Category: Real Life

Bistro Progress

I was working on my Bistro cross stitch (something I pull out every few years to continue with) and I noticed that one of the symbols charted didn’t have a corresponding thread to go with it. I knew it was one of the blue colours, but I couldn’t be sure which one it was. Thankfully we live in an age of online everything, so a quick google search brought up others who had the exact same issue, and reading through the replies I was able to figure out exactly what colour this symbol is supposed to be. There must have been a printing error with this particular pattern back when it was made (some time in the early 2000’s) that was never corrected. I still hold dreams of completing this piece ‘one day’ but it’s going to take a bit of time, especially since my eyes can’t see the little cross stitch holes as well as they used to.

On that note, I did order a bunch of floss and a few more pieces of aida cloth – I found some absolutely precious patterns that I wanted to stitch, something smaller that might inspire me to continue working on the larger piece. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming to just look at this one giant massive piece. Hopefully the floss and all the rest gets here soon.

Happy Corner (4)

The coffee house and the book store are completed (minus trimmings along the outside) and the glue just needs to dry before I move on to the bakery and the flower shop! I’m pretty excited to get these completed. It will take a few more sessions, but I can’t wait to see it all wired and lit up.

Organizing Hobbies

I enjoy a lot of craft related hobbies, but I rarely have time to dedicate to all of them, and I tend to binge craft and then forget about everything else for months at a time. Other times I’m so tired that without a clear idea and path of what to work on I’ll just sit at my desk and do nothing. Then it’s bed time. So I set out a schedule for my crafts and then organized them according to whether I can do them when the kids are awake / around or if I need to wait until they’re asleep (ie: using needles in cross stitch means I need to wait until they’re asleep).

Anyway, I’ve been using this schedule for almost a week and so far it’s going very well.

  • Knitting: Tuesdays
  • Cross Stitch: Monday/Friday
  • Miniatures: Saturday/Sunday
  • Spinning: Wednesday
  • Drawing: Thursday

I figure that this way at least my crafts / items are being used, and over time projects will get completed even if I don’t binge on them. I also made mini goals for each craft so I know what I’m working on. Now, this may seem counterproductive to a creative mind but this method works for me and actually has me feeling better about things than I have in a while. If I’m not feeling up to working on something I just don’t. No big deal, these are not hard set rules or anything like that, it’s just a bit of direction.

Maybe when I have a bit more free time than 2 hours in the evenings I’ll be able to open this up a bit more but for now, I’m just going to keep doing what works.

Happy Corner (3)

Last night was another miniatures night (Saturday & Sunday are the two evenings I’ve set aside for this hobby) and I built myself a little cash (complete with menu) and a shelf unit – I also glued together two chairs and a table, but they have to dry before I install them into the small tiny coffee cafe. My glue work needs .. some work, but at least it dries clear and shouldn’t show up quite as much.

I’ve been having fun working on this little project. It’s a trial in patience, which is pretty rare for me (as in I have no patience). I’m eager to get this place wired properly and have the lights working, it’s really going to look swell then. I also need to find a better way to photograph the thing.

Happy Corner (2)

I recently created a schedule for myself to organize my hobbies – I know, it sounds a bit silly, but I have a lot of hobbies and I wanted to make sure I worked on them a little bit each week, so that at the end of the month I could see some actual progress. I can assess the hobbies any time and they’re not in stone or anything like that, it’s more to do with the fact that in the events I tend to sit at my desk and think about all the things I could be doing instead of actually doing any of the things I could be doing (if that makes sense).

Last night was miniatures night (and so is tonight). The schedule is organized so that activities that HAVE to be done at night (ie: after the minions are sleeping) get a little more time than hobbies I could potentially do while they’re awake, or when it’s the weekend. Since this hobby uses knives and glue, it’s something I don’t want to do with the 2 and 4 year old poking into everything.

I’ve been working on my first miniatures kit. I bought it some years ago from Wish, which is pretty hit and miss if you’ve ever ordered from them before. I think I spent a total of $15 per kit, and I bought three of them. They are TINY scale, much smaller than 1:12, and that makes it awkward but I’m having a lot of fun slowly working on it. This kit is called ‘Happy Corner’ and is a bunch of little shops and some cute accessories on the street. I had to build the balcony from scratch, and you can see my glue is drying (it will turn clear once it dries) but I still love it so far. I also had to add lights, do the wiring for that, and there are a billion other little small details and pieces I’ll work on. I can’t wait to see it done and get it all wired so that it works.