Hi Everyone
The procrastination bug has bit me hard over the last few weeks and I’ve been struggling to find the motivation to publish anything for this blog and do anything with the Hot Cross Stitching (HCS) website. A lot of it is to do with the amount of time I spend in front of the computer for my full-time job and knowing that I need to make some big changes to the HCS website. The good thing is that about a month and a half ago I received some great feedback on my website, and a lot of it was to do with the mobile view of the site. Now I’m needing to work on improving the site so that my message is clearer and people can easily navigate through it.
To help put the procrastination bug into perspective, I have gone as far as cleaning the house and trying to improve my office/craft space! I’m not a huge fan of cleaning and in many instances people will look at the spaces I work in (at home) or my stitching space and wonder how I can find anything or complete tasks. When the spaces get a clean and look a lot better for it, I have been known to end up in a very grumpy mood because it means that I have to head home (if I’m at the coast) or tired and sore.
The positive thing with this side of procrastination is the amount of stitching I’ve been able to get done!
March Cross Stitch Update
In March, the WIPGO numbers 10 and 24. Which meant that I needed to work on Moonlit Waters Fairy and Black and White Rolled-up Daisy.
For a lot of March, I was stitching on the Black and White Rolled-up Daisy because I wasn’t really feeling the motivation for working on Moon Lit Waters Fairy. The image below shows my progress of Black and White Rolled-up Daisy:
I finally go my bug for Moon Lit Waters Fairy in the last week / week and a half of March and once I really got into it I really didn’t want to put it down when April arrived.
As the months are progressing for WIPGO, I’m finding that I’m needing to adjust my goals for the projects because trying to get 250 stitches for both projects per day is a bit too ambitious. Especially when thee are some days when I’m really tired and not wanting to stitch or frog what I’ve stitched because I’m tired!
April Cross Stitch Plans and Update
The WIPGO numbers for April were called on 27th March and they are 21 and 3. Which means I’m stitching on Fight Like a Girl and Pink Daisy. The images below are my progress before for Pink Daisy and Fight Like a Girl before April and what they should look like when they’re completed.
For the Pink Daisy, I need to go to a craft store and pick up some more threads at the higher end of the DMC range (e.g. 3825). I’ve also fallen back in love with Fight Like a Girl and I’m really enjoying working on it!
At the moment I’m finding that alternating the weeks I’m working on these two projects is working really well. It also helped that I had Pink Daisy with me at the coast for the last week of March / early April, so I could work on it a bit.
A lot of the parked threads you’re seeing are parked threads and me waiting to purchase some of the threads I need, so that I can move them out of the way. My biggest challenge is getting the stitches to align with the pattern because of some updates I’ve made to the pattern and converting it over to Pattern Keeper.
This is my progress for Fight Like a Girl. Because of how big this project will be, I’ve decided to do the backstitch as I go and at the moment, I’m glad I’m doing that. It really adds to the project and helps me with my motivation to keep going!
April Life Update
Tomorrow (Sunday 11th April), I’ll be competing / participating in my first Fun Run since 2019! I’m participating in the 5.4km leg of the Canberra Times Marathon event and it’s going to be really interesting to see how it all goes. I’ve been struggling with really tight muscles at the back of my right heel since December 2020 and I’ve only run the 5.4 km distance once since then and that was last weekend!
It felt really good to run and I made the silly error of not stretching properly after the run and I’ve been hobbling around for most of this week. That said, I’ll ensure to stretch after the run tomorrow and we’ll see how things go! It’s also meant to be quite cool and really windy tomorrow, so hopefully I can make the most of them at key points of the run!
Until next time,
Happy Stitching!
The XStitching Runner 