Along the River During the Qingming Festival. Page 1/279.

I was looking through one of my favorite online websites to purchase craft supplies, when I came across a kit for a really big one that looked really awesome. It was a Chinese scene that had a bridge, boats, and lots of people in it. This thing was 6 meters long! I instantly fell in love with it, and would periodically go back to the website to look at the kit. There is so much going on in this piece, that I could stare at it for hours. This is one of those things that just grabs you and captures your imagination.

I soon decided I was going to buy this kit for myself. I began researching it a little bit to make sure that I got the best deal around. During my research, I discovered that this cross stitch is based on a famous ancient Chinese painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival. 
From Wikipedia: It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, from the Northern Song period.

Unfortunately, in my research I also discovered that this 6 meter version is actually just a smaller portion of the full kit. The entire thing is actually about 22 meters long! Since I was already pricing the kit, I decided to go ahead and price the humongous full version while I was at it. I finally found the cheapest price that could be found, but since it was so big and the price was a little high, I decided to save up my money and purchase it after a few months.
About 2 weeks later, as I was periodically checking prices and kits, I found that one of the sellers on the website I go to was having a huge sale of 50% off their cross stitch kits. They even had the full 22 meter kit that I was wanting on sale, as well. This seller wasn't the cheapest  before the sale, but after the 50% off, this huge kit was about $100 cheaper than the lowest price I had found and decided on earlier!
I had to jump on this deal. Granted, I didn't have as much time to save up my money like I had originally planned, however that's what credit cards are for!

Now, I have had the kit a couple months, but I did take a few weeks off of working on it in order to crochet something up, really quick (I'll post it later). I have finally finished page one, though!
In this picture, you can see the top left corner of the piece that I have completed, and the technicolor printed parts that haven't been done yet.

The fabric has the pattern printed on itself, as you can see. I am very grateful for this. It helps me so I don't have to look at the pattern book every few minutes, and have to count all the squares. Could you imagine if you miscounted somewhere in the middle?!
The kit came with the pattern (broken up into 2 books), the bolt of aida with the design precision printed on it (with water soluble ink), all the floss (with 2 labelled floss palettes), and about 30 needles. The package weighed about 32 pounds!

There are 49 colors in this thing, but I didn't like the floss palettes they included. They seemed to be just laminated card stock, so I wanted to get something more sturdy that will hold up over the years that I will be working on this thing. I wanted to get something with big holes, too, since the replacement floss skeins are pretty big. I researched some more online, and found the perfect item. Yarn sticks! I bought 2 to begin with, and I have recently purchased my third. They hold 20 colors each, and are perfect! These things will be an integral part of my crafting, I can tell. I love them and highly recommend them to everyone.

Boba Fett Filet Crochet Doily

I haven't been posting much lately here, but I have been quite busy!
As a followup to the Darth Vader doily, I came up with a chart/pattern for a Boba Fett doily! I have had it completed for a while, but I finally washed and pinned it to dry, and I think it looks great!

I love how it turned out. It's awesome! I have both patterns available in my Etsy shop, if anyone is interested!

Rainbow blanket

So, I wanted to try a new technique using 3 strands of crochet and fading out the colors into each other. I decided to go with a rainbow colored blanket. Since this blanket was for me, and I'm not such a huge fan of the larger holes in the previous blanket I had done, I also decided to use a crochet hook a couple sizes smaller.

Original blanket:

As I started crocheting this blanket, I loved the way the colors looked. I did 2 rows of each color, changed one thread to the next color for 2 more rows, etc. It was looking awesome! Since I ended up using the small crochet hook, though, the blanket was smaller than the original. It was going to be more of a throw or a large child's blanket. That's when I had the idea!
A friend of mine was pregnant, so I could give it to her as a baby/Christmas gift! I had it done before Christmas (which for me is a huge accomplishment since I like to jump from project to project), but since I didn't get to see her for a while, she didn't get it until afterward.
However, she loved it! I've been wanting to post pics of this for a while, but I wanted to wait until she got the blanket, and then after that I just kept forgetting, but here you go!

Darth Vader filet crochet doily

I recently (this past year or so) became familiar with filet crochet. I wanted to learn more about it, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it is done with the same basic crochet stitches that I already know! I went about teaching myself how to make a doily.

My first project was a flag, made with a free pattern that I found online. Once I had the basics down, I just had to make something that was all my own. My husband is a huge Star Wars fanatic, and I wanted to make something for him. I have already made him the PixelHobby stormtrooper, so I decided on Darth Vader this time. Besides, who would be the least likely person in Star Wars to find crocheted into a doily? That's right, Darth Vader!

Here is the finished product:

I love how it turned out! My husband wants us to frame it so we can put it on the wall.
I had so much fun making this one, that I decided to fix up the pattern into a professional format, and I have added it to my Etsy store if anyone is wanting a copy. I hope everyone has as much fun making this one as I did!