Saturday 19 September 2015

#Crafting365 Days 3-12: Lots and Lots of Stitches!

I'm now twelve days in to my #Crafting365 project: doing something crafty every day, taking a photo and sharing it online. It's not gone entirely smoothly so far, but what new daily challenge ever does, right?

On the evening of day three, I was feeling a bit half-asleep and wanted something simple to work on where I wouldn't have to make decisions. So I re-started a project that's been in my "in progress" pile for months and months (I am frankly embarrassed to look up how long ago I started this!).


Next day (just four days in!) I nearly forgot to do some crafting. Oops!

I remembered just in time, and squeezed in a bit of knitting before bed.  Some of these were knitted earlier, I'm not a magic speed knitter :)


The squares are for my happy rainbow blanket - I'm re-knitting a bunch of squares I realised that I'd knitted the wrong size (so annoying).

On day five I did some more knitting, and added some more shapes to my geometric project. Because the felt I'm working with is quite soft (and felt is quite a flexible material anyway) it's quite tricky keeping the lines straight. I'm using a ruler to check the lines frequently, but I'm still having to do a bit of unpicking and re-stitching now and then.


Day six was another sleepy evening, so I added another square (and a bit) to the pile:


On day seven, I started stitching all those felt flowers I cut out last week. I'm using them to decorate a cushion cover - I'm hoping the finished result will be a riot of colour when it's finished.


(I totally ironed the cushion cover before I started, by the way, but gripping the fabric tightly while stitching the felt shapes creates lots of creases!)

I didn't get much #Crafting365 making done on day eight. I was working on my geometric project again while watching TV and it was excellent, very distracting telly!


On day nine, I added some more flowers to the floral cushion. I don't have a plan for the layout of the cushion, I'm just adding the flowers one by one and seeing how the design develops, which is kinda fun.


Then on what was supposed to be day ten of my #Crafting365 project, I totally failed to get any non-secret-deadline crafting done. So far, when I've had busy days (working towards deadlines or going on Nice Days Out) I've managed to squeeze my #Crafting365 making into the evenings but this day was just too darn busy.

I did a bit of work for a deadline first thing in the morning, blitzed my inbox, had an awesome day out sightseeing and catching up with an old friend, then spent most of the evening stitching for my deadline. I guess I could technically have found the time to do a bit of creative making somewhere but never mind. Life happens sometimes! I'm going to do 365 days of crafting, and if that takes a bit longer than a year so be it.

So, after skipping a calendar day, for day ten of #Crafting365 I had a big session of post-deadline stitching - adding lots more flowers to the cushion. It looks like I've come on in leaps and bounds but actually loads of these are just pinned or tacked in place so I've got lots of sewing to do before I can add more flowers. Not that I'm complaining - this is such a happy, relaxing project to work on!


On day eleven I did more thinking about crafting than actual crafting. I have a big box of "in progress" projects which are less "in progress" than they are "abandoned for aaaaaages". I opened up the box and had a good look through all the half-made projects, making plans for revisiting and re-starting a bunch of them over the coming weeks.

First up: finishing cutting out this pile of triangles for something, er, triangle-y.


Then yesterday - day twelve - it was time for some embroidery! The bright pink felt I'm stitching on is super-bright neon pink, which is quite impossible to photograph. Please trust me on its real life awesomeness :)


P.S. I'm posting my daily #Crafting365 pics on Twitter and Facebook - follow along for lots of crafty goodness!

6 comments:

Jennifer said...

Thank you for sharing. I am in awe of your teeny tiny perfect stitches.

Sofie V said...

What a fun project to do for a whole year! Make make such beautiful things! I'm a fan of your work for several years now.

Greetings, Sofie
http://sofies-succulent-beads.blogspot.be/

flowerpress said...

Very inspiring. Wish you were on instagram too so I could keep up ;-)

Unknown said...

Love all these projects you're working on! Love the idea of a Craft365... it can be too easy to forget to be creative on busy days!
On the geometric arrows and the flowers, what are you using to stitch down the shapes?

Unknown said...

OMG this project is amazing! I love everything crafty you made during these days!! I would love to make a similar flowery pillow, great idea!!!

And I'm really impressed that you make something crafty EVERY-SINGLE-DAY!!! I would be too lazy I think :O

Bugs and Fishes said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I'm really excited by the prospect of a whole year of craftiness - these first few days have been so much fun.

Rebekah - I'm using whip stitch. I've shared a link to a how to video for whip stitch here:
http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/flowers-squares-and-one-of-my-favourite-stitches.html

Marysza - I'll be sharing the templates for the flowers once I've finished the cushion, so you can make your own version if you'd like :) One of the great things about this challenge is it forces me to overcome my natural laziness - it's so easy to just switch off in front of the TV in the evening, and then days and weeks go by without any progress on your projects.