Hi Everyone
It’s the first of May as I’m writing this and it’s a beautiful autumn day in Canberra. I’m making the most of the beautiful weather by writing this post outside, under my pergola because I spend 90% of my time in front of the computer or television. I’m not sure how long the nice weather is going to last. The weather people are saying that we’re meant to be getting some rain coming through next week. Maybe on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The other good thing with the weather at the moment, is that I’m trying to get outside more to start running more! Since December last year, I’ve had a lot of muscle tightness around my right heel because I wasn’t stretching enough (if at all) after any exercise I did and my feet weren’t happy with some of my running shoes. With a lot of help from my personal trainer and some stretches I’ve been trying to do at home, my right foot is a lot better. So much so, I was able to compete / participate in my first 5.4km fun run in over 12 months!
At the start of April Canberra hosted the Canberra Times Marathon that had a number of distances that people could participate in. Full credit to the organisers for this event because it was all happening on one day! This is significant because normally it’s spread out across two days – usually a Saturday and Sunday – where the shorter distances like the kids events (about 1 to 2km) through to the 10km event and maybe the half marathon (21km). Then the Sunday would have the marathon (40km +/-) and ultra-marathon (anything over 40-41km). So to have people competing in these different distances on the same day at different times takes a lot of organising and they did really well!
The additional challenge to this event was the weather. I have run in most types of weather combinations with the exception of snow. Mostly because it doesn’t snow frequently enough here in Canberra for it to really ever be something I need to consider. The day of the running event, it was really windy and a cold wind too coming in from the West. I really don’t like running in the wind and I was concerned about how sheltered the course was going to be and the hardest part was running into the wind for the finish line. But we got lucky for the 5.4km course. It was mostly sheltered and it was just towards the end that was hard. I really felt for the people who were running the half marathon and longer. They were out in the open for at least half of their courses and it takes a lot more energy and strength to be able to run in that wind and achieve the times you want.
With all of that in mind, I’ve signed up to participate in the 5km Gold Coast Airport Fun Run in July! It’s perfect timing because my boyfriend and I will technically have finished up our contracts with work and we will both be due for a good holiday then. Also, the Gold Coast is in the South-Eastern part of Queensland and is a winter escape for many of the southern Australian states that get very cold during winter.
But enough about that, lets get onto talking about some cross stitch!
April WIPGO
I’m starting to struggle with WIPGO. I know my goals were a bit too ambitious for the projects I have on my board and I’ve started a few more projects to balance out some of my struggles!
This month, I had to work on Fight Like a Girl by Tanya Amity and Dew Drop Daisy by Hot Cross Stitching.
Dew Drop Daisy by Hot Cross Stitching
My biggest struggle point with Dew Drop Daisy is I’m out by 3 stitches for nearly everything I’ve stitched so far. The slight positive is that I just need to add 3 stitches and normally this would be fine if I was just working on the background. The problem is that this is impacting the petals I’m starting to work on and I don’t have all of the colours I need to complete the petals – but I’m working on that!
So rather than adding the extra 3 stitches where I need them on Dew Drop Daisy, I found where the page ended and I’ve started stitching it from right to left. My aim is to use the right side of the page to see where I need to add the 3 stitches – especially when I get to the petals that I’ve started stitching. The image below shows you what I’m talking about…
Fight Like a Girl by Tanya Amity
I’m struggling to pinpoint my exact struggles with this project. I know I’ve talked about them before and they seem minor now. Whenever I do pick it up, I enjoy stitching it! I think my problem at the moment may be that I have so many other projects I want to work on or need to for Hot Cross Stitching, that this one falls to the way-side.
For this month though, I think my biggest struggle has been having all of the threads I need to stitch it. During the last two weeks of April, my boyfriend and I went to the coast for a few days and I took this project and Autumn Castle with me. Because they’re both in the same bag and they share a similar grouping of threads. Big mistake! I assumed I had packed the threads I need for Fight Like a Girl, but I hadn’t because I was hunting through them for a colour I needed for a different project. This is where it was good that Autumn Castle and Fight Like a Girl share a similar colour pallet!
Disclaimer: I’m having an ethical dilemma with Autumn Castle. When I’d purchased it, I hadn’t realised that Heaven and Earth Designs have an identical pattern, but called Mini Trick or Treat and the designer is Randal Spangler. I’m feeling conflicted with this because I think I bought a counterfeit. I’ll leave it at this for the moment and I’ll write a separate post about this dilemma and why it is one, even though I had purchased it.
The main thing I need to ensure is good lighting with this project. I’m working on this project mostly at night time after work, and the room I normally stitch in has reasonably good light from the main light in the room. But I’m finding that it’s not quite enough for what I need. Thankfully I have my stitching corner in that same room, with my Over-the-top (OTT) light and it’s awesome!
I didn’t achieve my goal for Fight Like a Girl, but I am happy with my progress which is shown below:
Haul
Earlier I mentioned that I competed / participated in the 5.4km fun run and it was windy and cold. I came down with a minor cold as a result of the run and the weather, which meant that I took a day off work to recover. To make me feel better (and while I was waiting for a heap of wax to melt) I went online shopping!
Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated in any way with the shop I bought my supplies from. I’m shouting them out because of their amazing turn around time and customer service. Especially since many of us have been experiencing slow shipping and challenges with getting the supplies we need.
I ended up buying some fabric and big bundle of threads to help me with Dew Drop Daisy and Pink Bottle Brush from OzStich. They’re an online Australian store and are awesome! To search for the threads I needed, I just entered in the DMC colours I needed and how many of each skein I needed and the site added the skeins to my basket. This is something I’ve not experienced before and I think it worked really well because it saved me time trying to search for the colour I need and finding out that it’s not in stock or scrolling through pages to located the colour and add it to my basket.
The fabric I bought is the Magic Count, 20×20 gridded, 25 count fabric. I’ve just started stitching on it (barely made a dent in the pattern, but that’s for another time!) and it’s awesome! I’ve never used this fabric before and I love that it’s available from the majority of craft stores we all get our supplies from.
One thing I’m playing with and learning with this fabric, is how many strands of floss I can use. At the moment I’m using 2 strands per 1 square which is providing more than enough coverage and I’m going to need to drop it down to 1 over 1. Mostly because of how bulky my crosses are looking on the fabric and in some cases, my crosses are looking un-even. But that could also be a lot to do with the way I’m stitching, where I might be pulling the thread too tight or not tight enough.
Side note – melting wax
I make my own candles out of the left over wax from other candles I’ve received as gifts or purchased. Some of the wax I was melting in April, has lasted me a few rounds of candle making!
Before the pandemic, I was in the habit of burning a candle while I work on my blog posts or when I was studying. When the time came to work from home, I debated whether or not to burn a candle during work time because I’d been so accustomed to burning one outside of work hours. Most days I light a candle while I’m waiting for the computer to load and get ready for the working day. I like the ritual and most of the time, the candle still has a nice perfume, even though this may be the second time the wax has been in the form of a candle.
Also, I really like the candle holders the original candles came in and I want to keep using them as candle holders for as long as I can!
Stitch Maynia
Leading up to May, I was debating whether or not to participate because I’m already struggling with meeting my WIPGO goals. And by adding any Maynia goals to the mix could lead to nothing getting done!
To try and make it a little easier on myself, I added all of my patterns and projects that I want to work on (at least during May) to the decision maker wheel app I downloaded to my phone. With today being the 1st May, I’ve spun the wheel and a new start has come up for me!
Seahorse (mini) by Heaven and Earth Designs
I bought this pattern as a PDF recently when HAED had their 50% off sale. I remember a while ago seeing Jessie Marie Does Stuff showing this project on her flosstube channel and I really liked the look of it.
This pattern has been designed to be full coverage, but I want to try something a little different and stitch it on a moss green 25 count Lugana and not stitch the background. The deceiving part of this pattern is that it doesn’t look like there’s a background to stitch. Stick with me over the next few months and you’ll start to see what I mean!
May WIPGO Goals
I won’t talk too much about my goals here, since much of what I’m going to be working on will be connected to Stitch Maynia and the decisions app. This month Autumn Castle and Santa’s Coming were called up and hopefully I can make some progress on at least one of them!
Wrap up
This has been a long post, so if you’ve made it to the end, thank you! I’m going to finish up the post here and enjoy the rest of the day and beautiful weather.
Until next time,
Happy Stitching!
The XStitching Runner 