Home Again

I spent the past 6 months living life on the high seas, and now I'm finally home again.

Pretty, huh?  But I honestly couldn't be happier to be back in Colorado, and my blog will be happier for it as well for several reasons.

1.  Now that I'm home, I'll have access to natural lighting anytime I want it (except at night, haha) which will be huge for the quality of my photos.

2.  Unlimited internet!!!  Enough said.

3.  I'll have a kitchen and the ability to drive to the store for ingredients, so I'll get to cook and bake again.  Bring on the recipes!

4.  The craft store is just a quick car ride away.  This will be very fun for me but also has potential to be very scary for my wallet...  I may or may not have a yarn addiction.

I'm super excited to get started on all the plans I've made for my next 6 months on land, and I'm equally excited to share them with you here.

Here we go!
xoxo
Laura

An Embroidered Dolphin

I made a dolphin card today.

I didn't use my Doodle Stitching kit to make this little guy.  I used google images to find a picture of a dolphin and then traced its outline onto some tracing paper.  Fun, huh?

I did use my kit to make the waves under the dolphin, though.

I think I'm going to make a few more ocean themed cards.  This one really got me in the mood for it!

xoxo
Laura

Embroidered Drinks

I may or may not have been feeling a little thirsty when I made my next two cards!

Just like the last two cards I posted about, I used images from my new Doodle Stitching Kit.

I wanted to use the satin stitch to make the red liquid in the martini glass, but I knew that I would end up ripping the card if I made that many holes that close together on the card.  I avoided that problem by outlining the red area with a backstitch, then threading the satin stitch around the backstitched outline instead of through the card itself.

I just used regular old backstitching on the card with the champagne glass.  I wasn't sure how the bubbles would turn out, but I think they ended up looking alright.  I especially like the two little ones inside the champagne, and I sort of wish I had made them all that small.

I need to pick up my stitching pace if I'm going to have enough cards finished by Saturday...  I hope I can do it!  I'm going to get back to work on it right now.

xoxo
Laura

Embroidered Carrots and Cranes

These are the first two cards I made with my Doodle Stitching Kit.

I used a basic backstitch on these little guys.  I found it difficult to make my stitches quite as small as Aimee Ray made hers because the paper would rip if I made my holes too close together.

When I'm finished with this card embroidery project, I definitely want to try embroidering on fabric so I won't have to be so careful about it ripping like paper.  For now, though, I'm very happy with these two cards and I have more ideas brewing for the next two.

Until next time...
xoxo
Laura

Doodle Stitching

I finally ended up buying this embroidery kit and I'm trying it out right now, see?

I'm only a week and a half away from the end of my current ice show contract, and with the end of a contract comes a lot of goodbyes.  With that in mind, I'm going to spend this week embroidering cards for all the friends that I'll be leaving.  I think it will be a fun learning experience, since my current embroidery skills are super basic.

Have you ever used a kit like this one?  Did you find it helpful?
xoxo
Laura

Bloglovin

Word on the street is that Google Reader is shutting down this summer.  If you used to follow my blog that way, I highly recommend switching over to Bloglovin and following me there.

Bloglovin is a cute, user-friendly way to browse all of your favorite blogs at once.  I personally use it to keep track of all the blogs that I like.  It's so much easier than visiting each of the blogs individually.

I hope you're having a great weekend!
xoxo
Laura

A Bump in the Road

I'm definitely not perfect and sometimes my knitting projects aren't perfect either.

I had this grand idea to make a lace knit headband that would wrap around my head and close at the back with 2 cute little buttons.  I like making up my own patterns, so I picked out a cool stitch from The Knitter's Bible, then I looked through my blog archives to remember how many stitches I had cast on the last time I made headbands, and I started knitting.

When I bound off, I was super happy with the way the lace mesh stitch looked, and I was flying high until I held it up to my head to see if it fit.  It did not fit.

This almost always happens the first time I try out a new project.

In this case, I clearly need to cast on more stitches when working in lace mesh than when working in stockinette stitch like I did with my last headband pattern.

When I try this again, I'm going to need to add at least 10 or 15 more stitches when I'm casting on.  Unfortunately I don't think that many stitches will fit on the flat needles I used for my first attempt, so I'll have to switch to my round needles.  It's not a big deal, but I prefer knitting with flat needles; I think they're just a little bit more comfortable to work with.

Hopefully I'll have a successfully finished headband to share with you next time!
xoxo
Laura

Work in Progress

This is my latest knitting project:

I can't wait to share the finished product with you tomorrow!

xoxo
Laura