Wintertime Wolves Update

More work on the wolves cross stitch.  I filled in the blue section and I'm working on one of the wolves now.

Blog Design

For some reason, today I decided to play around with my blog template.  I found this one and it's really cute.  I want something craft/quilting related and this one caught my eye.  I really like it but it still isn't quite what I was looking for so I guess I'll have to learn to create my own.  Somewhere in between continuing to clean out the 3 storage lockers (can you say my husbands ex was a hoarder - not that I can talk when it comes to crafting supplies), sorting my crafting supplies, working on the wolves cross stitch and knitting a baby blanket.  Can you say multitasking??  If anyone has any template ideas or suggestions I'm open to them, but this will be my template until I figure out something else.

While sorting through my crafting supplies I'm becoming reacquainted with a lot of things I forgot I had.  It's amazing what a person can accumulate.  I've got quilting rulers and things up the wazoo.  I've got more patterns saved than I'll ever do.  So with that in mind I've decided to work from the stash for the time being.  I may have to supplement for some projects with purchases, but for the most part it is going to come from the stash.  The first thing is the baby blanket that I'm knitting.  I have 5 skeins of the same baby/pastel color yarn that needs to be used and it is being used.  Now if only I could stay on pattern without frogging the darned thing again.  It's not that hard of a pattern and it's driving me buggy.  The problem is there are yarn overs and if I lose track of where I am it's a serious pain to frog.  Somehow last night I ended up one stitch short, but I think I found where and just did a make one to make up for it.  It's at the end of the row and there was no way I was going to frog it.

On the quilting front, I've got enough finished tops to practice machine quilting on.  But I have to finish a current project before I start on that.  Too many UFO's hanging around.

AND, it's going to be a handcrafted Christmas.  The wolves is a Christmas present.  I've got another cross stitch done for a friend who likes fishing and found another kit I purchased for her that is fishing related and needs to be done.  Fortunately it's not that big or complicated like the wolves.  I'm trying to figure out a fairly quick and easy item to duplicate for friends at work.  I was thinking about dish cloths (because goodness knows I have tons of cotton yarn) then I found a great tutorial for a patchwork lanyard and think that's the way I'm going to go.  First I'll try out the pattern for myself, but it looks great.  I'm thinking about doing some assembly line piecing for them.

Okay, back to work on something, probably the baby blanket.  Need to have it done fairly soon as the recipient will be on maternity leave very soon.

Wintertime Wolves Cross Stitch

I've started working on the Wintertime Wolves cross stitch from Dimensions that I'm making for my sister-in-law.  It will become a Christmas gift.  Lots of half cross stitch used in this pattern.  I think doing the half stitches take longer than the full cross stitch.  Anyway, lots of blues in this one, lots of blended colors.  It's going to be very pretty when it's done.  Here's the progress to date:

Work done thus far - seems like a lot, but it's a very small part of it.

Up close, cross stitches and half cross stitches

It's probably going to take me up to Christmas to get it done with all of the other things I want to do.  But I'm going to keep plugging away at it.  It's nice to get back to counted cross stitch.