CRAFTS; Recent Crafty Goings On

I've refound my crafty vibe over the last couple of weeks which has finally made me finish off a lot of the projects that were half started - I often get to a project being three quarters done and then think about what crafty thing to do next and never end up finishing the first one. So, after pinning more cross stitch patterns then i'll ever have the time to do, I've been challenging myself to not starting anything new untill I had at least finished two of my on going projects, finally I'm getting there. 

What's important to me is crafting on a budget, reusing old things, framing things when I can just to keep the costs down. Crafting can get crazily expensive if you do a lot, so most of my threads, fabrics, patterns and aida material I've all been able to pick up really cheap from estate sales. A lot of it is vintage - especially some of the embroidery threads but they don't date at all and it's great being able to use them in projects still. Aside two of the yarns in the crochet project and the embroidery floss for the sheep, everything is second hand.

This super cute cross stitch pattern was one I picked up because of how sweet the sheep all look in their different "styled" fleeces. Starting this at the end of last year, the winter darkness kind of delayed me finishing this piece but I love how it turned out. Now to just find a frame for it!

Then I took to finally doing something with three stuffed fabric hearts I managed to find at an estate sale, so along with all my other supplies (again all estate sale pickings) I managed to turn them into a drop down row of three hearts (there's probably some crafty name for this but I'm unaware of it). With just cotton, lace edging and buttons it's a wonder what you can get up to with a spare half hour and it now cheers up the bedroom.

1970's eat your heart out with this vintage cushion - this was a crewel kit, unopened from the 1970's, the colours were much more gordy in the images so I was hesitant at first but I love how it turned out. I actually brought it to resell, but our sofa has been lacking in cushions so cosy comfy needs came first. This was my first time at crewel work which is basically embroidering with wool, I picked up some new stitches and it was a great quick little project.

So after finishing more then the two projects I had challenged myself to do, the last week I've been working on two great new projects - another cushion this time in crochet and a new cross stitch pattern - both found on pinterest.

I'm a week into this cross stitch which is based on a vintage French soap advertisement. Even though I've been cross stitching over 20 years (I started when I was 5-6), I still need my lines to know where I am, but the more I stitch the more I notice how much of a perfectionist I am with my work especially with colour choices - this pattern came without a colour guide so it's all my own choices, i'm still a little unsure with regards to the yellow tones, but the more I sew around it, the more they seem to blend.

Lastly I want to show you something I picked up at an estate sale at the weekend - it's basically a vintage hard case camera bag although at first I thought it might have been a vanity case. Either way it was only $4 so it was coming home with me. I had mixed ideas about either reselling it or turning it into a box for my embroidery floss seeing they were bursting out of where I was originally storing them. The embroidery floss won, and actually it makes a very good sewing box, maybe one day when we're rich enough to afford a DSLR - my little bridge camera drowns it in, it'll find it's way back into being what it was originally intended for.

I'd love to hear what crafts and projects your currently working on?