I finished the stitching part of my latest cross stitch project last week (I just need to sew it all up).
And I thought I would have a go at adding it to my RedBubble store, just to see what it looked like. It looks pretty funky on the cushions I think!
The piece was stitched out of fabric and threads I already had and had no other use for. So, I turned things that were likely to be thrown away into a future piece of ‘art’. It’s going to be a placemat/ trivet type thing once I get around to sewing it up.
I then turned that into other products by taking a picture of it and uploading it onto RedBubble.
You could do this with knitting and crochet projects too. I’ve seen some funky designs with pictures of patchwork quilts that have been added to places like RedBubble.
So, you can make a little bit of extra pocket money from a project you’ve already sewn/ knitted/ stitched etc. I mean, even if you took pictures of things you made for other people, you could still make money!
Just a quick idea to turn your projects into cash without much extra work!
You can find my RedBubble store here if you’re interested. I’m in the process of sorting it out and updating collections and banners etc. for the autumn.
I took a few days off because I wasn’t feeling great. I didn’t write much for Medium and didn’t publish much either over the weekend. Since I wasn’t feeling like sitting at a computer and writing, I took it easy and did some stitching.
And I managed to finish my cross-stitch project at last, yay!
I’ve used up what spare threads I had leftover from previous projects and that’s made some room in my craft drawer, not much but I need all the space I can get for new stuff!
I’m thinking a padded placemat or trivet type thing. And I need to do a few more rounds of black stitching on the edges to make it easier to sew up without any white edges showing.
But for now, it’s done!
The light looked better last night as I was taking the photo – it was 12:15am and I was just going to bed!
I’m glad it’s done, it kind of looks like there should be some code hidden in it like in The Matrix!
I enjoyed this mindless project but so many of the threads got tangled or knotted which doesn’t normally happen to me. I am careful not to cut the threads too long and to let them untangle, but it still was quite annoying to constantly untangle them!
Anyway it’s done.
Onto the next project, with is finishing a knitted baby cardigan and trying to get started again on my orange jumper!
I didn’t post anything yesterday or possibly the day before because I was getting a bit sick of staring at a screen to be honest. I’ve been writing and scheduling so much on Medium lately that doing the same over here felt a bit too much!
So, posting every day in August has a day or two missing!
I’ve been doing lots of cross stitch. I would say I’m 2/3 done with the piece I’m working on and it seems to be going much faster nearer the end!
Since I’m too tired to post much, I will leave you with this random piece from Youtube:
1 Hour Of Vintage Autumn Music
That’s all I got! Have a great weekend!
Here are a few of my more recent articles on Medium if you want to have a look:
It’s 9:30pm on Monday and I haven’t posted anything.
Not the most terrible thing to notice, except I’m trying to post every day in August…so this is my ARGH I HAVEN’T POSTED ANYTHING post!
This weekend I found a crochet Christmas blanket I started at the end of last year, just as a way to use up some spare yarn. As is always the case in such projects, I didn’t have enough to finish, so I had to buy more.
The yarn came on Friday and I’ve done a few rounds already – it’s getting bigger so the rounds take longer. You can read where I got the yarn from in the previous post here:
Here is what the blanket looks like so far. It looks pretty good!
And I’ve also been doing more on my cross stitch project which is also using up spare threads and whatever fabric I had leftover from previous projects.
I don’t know if you can tell what progress I’ve made from previous posts, but I’ve definitely hit the halfway point now.
It’s just random stripes. No pattern!
So that’s what I’ve been up to this weekend craft-wise. Alas no knitting done!
I’ll see you tomorrow – hopefully I’ll be a bit more prepared, haha!
I’m doing a random off the top of my head project to use up leftover embroidery threads (and Aida fabric).
It’s just a black outline which I’m filling with random colours. I’m trying to do lines rather than dots as it’s quicker.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but I’m thinking a trivet or a placemat with some wadding underneath and another piece of backing fabric on the back.
I like the fact that I had all the materials already for this project…I didn’t have to buy anything and I’m using up what would have been thrown away otherwise!
I’m about a third of the way done so far.
I don’t know why the light is so bad in these pics, but they look much better in real life!!
I did think about doing a shape in the middle, like an ‘S’ for Sarah…but in the end, I thought it would be easier to just do random lines! I would say if I do a bit every week, then it’ll be finished at the end of August/ early September.
But there really is no rush and it’s so nice not to be looking at a pattern all the time!
This year I’ve done a variety of crafts, mostly knitting or sewing. I’ve had periods of not doing anything at all, I’ve been ill, I’ve lost my mojo, or just got fed up with a particular project and put it down for a month or two.
So far I have finished:
Knitting
A Neon Fair Isle Bag
Bauble, 3 mini stockings and a toy mouse, using up scraps of free yarn from knitting magazines
Knitted headband
Hand knitted woolly hat
Loom knitted woolly hat
Loom knitted cowl
Finished a Christmas jumper (my first one EVER!) I started late 2020
Done more on my orange jumper, I’m about a quarter of the way finished with the front.
Crochet
Granny Square Shawl
Started Baby Blanket for a friend
Started Christmas Granny Square blanket…will finish nearer December this year as I was only using up yarn
Sewing
2 x zipper bags
Denim Rucksack
Denim Tote Bag
Yellow headband
Yellow skirt
Yellow pj bottoms (still need to redo the waistline)
I cut out the pieces for a practice baby dress, I’ll sew that up in a few weeks – I’m all sewn out for a bit!
Books
Prelude to Foundation
Robots and Empire
The Complete Robot
The Naked Sun
I Will Teach You To Be Rich [spoiler alert: the book did not!]
War and Peace
Cross- stitch
Started a rectangle placemat to use up old threads
Fortune Favours the Bold sampler
Make the Days Count sampler
Birthday card
Miscellaneous
Tall candle and candles in jars to use up wax
Tried out new techniques – Entrelac knitting, changed sewing machine needle, Sewed with Denim, Made pockets – both inner and outer, sewed webbing, used belt buckles, created repeating patterns and had a large sample of a pattern made up on fabric, made my own Procreate brushes
Digital ‘Art’ – figured out Procreate, Photoshop and Canva properly
Joined RedBubble, Medium, Spoonflower, Patreon and all the sites
Joined Etsy as a seller and my digital download shop is coming soon
Joined Amazon as an author and my first book will be coming soon
first ever sewn skirt
pin cushion
pattern from an Etsy shop called Stitchrovia
A Random Waffly Roundup
I had a similar blog a few years ago which I closed down and I realised this year how much I missed writing and posting. I don’t think I follow trends or whatever, I just generally tend to post what I’m doing. Mostly, it’s crafty stuff like knitting, crochet or sewing, with the odd life post.
I try to post a couple of times a week, but if a month goes by with nothing, I won’t apologise for it! Sometimes life happens and that’s that.
Photography is always going to be my downfall, but I’m actually OK with that! I’ll try and take a nice picture, but if I can’t I’m not going to beat myself up about it!
I love to write. I might not be the best writer in the world, but hopefully I can communicate my thoughts in an easy to read way! This blog is mostly about my crafting and my life to a certain extent. Although, since it’s my blog, I reserve the right to talk about whatever I want. That being said, I did start to write on Medium about a different topic as I thought it wasn’t a great fit here (although some people might find it interesting and relevant if they have a small crafty business).
On Medium I write about making Passive Income online, and to be honest I have struggled writing there somewhat. I feel like I have to up my game and the articles, whilst OK, aren’t the best. So, I’m trying to improve my longer form writing over there. The difficulty is trying to write without every article sounding like it’s a listicle – you know, the clickbait sounding ones…3 Things You Didn’t Know You Needed (and they’re not what you expect them to be) or 5 Ways To Make A Living Online With This 1 Thing…
I hate that kind of content…it’s so Buzzfeed-ish (if that doesn’t sound TOO snobbish!). I prefer to just write whatever is in my head and I find it quite hard to organise my thoughts sometimes. Maybe it’s the adding value part of writing for money?
Speaking of money…my best month ever on Medium this month – 6 cents! I’m rich! [Although I haven’t posted much at all over there with being sick for most of June]
And the post that made most of that was this one where I talked about Low/ No Content Books on Amazon:
I’m using Canva to make Pinterest pins and I’m adding a pins to each article on Medium, which is something I haven’t been doing here. BUT, I’ve started to try and start using affiliate links on this blog, but not all the time as I don’t want to spam everyone. Incidentally, you CAN use affiliate links on a free WordPress site, as long as the site doesn’t exist solely for that purpose and you’re creating content around the links.
Am I getting off topic now? Feel like I am…
So, what’s to come?
The projects I want to finish or at least make a lot of headway with in the next few months are:
Knitted orange jumper
Knitted sock yarn shawl
Crochet Baby blanket
Cast on knitted baby cardigan and entrelac heirloom blanket
cast on pair of knitted socks
Sew together baby dress that I have already cut out the pieces for
Read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (then ALL of the books on my bookshelf will have been read!)
I want to make some bread as I did a bit in the last couple of years, but I’ve got out of the habit lately. And I want to try more vegetarian recipes…I’m NOT a vegetarian not at all. But I think eating one or two veggie meals a week is not only better for my dodgy digestive system but the planet too, so I’m going to try and start cutting out fat and sugar (she says drinking a full fat Coke on the hottest day of the year). So, I want to post a few more recipes on here too.
I also want to use my stashes of, well, everything. I have lots of wool to use, some fabric (although with the week of sewing last week, the drawers are looking a little bit emptier) and other random things like shea butter and ingredients for homemade beauty products, paints, things like that.
I have a leather handbag that is all ready to be saddle stitched together.
I also want to write more often on Medium, have 200 designs on Redbubble, and open my Etsy shop in the next few weeks.
So, there is a lot going on behind the scenes, a lot of plans and most of all dreams. It does seem like I post on here something I want to do and a week later I’m like, Nah! Forget that! I’m doing this instead!
Well, that was the last 6 months, here’s to the next!
Life is too short to finish a book you hate. Likewise, if you’re not loving a craft project and don’t think you’ll love the finished project…then either unpick it or reuse it somehow.
The colours I used for my latest cross-stitch project were a weird mix that didn’t go nicely together. True, I was using up my stash of threads from previous projects, but I still hated the colours together.
Weird colour combination!
Here is the link to the pattern if you want to see what the proper version looks like! It’s obviously much better than mine as the colours are more cohesive!
So anyway, I decided to stop and do something else to use up the threads.
I think if I do go back to the text design, I will just go out and buy matching new threads!
But for now, I’m making a placemat! I’m calling it a placemat, it could turn into a cushion cover or something else entirely…but for now, it’s a placemat!
They look a bit like Lego blocks!
I did an outline in black 2 rows wide (would have been 1 but I misjudged the rows!) and I’m going to fill in the centre with random stripes. I’lll try not to put the same colours next to each other, but I won’t stress if I accidentally do that.
Just completely random.
I’m enjoying it so far as I don’t have to look at a pattern, I can put on a video at night and just stitch whatever I want.
[This post contains affiliate links which means if you click the link and make a purchase, I get a small commission of that purchase at no extra cost to you!]
I started this project last month and honestly haven’t done anything on it for about 2 or 3 weeks.
I’ve been so preoccupied with my new digital hobby, creating digital ‘art’ and messing around with Photoshop etc. that all crafting has been put to one side.
After several years of ‘BLAH BLAH BLAH’ (which I won’t go into here), I feel like I have emerged with a hit-the-ground-running kind of attitude in the last couple of months or so. Things which have been on my list to do for ages have got done, things I wanted to start have got started. I am MOTIVATED!!!!
So, naturally, knitting and sewing has been put aside for the moment. Although, saying that, I did manage to get about 10 rows of my Neon Fair Isle Bag done last night whilst listening to some Youtube channels.
I also opened a brand spanking new Etsy shop last week too. Yay! There’s nothing on it yet, still doing the back end stuff like policies, making nice banners that kind of thing. But it will eventually become a digital download place where I sell printables (but better quality than what I’ve been posting here! You know…do it ‘Professionally’).
But it’s empty at the moment. I also have to, you know, CREATE some printables for the shop, but just having it opened and ready to go is motivation in and of itself.
I am also leaning towards doing some more sewing again, I feel like sewing is a bit of a faff compared to say, knitting. I have to actually set the sewing machine up downstairs, collect my sewing box, materials, threads, patterns etc together and it just seems to take more time to set up and get started, so I might do some sewing on Saturday or Sunday. [Spoiler alert: I didn’t!!]
Saturday 17 April
I treated myself to a Fat Quarter of fabric from Lovely Jubbly Fabrics which came in the post today. I’m getting seriously fed up of my current fabric choices, I think I might make a bag (my favourite things to make) and if there’s anything leftover then a scrunchie too.
Golds and Purples on Black…oooh look at those colours!!!
I also went for a walk down the country lanes near me, it has been so sunny and ‘warm’ lately, it looks like not just Spring, but Summer (although occasionally feels like Winter!).
Hardly a cloud in sight…although I think the daffodils are done for the year!!
Sunday 18 April
I have bought and printed off a couple of new patterns from an Etsy shop called Stitchrovia. I did a cross-stitch piece a few months ago and after years of putting cross-stitch aside I realised I loved and missed the hand embroidery element to it and so I bought 2 more to do.
They’re text based patterns, not what I usually go for, but I’m feeling motivated lately like I mentioned above, and so, why the heck not?!
A motivational quote makes for a motivated person…maybe?!!
I’m going to stitch the first one on some black Aida I have, that might be a little hard on the eyes, I can’t remember ever having done cross-stitch on a black background before. If it gets too difficult to see, I can always start again on a white background.
Another project that I dug out to finish is a leather handbag. I went on a workshop last year, luckily right before lockdown happened, and made a mini leather handbag and got the pieces ready to make another one.
I dyed the main pieces a dark green and red (looked more pink) last year and bevelled the edges, got the buckle on and then I got sort of stuck sewing on the buckle strap. On the day of the workshop, the teacher did this part for all of us to save a bit of time because saddle stitching takes ages!
I used up a lot of the thread she gave us, and I sort of lost interest a bit. But, now I have some thicker black waxed thread so we’ll see how I go.
I have all the tools and materials, I needed there to be strong natural light really. It was too dark and cold to work downstairs in winter. I’m ready to try again!
Monday 19 April
You know those days that you know you have been productive but there is absolutely NOTHING to show for it? That was today!
House cleaned, paper recycled, papers shredded…so much boring admin stuff done! Dumped so much old stuff…files on computer, old papers (that’s one thing that piles up for me…I love to scribble random notes on paper). I sorted a bag of books to take to the charity shop…and yet the place still looks the same!! 🙂
Part of me being motivated and productive is cleaning and de-cluttering, I never knew years ago, how good it would feel to throw stuff away!
I started a book called The Testaments by Margaret Atwood today. It’s the last book on my shelf that I haven’t read, once this is done then my reading list will be complete.
Yay!
It’s a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, I love dystopian future fiction. Give me a book about the world ending any day, I mean come on. Who wants a romantic comedy when you can have death and destruction?
I’m going to try and get some more of the Neon Fair Isle Bag done. It’s only small and it’s only knit and purl, but the colour changing and untwisting takes me forever! It’s soooooo slow going. I have about half of the second side to do and then sew it together and make an -icord strap/ drawstring with my French Knitting Doll.
Well, that’s all for now folks, I’ll try and post more regularly but I’m all steam ahead on the digital stuff now. I even planned out an e-book at the weekend. I do want to get my crafty projects done though, sometimes they hang over your head for ages and they become bigger things than they really are. Some things, like the bag, were only meant to be short and quick projects, and yet they drag on for so long that they almost aren’t fun anymore.
Goals for April:
-Finish Neon Fair Isle Bag
-Do some more on my leather bag (doesn’t mater how much, just SOMETHING)
-Try and finish The Testaments book
-Knit a bit more of my orange jumper that I’ve done half of
-DIGITAL STUFF: open Amazon KDP account, finish all the back end of Etsy stuff (FAQs, Policies, etc), do a bit more on Pinterest and RedBubble sites, Figure out commercial usage fonts and then it’s all go! Start designing printables and work on my book.
Woolly Orbit 