October is National Craft-Making Month!

Same old story... thankfully, I have an orthopedist appointment on Thursday!

Day 20

It was my kids' birthday! I made them nice birthday cards within my limited drawing capabilities, which they liked, but are a bit personal for me to post.

I made them simple, but decadent cupcakes with double buttercream frosting for their birthday dessert; the pic shows the ones that didn't get frosted but got put in the freezer for later.



Day 21

After a somewhat tiring previous day preparing a birthday feast, I opted for starting yet another low-spoon headband (but the last of this skein); I knitted about 54 rows.



Day 22

Day 22 was a bad day painwise; I did manage to finish off the headband I started on day 21, but neglected to take a picture, and now, it's mixed in with all the other headbands.

Day 23

Another not-great day and full of chores to boot. I saved my crafting streak by "finding" (it's been sitting on a chair in my dining room for months) K's dress that needed some mending - some shiny rhinestone cupchain at the neckline had some loose, and I fixed it, and also sewed up a seam elsewhere that had come undone.

Before:


After:


Day 24

I worked on the 2019 Mystery SaL, while trying to master the art of listening to audiobooks. After a bit of time, it seems that I can listen to audiobooks while crafting, as long as the work is not too complicated, because anything complicated makes it hard to listen. Now, I just have to remember to stop the book when crafting gets complicated. At least, the app I'm using has a 15 second rewind.



Day 25

More 2019 Mystery SaL while listening to a few chapters of an audiobook; I think it's getting a little easier.

Day 15

The post-vaccine uselessness largely passed by Saturday (except that my knee is still messed up), and I was able to get dinner in the slow cooker and attend my stitch-in, where I got a whole bunch of Xs in the same color put into the 2019 Mystery SaL



After the stitch-in, I sewed the nose and chin sections of a whole lot of face coverings, and then cut the sections off.



Day 16

I finished knitting the headband that I started on Monday...



I completed 2 face coverings!



I started yet another headband while watching a Legends of Tomorrow, just to have something to do with my hands where I didn't have to think too much...

Day 5, I was mostly recovering from being on my bum knee for so much of Day 4.

I put together and ironed the cloth components of K's 3 face coverings (no pic), but the knee didn't feel up to all the sitting up that sewing them would require.

So I sat in my recliner, with a cold pack on my knee, and loom-knitted about 24 more rows on F's ear warmer.



Later, I attended my stitch-in, and discovered that I had put in three rows of stitching incorrectly; fortunately it was only about 20 stitches. I frogged those stitches and re-stitched those rows, plus one.




Day 6, I spent much of the day driving my mom around to deal with some estate papers. I finally got around to finishing the knitting on F's ear warmer while I was on my weekly friends zoom call. It was late enough that I didn't feel confident in actually finishing it (reattaching the loose ends to the loom is fun enough in bright light), so hopefully, I'll get it finished on Day 7.

Days 23-25

These days are kinda blurry, and I may have worked on the cross stitch one or more of the days.



Day 26

I remember the date on this because I had to take the kids to the park after school, as the packers were still packing, so I had time to do another couple of rows in that rectangle on the right.



Days 27-31

We moved on the 27th, and I've been unpacking ever since. 4 days of unpacking just the kitchen stuff, and I might have a working kitchen sometime tomorrow.

I did break out the Halloween decorations this afternoon; I put up a few things, and then my kids went to town...

I did mention that things are crazy, right? I managed to plug along on the cross stitch anyway.

Day 10



Days 11-12
I forgot to take a picture on day 11, so you get a picture of days 11 and 12



Day 13


Day 14



Day 15
There really wasn't a day 15. I had a bunch of dental work done, and was pretty zonked on pain killers, so I couldn't focus.

The days are toooooo busy. And, if you've followed my history here at all, I'm doing well if I manage to post every-other day.


Day 4

We had a birthday in the house, so I made a huge birthday dinner, including dessert, which took about three hours, and really precluded doing any other crafting, but dessert is crafting, so here's a picture of birthday pear-blueberrry cobbler.



Day 5

Back to the cross stitch



Day 6

I made time for my weekly Wednesday stitch-in, and managed to stitch about 125 stitches in 2 hours!

I'm working mostly a single WIP this year. It's a 2019 Mystery SaL that was supposed to be completed in 8 weeks, I think. That means one was supposed to stitch 150 stitches A DAY. HaHAHAHAHhahaha. Some days, I'm lucky to get in 25, if I manage to stitch at all. Anyway I worked on page 2 most of the summer, and made decent progress. However, I stalled in August when I hit all the leftover confetti and I've only been working on it once or twice a week with my stitch-in group.

Progress through 2021 09 29



Today, I finished all of the confetti!



On to page 3!

"Behind on posting" should be my middle name...

Day 20

My little girls turned 9! For their birthday celebration, they helped me make a yellow cake with pink frosting and a strawberry-blueberry cobbler. I forgot to take a picture before the desserts were both half-eaten.



I also sorted out that bag of estate sale embroidery fiber and got them sorted out by type, including mess...



Day 21

I sorted out the mess of tangled fibers on my desk, aided by a pair of sharp pointy scissors. (not shown)

I dusted off my sewing machine from a weeks-long hiatus, and sewed a couple of bags to hold humidity-lowering rice in our new beardie's enclosure and I also sewed some more mask pieces (not shown).



I got some work done on my SaL when I finally was able to attend my weekly Stitch-In.



Day 22

Crazy day. Towards the end of the day, I redid one kid's headphone covers, because she said that she couldn't hear through the foam. Hopefully, third time is the charm...

My kids were extraordinarily on their school game today ( I tried a different approach today, and it seemed to work), and that meant I had time and energy to work on some more organizing.

Here's where I started today:



I got more embroidery stuff sorted --hoops,frames, kits, charts,and WIPs-- and put away.



I was hoping that the DMC boxes would be big enough to put all my plastic canvas sheets in, but the drawers are about 3/8" short. I will have to find another solution for those. I found some more floss: loose strands got wound on bobbins and put in the kid box, and the floss that I knew was DMC got entered into the spreadsheet and put away into the floss boxes. and unfortunately, there's a bunch of odd an ends of various things that need to go somewhere, but I'm not sure where yet, which means that they are all over my floor and desk. I've already identified a number of things that will be going out of my house (and maybe some of the O&E will join them).

Where I stopped:



Also, the DMC boxes I filled yesterday and today got put up on top of the shelves. (Yay, tall people!)

I had my weekly stitching zoom today, and I actually worked on my SaL cross stitch.

Day 28

I started to attach the gold cloth to the top of K's costume. I had NOTHING but problems: curling, bunching, thread breaking, and the bottom of the shirt disintegrating under the stitching. After a frustrating 90 minutes, I stopped and went on to more pleasant activities, like folding laundry.



Day 29

I assessed the gold trim again; I changed the sewing machine needle (I had been using the wrong kind), and changed the thread, but nothing worked, and my skills were not up to trying to make it work and get finished in 3 days. I admitted defeat, and informed K, who wailed and wailed. I promised her we would work on it again starting in January, and have it ready for our local SF convention in May. (And in the meantime, I'll get my machine serviced, because tension was part of the problem, and find a substitute for the gold fabric that isn't as finicky.)



(I took K to a thrift store after school on Wed, and we were able to find her a suitable beautiful costume.)

Day 30

Since I hadn't put my sewing machine away yet, GB asked me to repair the stitching on the waistband of his pants (no picture).

Day 31

The clutter in my office/craft storage space had become overwhelming, and I needed to get things sorted in there so at least I wasn't tripping and slipping and having things fall on my head.

Before


After


And, after returning home from the sugar mugging, I sat down and worked on my cross stitch until I ran out of thread in the needle.