April TUSAL update

This is my first time participating in the Totally Useless SAL. In case you haven't heard of this SAL, it was started by daffycat. Head over to her blog to read all about it. The way I am going to do this SAL is to throw away all my ORTs every month and start new. I don't remember when the last time I cleaned out my ORT catcher so I threw them all away to start this month fresh. Here is my ORT catcher:

And here is the inside of it, empty and ready to collect a month's worth of ORTs:

That's all I have for today so until next time, thanks for reading. 

-Randi

My first blog post!!!

Well, I've done it. I've started a blog. I plan to use this as a place to log and track progress on my various crafting. I knit, crochet, and cross stitch. Lately I have been mostly cross stitching and only knitting or crocheting on car rides.
I have two cross stitch WIPS that I am actively working on. The first is Amish Welcome by Told in a Garden. This is what it will look like when it is done:

And this is my progress so far:

This is being stitched on 18 count Aida in confederate gray. I'm really enjoying stitching on this piece, but it feels like progress has slowed on it. I got stitchy mail today so of course that means I had  to put this WIP aside for the new and shiny. This brings us to my second WIP that I just started on today. It is Merry Ho Ho by Lizzie Kate and here is what it will look like:

As soon as I got this out of the mailbox I started in on it. I'm stitching this on 28 count buttercream linen. This is only my second time stitching on linen, but I felt like I was making good progress and got the entire face stitched. Then I moved on to the beard. The pattern calls for Wisper thread. If you're not familiar, the Wisper thread is fuzzy and is made to look like hair or fur when stitched.

I had never used this before and I was a little nervous. Come to find out, it's not too difficult to work with. The problem I did run into was that the pattern called for two strands, but that made my stitches twice as thick as my other stitches. Plus, I'm supposed to backstitch on top of those stitches and I wasn't sure how that would look. I ended up frogging the little bit I had stitched and re-stitched it with only one strand. One strand looked a little thinner than I liked but it was still better than the two strands, so I'm sticking with just one strand of the Wisper. Here is the photo of how far I got:

I will probably keep stitching on Merry Ho Ho until I get it done. It's a fairly small piece so it shouldn't take too long to finish. I have two FO's that I ironed earlier today so that I can take them to Hobby Lobby tonight to be framed. They are The Quilting by Told in a Garden and The Golden Girls by weelittlestitches on Etsy.

That's pretty much all I have for today. I plan on updating this blog once a week, so until next time thanks for reading.