New haul from the book sale, and a GIVEAWAY!

I don't have much progress to show, since I have been sick all week and only working on the shelves for the 99 bottles, so there isn't much to see, anyway. However, I realized that I totally forgot to post about my new pattern haul I got last month!

Once a year the local library has a HUGE book sale here. It's not just books, either. They have magazines, music, movies, pretty much anything you would find in a library, actually. My favorite section is the magazines/pattern leaflets (of course). You can get 3 magazines for $1, and the leaflets are $.10 each!
This year, they didn't seem to have as much available as they have had in previous sales (at least for the patterns, anyway), but I did manage to get some awesome stuff, and I only spent $3 on all of it!
I was going through my new stash, and I realized that I will probably not stitch a lot of them, I just grabbed them because they were cute, and for $.10, why not? So, I decided I will do another giveaway! The winner will get to pick something they want from my new stash items below, anything!

Here are the patterns that I picked up and have available:

Zweigart Aida Plus - Noah's Ark

Folk Art Favorites

Owls

Fingertip Friends for the Holidays

Christmas Cheer

Noah's Ark for Baby

Stoney Creek - Mar/Apr 1994

For the Love of Cross Stitch - Sept 1994

Cross Stitch and Country Crafts - Sept/Oct 1993

Net Darning Revival

OK, so the last one isn't cross stitch. However, the designs can easily be used for cross stitching.
Also, as a disclaimer, for the Owls leaflet, it looks as though the previous owner liked to highlight as they went along, so one of the patterns (owl in flight, lower left of cover) is almost completely highlighted, but is still readable. There is another one, as well, that has a small portion highlighted, too.
Also, the 3 pictured above the Net Darning Revival are magazines, so there are multiple additional patterns included!

To be in my giveaway, all I ask is that you be a follower of my blog and post a comment that you would like to be included. I will draw the winning name in about a week (probably on Sunday, 4/3).
Please spread the word! I want to get as many people entered as I can! If there is a large turnout, I may have several drawings!

IHSW March 2016

This weekend is/was IHSW, which is International Hermit & Stitch Weekend.
My weekend from work is actually Friday and Saturday, so my post is a little earlier than most. My goal was to finish up the shelves for the 99 beers project. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I just get so bored with the long rows of one color.
Here is how far I am, though:

I also have some progress to post on my Candy Cane Christmas. Here is where I left off:

And here is where I am now:

Progress pic, as promised

I managed to get a picture of my stitching progress from last week.

Here is where I left off last week:

And here is where I am now:

I didn't really get much done on the 99 bottles project. It's so little, that it doesn't even deserve a picture (just a small part of one shelf). My weekend time was eaten up by the craft fair.
Here is one of the bracelets that I made while at the craft fair, to pass the time.

Craft fair failure

I went to my first craft fair of the year yesterday, and I totally bombed!
It is completely disheartening. There just didn't seem to be many people, plus with where my booth was located, I think I just didn't get as much traffic as I usually do. I didn't even make enough to cover the cost of the booth space. Ugh!

This time was not a total loss, however. I did get to make a couple bracelets, and made another strip for the purse I have been working on.
I have also been toying with the idea of taking my stretchy chainmail bracelets and attaching a charm or pendant-type thing to them to change it up a bit. I bought the charms, but never actually got around to trying it out. While at the fair this weekend, I took some of my completed bracelets, and started attaching some of the pendant/charms.
I like how some turned out, others are kindof odd, but I'm hoping that maybe people will like them.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of those bracelets right now. I'll post some later, though!
In the mean time, here are a couple pictures of some of the earrings I have made!

These displays actually have 4 levels, but I purposely took pictures of the bottom 3, since the colors seem to all go together on these. I just love these star/flowers! I just wish I could wear them, myself. My ears are way too sensitive, and I have a very hard time finding earrings I can wear.

I forgot to take pictures of my stitchy progress (I have been working on the Christmas project some more), so I will get a picture and have another post soon!

When to backstitch

So, all my life, whenever stitching something, I would wait until all the full stitches are complete before doing the backstitching. I just thought that this was the normal way of doing it, so I always did it that way. However, now that I have started seeing other people's works, I see that there are so many others that do backstitching as they go. I am curious, now.

Do you backstitch as you go, or do you wait until everything else is complete and do it at the end?

This week, I broke out of my normal routine and decided to give it a try! There is a lot of backstitching on my Candy Cane Christmas, so I decided to do some of it where I had completed the full stitches, already.

Here is where I left off last week:

Here is where I am now. I got more stitching in, and I started on some of the backstitching in the corner, as well.

I have also started stitching on Kyoto. My schedule at work has changed, so I now start really early in the morning and work a weekend day, which tend to be slower times. I have managed to get some stitching done, then! I don't have a picture of it (because I forgot to take one before leaving work), but I think things are coming along quickly with this one. I am hesitant to post a picture of my progress, though, because (like Qingming) this one is printed on the fabric, as well, so it is difficult to make out. I may just post my progress percentage. So far, after 1 week, I am at 5.7%

Yet another start for me this weekend, as well. I have decided to get started on my beer project. The name of the pattern is 99 by ink circles. I was going to stitch this with a buddy, but I think I'm going to be on my own. I want to get the shelves done first, then each update for the beers will be after I have tried a beer and stitched it. I will post thoughts on the beer itself and what I liked/didn't like. So far I have just the beginning of the shelves. I didn't get as far along as I'd wanted because, well, frankly it was just boring. Long lines of stitches of one color. Ugh.