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.

Qingming facts

I was looking to see if I could find this cross stitch kit again on the website that I purchased it from. The only one I was able to find was crazy expensive, but the seller had some more information on the actual painting that this cross stitch kit is based on.
Depicted in this kit are over 550 different people, more than 50 heads of livestock (cattle, horses, mules, donkeys), more than 20 vehicles, and more than 20 ships. That's just insane! And I haven't even gotten beyond the side of the mountain., yet.

I will be very happy if I can manage to finish page 3 of Qingming before resorting to another project. I'm getting the itch to start a new one from the list I had posted a while ago. I think I just may start my beer project! I can then review and critique (and drink, of course!) all the different types of beers. Plus the Mousie is starting to call to me to be worked on.
Hmm, now that I have started talking about it, I reeeaaalllly want to start on the beer project. I have a feeling that I will be stitching on the shelves this week. (Sigh, so much for finishing page 3 first).

Anyway, here is where I left off last week:

Here is where I am now. I got a lot of the yellow (boring) area stitched.

An old friend

After my last post, I started looking through my previous posts, and I came across my old favorite, Qingming! I really got an itch to start working on it, so I pulled it out and got to stitching! I just realized that it has been a year since I last worked on it!
It felt good to stitch on it again, like catching up with an old friend I haven't seen in a while. I'm hoping to keep stitching on this one at least until I finish page 3 (which will finish that whole area on the left side). 


Here is where it was when I left off last:

Here is where I am now:

With this project, it doesn't look like much progress, but it is! So, finishing 3 pages, may seem like a lot, but when there are 279 pages in all, well, it tends to put things in perspective. It also doesn't help that all I'm stitching right now is the side of a mountain. It does help to go faster, though, since there are large blocks of one color. On page 4, I get to start on some buildings. Yay!

Stupid games keep pulling me away from my crafts!

I have been stitching a little bit. Unfortunately, though, I downloaded a game to my tablet, and it sucks up my time. Next thing I know, an hour has passed. I was hoping to have stitched more, but the game made that impossible.

Here is where I was last with Candy Cane Christmas:

Here is where I am now:

I just noticed how fuzzy the picture is. I did it in a hurry. I have also updated my progress on the left!