know how to post PDFs to share) You can buy the witch pattern from my etsy store.

So enjoy my birthday present to you :D You should be able to right click on the image and save it. Though please despite it being a free pattern don't share it around I would prefer it if you direct people to my blog instead.


So Happy stitching and if you complete my little guy please send me pictures I would love to see it.

Caitlin

WIP Wednesday

And now I'm back and I am remembering to do my WIP Wednesday post. I will say that not much has been happening over the last few days I managed to get quite sick with a bad cold and absolute exhaustion after cuboree and it's only today I'm starting to feel a little better.

On a really awesome note I got a chance to host the Aussie WIP Wednesday today over at The Dove Nest. So please go check it out and link up if you have something on the go this week.

This morning I took the kids (it's still holidays for another week) and we went over for my normal Wednesday craft morning with their aunt. I feel quite proud of myself I have managed to achieve a lot this morning.

 I've been working on Baroque by Inkcircles and this motif is getting closer and closer to being finished.

It should only be another couple of sessions and this motif will be done. Then I need to find out where I put my colour list so I can work out what comes next!

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

My week at Cuboree

So last week I was the crazy person that went away on a scout camp with 600 cubs as a carer for one of my old Joey Scouts. For those that don't know cubs are 8-11 year old scouts. It was an absolutely crazy and exhausting week and I had an awesome time but I know I'm exhausted and a little sick from the sheer craziness.

 On the way up my friend and I sat next to each other on the trip.

 I got challenged to do the obstacle course ( or maybe I challenged my charge to get her to do the course. )

 It was great fun and all the kids stepped outside their comfort zone to try things they hadn't before.

 I realised how much monkey bars hurt your arms! I used to love these as a kid!

 We had pillow fights :D They of course called on me next to challenge them.

 The second day we went whale watching.

 We saw lots of awesome humpback whales and it was a great experience.

 Though my camera isn't great at getting good photos at that distance.

 Then we went to the discovery sphere where there was this amazing statue it was enormous!

 On the third day we travelled through time and made some awesome crafts.

 and were challenged to throw spears at the emus.

 Then we met Mary Poppins and played with the circus.

 The best part though was panning for gold in our own special stream. (we found lots of brass and aluminium but they didn't hide much gold in there!)

 On the second last day we woke up to this amazing fog. It didn't lift until mid morning so it made it interesting finding the toilets.

 Of course once it lifted it showed the absolute exhaustion of all the leaders. The kids are being entertained by the scouts and we took the opportunity to rest our eyes and bodies just a little.

Of course as soon as I came back I took the opportunity to sew my badges on my blanket. I got a whole new pile sewn on and I'm really excited that I managed to swap for so many awesome badges while I was away.

Hope you had fun for the first week of the holidays.
Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Show your Stash: Threads

I have been reading a number of blogs recently who have all been participating in a show your stash: threads edition. It started with this blog where she didn't want to show off her cross stitch fabrics, they're really boring so instead we get to show off our gorgeous threads.

What thread do you usually stitch with?
DMC threads the plain normal ones. I love to work with them and very rarely use anything fancy. Though I do use the DMC metallics, they are just the easiest to get a hold of. 

When you shop for threads, do you buy on impulse or do you buy only what you need?
I stopped buying impulse when I realised I had 4 skeins of some colours and none of ones I did need right then. Since then it's been my goal to eventually collect all the colours. I bought a thread app for my phone and have been using that to keep track of my threads so I don't buy too many of one colour. The only problem is it's not multi device though it works really well. 

You can see the range that it covers is pretty good and it only cost $1 or something like that. I can't remember it was a while ago that I bought it. It's called floss checklist and the avatar for it on android is a purple horse.



How do you sort it? 
I sort my stash in purple bobbin boxes. I do have a blue one for my Afternoon Tea HAED and a couple of little ones for other projects but my main thread stash is in my purple boxes. 

They're getting kinda crowded so I need to buy another one at least.

I also have some random other threads that get kept in bags in my craft boxes. They unfortunately don't get used much I generally forget they are there or am afraid to use them up on a project because they're too pretty.


What tips do you have for building a stash?
Considering I'm trying to do just that at the moment and failing I can't say I have any tips. My plan at the moment is every time I get a new pattern I go and buy the threads I'm missing and slowly I will have the full collection. It should get bigger and bigger hopefully sooner rather than later.

How much is too much?
When you have more than 2 of most threads it becomes stupid. That's where I stopped when I realised I was buying up 3 or more of the same colour without checking what I already had.


How do you whittle your stash down when it's gotten too large?
I don't I just keep buying more :D Or just trying to use some of the colours I already have when I can substitute!

Do you have a current favorite in your stash?    
Yeah I love all the Australian hand dyed threads by Cottage Garden Threads. The colours are just gorgeous. 

 The African Violet is just scrumptious and the others are beautiful too. I will have to work out the perfect project for them one day.

Happy Stitching, 
Caitlin

p.s. I know I said in my goals I would post a weekly craft update on a Wednesday but as I'm at a cub camp all week with NO reliable phone I had to plan this ahead of time and I'm still posting on a Wednesday just not a WIP update. That will happen as planned next week!