January's Smalls

These are the smalls I got done for January's Smalls SAL. Both were technically WIPs - I had started the flip flop last spring, and the bear who knows when. They obviously need to be finished into ornament/frame, but the stitching is done.

WIPocalypse Jan. 2015

I'm on a major cross-stitch kick right now. Let's see how long it lasts. :p

Current* WIPs:

1. Flags of the World  14 flags in!
2. An ornament kit that had to have been my mom's originally (then sister's), as it is copyrighted 1989, and I was still in elementary school and hadn't started cross-stitching then.
*I have others. Just counting the ones I've worked on this decade. :p

Goals:
1. Do 5 flags a week, which will equal 40 weeks total and a mid-October finish. I have also been reading a (very little) bit about each country when I stitch its flag.
2. Do one frame of Storytime SAL by The Frosted Pumpkin each month, as they come out. Would also like to read the book each frame is from every month, assuming we already own it or it's easily obtainable (read: free or crazy cheap on Kindle).
3. Do at least one Christmas ornament kit every month. I have so many it's ridiculous.
4. Gallifreyan alphabet from cloudfactory for the husbandperson. I was going to do it for his birthday. Which is in 8 days. So no. Maybe anniversary instead (not 'til December. Procrastination built right in!).

Would-like-to-do:
1. Perhaps this ornament SAL. I'd finish them differently though, the stuffed biscornu thing has never really appealed to me.
2. Possibly this flower SAL. So pretty, especially July.

Our local Joann Fabrics closed up. Sad! I maaaay have gotten 283 skeins of floss one day (marked down to just 10 cents each). In my defense, I didn't have a thread stash, as I've almost exclusively done kits up to this point. So yeah. That's my excuse, sticking to it, etc. :)

ORT

My ort jar, threads slightly compressed. Thread is from 2 and 1/2 small projects, and the first 12 flags of this chart.

Little Bag

I made a little bag for my kiddo. It's approximately 5"x6". The outer blue fabric is some blend that was in my grandmother's stash, and the inner is 100% cotton from Connecting Threads. The appliques are from a random piece of bright flowery cotton I had laying around. I made it because the short one has discovered the fun of taking stuff out of something and putting it back in then taking it back out, lather rinse repeat. Now she can pick stuff up and carry it around. She tries to put the bag on her shoulder because I hook it there when I give it to her. It's way cute. In retrospect, I should have either made the bag opening wider, the handle narrower, or both. It's a little hard for her to get stuff in sometimes, since at 14 months she's not the most delicate of creatures just yet. I used light interfacing on all the pieces (heavy on the handle) so it stands up on it's own. I'm actually pretty proud of the construction job on this, I think it turned out well.



For scale:



It holds a surprising amount of little blocks:


I'll add an action shot later when it's not past time for me to be putting her to be bed.

Fabric Grocery Bag

I made a grocery bag using Use the Loot's tutorial. It was nice and clear, and I like how the bag turned out. Here's my PatternReview review.


It's really hard to get a nice action shot of a bag. Here's all the stuff that was inside. It would have held even more.



Kindly ignore the stained spoon to the right.

I foresee many more of these in my future.

I cannot, however, figure out how to make these pictures not so gosh darned big. At least, not without resizing them in photobucket. Argh. ETA: Got it. A search led me to believe I'd need to fix the html manually. It worked, but would be really tedious if I had a lot of pictures. Ah well.

Reader

I totally just discovered subscribing to blogs, and Google Reader. Welcome to the 21st Century, leigh! Egads I'm thick.

I won two giveaways!

I've won two giveaways recently - how incredibly fun is that?! One for the Fair Weather Jacket pattern from vegbee over at blueprints, and one finished bag plus fabric for another from Green Bag Lady. Figured I should finally post something to this blog so that when I get the items made up I have somewhere to put the pictures. Although, the jacket won't be made for my girly until next fall - the smallest size it comes in is 2, and she's still in 12-18 months stuff. And, she has plenty of sweaters, sweatshirts, and jackets for this winter. Mostly compliments of her aunt, who immediately turns stone cold deaf when I tell her we don't need any more baby clothes. But anyway, yea for winning!