Lots of updates

Hi all,

I've neglected to post here lately unfortunately. However, now I've got a lot of updates that have piled up.

First, my two cross-stitches:

Horses

 Rapture

I've not gotten as much done on Rapture as I would like - ideally I should have been close to finishing the second page by now. Oh well. I believe the next page is a short one, so I'm hoping to catch up over the next couple of months.

I also got a request from my fiance's family to make a toolbelt for his little brother (who is turning 6 today). I found a pattern at http://2littlehooligans.blogspot.com/2010/12/big-boy-tool-belt-tutorial.html which turned out really well (I made the belt longer, but that was all the adjustment that was needed. Here's the finished result:

Last time I posted about a painting I was working on. Frankie is all finished now - here he is:

My current painting in progress is one that was a request from a friend:

It's still got quite a lot of work to go, including fixing the light areas on the right-hand side, but he's getting there :)

Update 25/03

Hi all,

Got a few updates to share this time. I didn't get very much done last week unfortunately, which is why there's no post for it. This week, however, I have some progress pics of both my cross stitch pieces.

Horses:

Rapture:

I have done a bit more since this photo was taken, but don't yet have a picture of it.

I've additionally started to do a bit of drawing and painting again, inspired by the WIP gallery that one of the HAED artists posted on the forums. I've decided to try using acrylics, which is a medium I've never really used much before (I was always a watercolours type of person before). I'm enjoying it so far. From what people were saying, I thought it would be really, really fast drying, but I'm finding as long as I work reasonably quickly, I can still blend colours and the like. Here's my progress on my first piece so far:

This is the initial sketch - it's of one of the ponies from my riding school, Frankie (photo reference was used).

And my progress as of last night. He's still very messy looking! I'm finding acrylics to be very forgiving - if I don't get a part or colour quite right, I can just paint over it easily, which you can't do with watercolours.

A bit late

So, I fell behind a bit with posting again. :( Sorry guys!

I've been working away at all three of my current projects the last few weeks - Horses, Rapture and my bargello quilt. Here's the photos of my progress:

Horses

Rapture (Page 1 finished! :) I have done a little more since, but not enough to justify a new photo)

Autumn Song (first 6 rows put together)

I bought myself a Posilock floor stand for cross-stitching - I like to use two hands while stitching, but this has led me to prop up my frame in odd and awkward ways. I figured a stand would come in very handy. It's felt a bit odd at first, but I'm definitely getting used to it now!

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day :)

As usual, I have some cross stitching updates on Horses and Rapture:

The first page of Rapture is nearly complete. Hoping to get it finished this week, then I'm planning to concentrate on Horses until I get the next page of Rapture at the beginning of March.

I made some progress on my bargello quilt too - finally started sewing the columns together - but unfortunately I don't have a photo right now. I will post one later this week!

Weekly update 31/01

Hi all,

I managed to meet my goal with Rapture this month, which was to finish half of the first page :)

I love seeing how the picture emerges from all the seemingly strange colours. It just seems to come together at the last moment.

I also got some more done on Horses - made a start on the bay horse's eye this week.

Weekly update

Hi all.

I managed to work on three projects this week, but only a little on each. I'm not sure where all my time went - it just seemed to disappear! I made a bit more progress on Horses and Rapture:

I also worked a bit on my bargello quilt. I don't have a picture of that, as I'm still just putting the strip sets together - it doesn't look like much yet. Nearly onto the fun bit though, so I'll hopefully have a more interesting photo next week.

I have to admit, I had a moment of weakness this weekend. I saw that Jelly Roll Quilts was available for Kindle, and the temptation was too much. It has some lovely projects in it that I'm dying to try out. But... in order to make one, I needed a jelly roll. So, a trip to the quilt shop later, and I end up with this:

The batiks in the pack are just gorgeous - looking forward to seeing how they turn out when I (eventually) get around to using them!

Craft updates for this week

Hi all,

Like last week, I've been mostly working on my two cross-stitch projects:

Horses

 Rapture

 I've been having a bit of trouble finishing off my threads in Rapture, as the thread count is so small. I've just gotten my order of size 28 needles through (was using a larger 26), so hopefully that will make it a bit easier

As well as cross-stitch, I'd like to get a bit of quilting/patchwork done this week, as I have a couple of projects that I've left alone for what feels like ages..