Regen

Well it did take forever to complete and even longer for me to post it on here. Got featured on Mr. X Stitch which is pretty cool. It was the blog that reminded me how much I used to like embroidery and cross-stitch in the first place.

This may take forever.

Fancied embrodiering a wordle, think they are kinda cool in design terms and needed a pattern that wouldn't take as long as a picture would to create. Little regeneration geeky cos the idea is to use it as an over-spill work bag. If I ever finish the plan is to do a craft one for a project bag.

Thought would be a nice project to take away with me, as it turns out I didn't get much time between visiting bits of Northern Ireland and writing my dissertation. Now I still don't have time what with work and the still unfinished dissertation. Oh well, at least its not a gift or anything, no need to finish any time in the near future. Here's how its shaping up (or was last time I had my camera to hand..)

Glob "the biscuit snitcher" Octopus

Embroidery of one of the charaters from a friend's book called The Whispering Sand. Glob is a talking octopus who can be quite friendly and helpful...when bribed with biscuits or blancmange. Described as an off-cream colour with a domed head but unfortunately against the black background the stitches look whiter than the greeny-beige I was going for. Might yet fill the back in somehow but I do like the idea of Glob floating in the blackness, dreaming of processed sugar!

Some in progress pics:

Beginnings

I should really change the name of this blog, it's been so long since I actually knit anything. In fact since my last months in education overlap with starting full-time job it might be a while before I have chance to craft anything much, let along picking my sticks back up. In the meantime I seem to have had everything aquatic on the brain as I've sketched out the beginnings of two new embroideries, check it out:

Happy Birthday!

Well I've finished the crochet shawl. Its around 2m long, difficult to photograph but here goes for now:

It was a birthday present for my mum along with a carrot cake:

 which was absolutely delicious. It's Nigel Slater's recipe but with the traditional cream cheese topping since I didn't have any mascarpone on hand and was without a car for the weekend.

The half-way house of craft projects...

So I haven't really had time to make anything recently which is irritating, or rather finish anything.
My election-leaflet thing has gotten this far, but no further because I'm incapable of remembering to buy glue when I'm out:

 I've been somewhat absent-mindedly crocheting on various train journeys :

and gardening... which is new

...And also plotting an Isaiah Berlin/ Hayek based embroidery. But nothing is finished. Though on the plus side my purple asparagus plant appears to be pulling through.

Progress, finished.

The embroidery I started here is finished and finally had time to frame it. I'm pretty happy with it and the fabric was great to stich on (unbleached - cotton? - from ikea). Not sure about the bird, thinking of unpicking, but I left the little guy there for the time being. Some close ups below so you can see all the irritating french knots in the tree: