Hey guys! This is only a partial update, since the full one is on my website. So far in Maynia, I’ve started five projects, and finished two.
The finishes are: Snuggle Demons (a cute little pattern with two ghosts, and a funny saying) and To the Moon and Back (a sweet one from DMC, I made for the boyfriend)
Still to finish: The Lonely Mountain, Cameo, and Enchanted Rose.
Go check out my website (link above) to see the pictures, and read how I’m stitching them.
That’s right, Maynia is almost here, and so I’m going to share my plans.
Sorry for not posting this last week, Emma!
This year I’m starting 18 new projects in May. Most of them are nice and small, and should only take 3 days at most to stitch. We’ll see how that goes.
From Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue 2017:
Nevermore (measuring 130 x 59 stitches)
Welcome if you dare (35 x 101)
Halloween Advice (86 x 116)
Scary Laundry (39 x 47)
From various places on the internet:
Beauty and the Beast rose (34 x 51)
Haunted Mansion wallpaper (48 x 48)
Slytherin Crest (61 x 101)
Dark Alphabet letter K (75 x 53)
Lonely Mountain (136 x 118)
Love you to the moon and back (in inches 12 x 10, no stitch count)
Never too old (91 x 77)
Christmas Bells (90 x 45)
Loven (69 x 38)
Merry Yule ( 95 x 49)
Solstice (75 x 32)
Witch’s Kitchen (97 x 69)
Cameo (20 x 30)
Snuggle Demons (70 x 60)
Finishes so far this year: 19
That’s right! I finished two more this week! Flitwick and Haunted Birdhouse:
I even managed a little bit more work on Witch Board:
If you didn’t see Friday’s Post on my Weekly Favorites (#5), then you missed the big announcement. I have a website! A fully fledged website with blog and e-store with my own domain name! http://www.w-ctl.com is up and running! (that’s Witchy-Crafting Through Life. Name courtesy of my little sister) It will have posts about cross stitch (of course), crochet, maybe a little knitting, origami (or my bad attempts at it, lol),cooking, life, and anything else I can think to post on it. It will also carry digital patterns from my Etsy store, where I may just hold monthly sales!
Sadly, this does mean I’m phasing out this blog. I will officially switch over to the new one on the first, but I may still post occasional updates here if you guys really want me to. Let me know in the comments below!
Until next time, Happy Stitching.
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one, I get five cents, at no cost to you.
This week, I found something a little unusual for me. A sewing pattern! Just look at it, and you’ll see why it’s at the top of this week’s favorites list:
It’s a sewing pattern for a Maleficent dragon!!!!!!!!!!!! (pattern by GameGuardians on Etsy)
Every time I see one stitched up, I fall a little more in love with CutePatternsByMaria on Etsy. Here are the top three:
and Catffee:
And in a surprising twist, MY OWN WEBSITE!!!!!! That’s right! I have my own website now! I’m still working on adding a bunch of stuff (like more listings in the store, and a better ‘about’ page), but with any luck I will be switching to it full time on May 1st.
That’s all for now, until next time…
Let’s talk family issues.
Please be aware, I do not intend this to sound like ‘poor me, life is so unfair’. I intend this post to show some of the goings on in a bad family, and what results from what amounts to adult sibling rivalry.
My sister (who we’ll call K) says I don’t clean or do any work in this house. Granted, I don’t cook dinner very often anymore (she kept complaining about how much she hates my cooking, and would refuse to serve it to her kids most times), and I could clean up after myself more often, but from the messes I see through the house, and from the things I’ve had to clean myself, I probably clean twice, if not three times as often as she does.
Let’s take it back to a few months after she moved in. We had a house rule that if you cook, you clean up before the next meal is cooked. K didn’t like that. She would neglect to clean the kitchen 9 times out of 10. One day she threw a very loud fit, demanding that I clean up the kitchen as soon as everyone was done eating dinner from then on, “No more of this leaving it until the next day bullshit” (that was a direct quote from her rant). Mom then made me clean up the kitchen as soon as dinner was over from then on, if I cooked.
Meanwhile, K still refused to clean up after herself most of the time. I pointed this out to our mom, and she said it was because “she feels like she shouldn’t have to clean if she cooks”, and that was meant to be the end of that. 9 months later, I was told I wasn’t allowed to cook dinner anymore because K hated it, and K also stopped doing the dishes. I think in the 3 months that followed, she cleaned most of the dirty dishes in the kitchen a total of 5 times. Even now, she refuses to make sure the whole kitchen is clean, and will usually only do whatever she needs to feed her kids. What really bugs me about that is that if I so much as left a counter top un-scrubbed, I would be yelled at but they say NOTHING to K.
Just the other day K demanded I clean up the bathroom every day. Sure, I could tidy up the bathroom once in a while, but no one seems to listen or care that it’s her trash overflowing the can that she refuses to empty. It’s her kids’ clothing covering the floor and shower (soiled clothing in the shower, making it unusable by adults). It’s their toothpaste, and her hair dye covering the sink. Will I take out standard trash, sweep up, clean the mirror, and do other standard cleaning in there? Sure. Will I clean up their soiled clothing, or wipe out their toothpaste-spit? No. I’m not their mother. I’m not their maid.
As I mentioned before, she, her kids, and her dog makes a mess out of the living room with trash, tissues, clothing, and everything else. Can you guess who she expects to clean it up?
I honestly don’t know what to do. Any time I try to point out K’s bad behavior, nothing happens. When I try to come up with a compromise, they tell me I need to do it all myself, or else they just don’t enforce anything with K. My feelings and wishes are ignored on a daily basis, while they cater to K’s every whim. I’m treated like a bratty toddler while they let her believe she owns this house and everyone and everything in it. Nothing I say does any good. In fact it usually makes it worse for me.
Do my parents hate me? Maybe. Do they just love their first born daughter more, no matter what she says or how she acts? Looks like it. Either way, I spend half of every day saying variations of ‘wft?!’ and ‘seriously?’. It’s like everyone here thinks I should be the happy slave, doing as I’m told whenever and wherever I’m told to do it, and that I’m mean and childish for saying anything about it.
That’s right! I’m finally almost finished with Flitwick! It really hasn’t taken that long (I did one whole page yesterday) but I kept not working on it. At least now I’m about a few hours’ work away from finishing the main stitching. I’ve been thinking about adding some embroidered and backstitched pine needle effects to fill it out more. Here’s what it looks like in the hoop:
I also started and finished a commissioned piece for a friend’s niece. It’s inspired by her favorite Black Butler character, Ciel Phantomhive:
(it says ‘I am head of this house now -Ciel Phantomhive’)
In the meantime . . . I’ve been posting more items to my Etsy store, prepping for something special coming up soon that I won’t talk about until the day of (cross your fingers that it will be good!), and gathering up blog post ideas for my upcoming website. So far I have one for Origami, and several for knitting and crochet.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions for posts you’d like to see when I get my website up and running? If it’s crafty, I’ll make an effort!
That’s all for now. Until next time, Happy Stitching!
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one, I get five cents at no cost to you.
Firstly, sorry for not posting on Wednesday. I had no idea what to write about, so instead of posting something random and weird, I just didn’t post.
On to the favorites!
This week I’m reading: Monster High 3 Where there’s a Wolf, there’s a way.
In the third installment of the Monster High book series that sparked the TV show and the movies, things are really heating up. A lot of things have gone from bad to worse, and they could still get ugly. I’m only six chapters away from finishing this and moving on to book four, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s not too much like the TV show or the movies. I think it hits a little deeper. It’s about finding yourself, and not judging others for their skin or abilities, or who they used to hang out with.
In cross stitch:
How could I not love The Primitive Hare? Just look at those simple yet still somehow detailed fairy tale designs:
I’m also getting into The Elfin Forest’s creepy-cute designs:
And WitchyStitchArt has some great dark and nerdy references like this one for Rocky Horror:
That’s all for now. If you have any suggestions of books, stitching shops, or anything else you think I might like, leave a comment below!
Firstly, the small update about the cross stitching. I really haven’t done much this week. I know, I know! I’m falling behind schedule! At least Flitwick is almost half done. Here’s what I’m working on for it now:
Lately, though, I have been working on my clay creations. If you didn’t read the weekly roundup from this past Friday, I’ve been working on some clay ornaments and needle minders. Just yesterday I finished painting up all the poison apple needle minders which have tons of glitter on them!
I’ve made a few shapes, but so far these are the best ones. I’ll be making more as soon as I can get more baking soda for the clay recipe.
That’s all for now. Until next time, Happy Stitching!
This post does NOT contain affiliate links. Just regular links to the products I’m using.
This week will be a little short on the list of things I’m enjoying. It’s mostly been clay. Yes, clay.
I’ve worked with clay many times before, but I’ve been doing something a little different. It actually started back up again in December, when I made my own ornaments using Crayola Air Dry Clay and some gingerbread men and candy cane shaped cookie cutters. Last month I started making fairy doors, which proved fun enough, but then I moved back to cookie cutters.
(two out of three doors)
This time I’ve been using the previously mentioned clay, and two home made recipes. The first was a basic salt dough recipe, lightly scented with cinnamon. The single batch was enough to make 20 ornaments at most if I rolled it out thin.
(some are salt dough, the others are air dry clay)
The second recipe I found online. You cook it up on the stove for a couple minutes, let it cool, and it dries like porcelain clay. With one batch of that, I can make 40 large ornaments tops. I’m actually thinking of turning some of these into Halloween/Christmas ornaments, and some into needle minders.
(stage one of painting the cauldrons)
I’ll be able to show you some of the other things I’m making with the dough soon enough. See you Sunday!
First of all, sorry this post is so much later in the day than usual. I almost forgot about the whole thing. I think it’s just been an off week. Anyways, on to your regularly scheduled post!
This week I’m going to talk about body image. My body image. Also the self hate that develops when you don’t love your body as it is.
I know my body has been different from most people in my age group since I was a kid. I’ve had a wider rib cage than my friends and class mates. I also started growing breasts in the third grade. By fifth grade, I already wore a D cup. Those two things, I think, where what started my body image issues. I was made fun of. People said I stuffed my bra. Other people just thought I was a much older student hanging around younger kids. I think I went on my first diet (imposed by my mother) in sixth grade.
In seventh grade, I put myself on a dangerous diet of my own. I would only eat one meal a day, spend half that day at school (including PE) and then spend a few more hours at tech week for a community play I was in. I lost ten pounds that week. I know, I know. It was dangerous and stupid but I was so sick of the mean things my classmates would say because I wasn’t rail thin. The sad thing was that the only thing anyone said was that the play was good for me, because I lost weight. It was then that it got kind of stuck in my mind that normal diets don’t work. I have to starve and over work myself to lose weight.
The next year my mom put me on the Atkins diet for a month. I was miserable the whole time and only lost three pounds, reaffirming my idea that normal, safe diets don’t work for me.
In high school, some of my classmates made fun of my big arms when I wore cap sleeves. So any time I wanted to wear a shirt with short or cap sleeves, I had a jacket on over it. Even in the summer.
I struggled with my weight all through high school and college. Hell, I still struggle with it to this day. Normal diets don’t work, the unsafe diets don’t work for long, and no matter what I do, I can’t get down to a ‘healthy’ weight.
I’ve been told my whole life to cover up. After about fifth grade, I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts outside of the house. I wasn’t allowed to wear tank tops or scoop necks. I had to cover my body from my collar bones to my knees, and if I didn’t my parents and sister would call me disgusting and demand I put something else on.
I’ve hated the way I look for years. I’ve hated seeing myself in the mirror. I’ve made myself wear only baggy, loose clothing. They’re comfortable, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t find more shaped things I really like in my size. I’d love to wear shorts in public in the summer. I’d love to wear tank tops and fitted shirts but I can never forget all the comments I would hear growing up. I can never forget all the comments I still hear my parents saying when they see someone big walking around in ‘revealing’ clothing.
All that said, if you’re even half comfortable wearing something just do it. Wear the comfortable thing. Wear the cute thing. Tell the haters to go fuck themselves, because it’s your body. Not theirs.
Okay, I admit I haven’t done much stitching this week. It’s been one of those ‘do as little as possible now to avoid burnout later’ kind of weeks.
That said, I’ve done most of page one on Flitwick. It’s working up pretty fast so far. I’m a little surprised his hair took a little less than 3 yards of the specialty thread. The thread looks awesome, by the way. It’s not as fuzzy stitched up as it is on it’s own, but it makes the hair and beard look kinda soft and fluffy. Anyways, here’s the picture:
I worked on Witch Board a little, too. There’s sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much border left, it’s insane. I think I might switch it up a little. A thread or two of the border color, and then a thread or two of one of the other colors (like for the sun in one corner, the moon and stars in another, and the bat in the center). Here’s that photo:
For today’s Etsy pattern I’m going to post the Ice Queen dress. I feel like I could improve it a little, but honestly I feel that way about most of my patterns so it’s probably ready to go up.
In other news, Crookshanks turned two yesterday. He celebrated by waking me up early, and getting into trouble. Spooky’s birthday is on the 14th (she will also be turning two).
That’s all for now. Until next time, Happy Stitching!
WitchyWoman 