Sheep On My Stuff

Again, it may not be knitting, but a finished project is a finished project:

Started 3/16/2007, finished 2/12/09. I think that's pretty fast for me.

It's all done, and I couldn't be happier! I'm suddenly very excited about getting to my next big cross-stitching project, so hopefully I'll make some progress on that while the enthusiasm is at a high. :)

For the last several years, I've thought about quilting. I love the idea of it; I love the idea of turning geometry into artwork. :) I love the idea of making things beautiful and neat and tidy and orderly, or going with the "crazy quilting" thing and making order out of chaos. Or chaos out of order! In short, it seems just awesome.

And thus I have stayed far, far, far away from it. I own a rotary cutter for sewing, but that's as close as I've ever gotten. I have lots and lots of hobbies, and never feel like I have enough time for any of them! Quilting would just be one more thing that would have to fight for its time with me, and I don't want to give up my knitting or cross-stitching or crocheting or reading or writing or World of Warcraft. (Although maybe that's something I should think about -- if I ever stop playing WoW, I can start quilting. It might help with the withdrawal pangs. But it's not too likely -- I just got myself a second account. >_>)

Anyway, recently -- probably due to my newfound lust for Vera Bradley bags (I own a book cover and three different bags and a wallet now. My only defense is that, since they're all in a discontinued fabric, they were severely discounted -- and also they're amazingly perfect as knitting bags, since they have tons of pockets but no zippers to catch on your work!) -- I started thinking that it might be cool to make my own bags and book covers. After all, then I could have bags and book covers with sheep-printed fabric!

After a while I ended up looking at books (I hear Eleanor Burns is awesome) and eyeing fabric and very, very nearly buying a self-healing mat and one of those enormous rulers. I held off at the last minute, and the urge seems to have passed... sort of.

I've had a bunch of Wool-Ease around forever; I had plans to make a mitered-square blanket with it. However, the mitered-square blanket has been languishing under the bed for months, and I had all these quilt pictures in my head, and I thought, "Scrap Log Cabin Blanket GO!" Two squares later, I haven't even made the slightest hint of a dent in the Wool-Ease. Not even a little. A square is about 80g, and I have a total of 2315g. It looks like I'll be able to make roughly 28 squares (without reclaiming the wool from the Powers of Two blanket); it would take 36 to make a queen-sized bedspread. On the bright side, squares take up very little space around the house and are easy to do while reading. On the not-so-bright side, I bet I won't be finished with this until September. On the other bright side, September is when blankets start becoming needed around the house...

Anyway, here's the other way in which quilts have insinuated themselves...

I own this beautiful book of cross-stitching patterns by (or inspired by?) Paula Vaughan -- one for each month of the year. This is the very beginning of the February quilt. I'll need to get more floss if I'm going to finish this one, but I can get along for quite a while just on the floss out of the stash.

...sigh. It sometimes seems like I'm never going to dig my way out of my stash or finish any projects.

But at least I haven't started quilting yet.

I'm getting close now -- really close!

Most of the backstitching is done -- there's a bit of blue border for the blue flowers, and around the edges of the kimono. The vast majority of what's left is background, but that's fine -- I like the background work, as it's mostly stitches and half stitches. Yay!

Until this weekend, I thought I was doing really well on my goals. I was at about 1.4:1 in terms of completed/started projects -- not the 1.5:1 I was going for, but not too far off. And I was at something like 3.2:1 on stashed/new projects -- well above the 2:1 I was hoping for.

Then I did something terrible.

I started counting yarn I'd bought and stashed -- but hadn't worked up -- in the goals.

Oh boy.

Counting each instance of stashed yarn as a "started" and "new" project, I am now at 1.3:1 (eek!) on completed/started projects and... 1.7:1 (ACK) on stashed/new projects.

In other words, I have bought a lot of yarn.

*hangs head in shame*

On the bright side, when I actually begin working the newly-stashed yarn into projects, I will then be able to count it as both stashed AND new, and if I finish those projects, they will go into both the completed AND started categories.

Srsly, I may not be buying any more yarn until the end of the year. (Yeah, that seems incredibly likely.)

Also, I hope that buying cross-stitching patterns doesn't really count. I mean, I've only bought one (with sheep) and two booklets (one for one specific pattern, one for the whole thing) this year, plus some fabric that was on clearance. And I'm working up one that was in my stash, and have only three WIPs (including that one) and four "want to do" and one "will do for yearly Christmas ornament" projects on tap, and that's all I've had in the house for ten years, excluding finished projects, of which there are five unframed, four in the framing process, and ten framed and on display in the house. That makes a total of 29 -- 14 completed through framing, 5 completed through stitching, 3 in progress, 4 kits bought, 3 patterns planned, and the 2009 Paula Vaughan Quilt project. I am not crazy. I think. OH HELP. I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE.

ETA: OH JOHN RINGO NO. I had a math error in my spreadsheet. I'm not down from 1.4 to 1.3. I am down from 1.4 to 0.9. Is it even going to be possible to get up to a 1.5 ratio again? Clearly I need to be knitting more projects from the stash. And quickly.

Oh, backstitching, how I hate you. But you sure make things look pretty.

The problem with working primarily on cross-stitching is it's hard to see much change (especially if you play WoW instead of crating, ahem). So instead of showing you what I've done on the Elegant Kimono pattern, I bring you some blasts from the past:

* * * *

I have many, many more things... which aren't framed. One of these days we'll get around to framing and hanging them. Eventually!

Well, the Powers of Two blanket is just not enchanting me right now! It's been a chore working on it, and when that happens with a project, it's time to put it in the craft room and move on to something else.

So I've picked up something I haven't worked on in a very long time:

This is a kit from Dimensions ("Elegant Kimono"), and it's lovely. I actually have a few large-size kits I've bought, fully and entirely intending to make them, but haven't gotten around to it -- if crafting, I tend to knit! But I do love cross-stitching. My house actually has a surprising amount of cross-stitched artwork in it, so on Thursday I'll be adding some pictures of finished projects that I have around the house. :)

(The sheep, by the way, is Ovistine again! Hi, Ovistine!)