30 Days of Creativity: June 2013

30 days . . . 30 creations . . . and it's starting in just 2 days!

A friend of mine posted about joining 30 Days of Creativity. This is the 4th year it's been around, but I had never heard of it before. I checked out their Tumblr, and it looks like a lot of fun. I'll be tweeting about my creations and will post photos on Instagram.

Anything that gets people creating, sharing, and building community is a great thing. I tweeted my participation pledge earlier today. There's still time for you to join before June gets started.

 

Here are the details from the 30DOC Tumblr:

30 Days of Creativity is a global social initiative encouraging people to create stuff (anything) every day for 30 days in June. 2013 is our 4th year. We hope to make it a big one.

Your brain is like a muscle. When you exercise it, it gets stronger.

I WANT TO CREATE TOO:
Don’t put it off! Create stuff now! Follow #30DOC on Twitter. Send an @reply to @createstuff to let us know you want to participate. Simply say, "I pledge to create something everyday for 30 days in a row."

What if I don't have a Twitter?
You can still pledge! Share your work with the world via email at submit@30daysofcreativity.com.

PINTEREST:
Be sure to use the hashtag #30DoC so we can help share your work with the entire Createstuff community on Pinterest.


They even put together ideas for each of the 30 days in case you're stuck for an idea and need a little inspiration!

Will you join in too?

More Embroidery Please! - Summer Stitching Club

I've been cross stitching for a long time, but I never really did much embroidery until about two or three years ago. For my first project with embroidery, I stuck to simple back-stitched names on Christmas stockings I made for my family and some close family friends. I'll probably share that project someday, but here's a peek at how they turned out.

Christmas Stockings

I really enjoy all the love that goes into something that is hand-stitched, so I've been trying to incorporate more embroidery into my projects. Right now, I'm working on an ABC Quilt for my son that has a lot of hand embroidery, and I love the way it's all coming together. I've been on the lookout for another embroidery project, maybe something for myself, and I found the perfect thing!

I've been following Mollie's Wild Olive blog for a while now, and was really excited when she wrote about her summer stitching club. Each week of June, July, and August she will send a tiny embroidery pattern to stitch up that will be made into little hexies. The tiny patterns will be great for a busy mom like me to finish quickly, and I'll finally get to make some hexies. I've been dying to try them! At the end of the summer, they'll all be put together into a cute little project. I'm really looking forward to my weekly emails!

If you want to join in too, it's just $5 if you sign up by June 2nd ($8 starting June 3rd). I think it's an awesome deal! You can click the picture below to go to her site.

ABC Quilt Progress - Still Stitching & A Realization

When I first started stitching, it was going by pretty quickly. I really thought that I might be able to finish Little Man's ABC Quilt before his birthday party on Saturday. Then, I hit a few snags. First, I had a few ABC blocks that seemed to just take forever to get stitched up. Second, Little Man decided that he needed hugs and cuddles all day long, every day. I tried, but I found that it's impossible to do any stitching while cuddling with him. Third, my shop had a nice influx of orders, and most were customized patterns and kits which take a while to put together. I love cuddling with my son, and having a busy shop is a good thing, so I didn't mind the lack of stitching.

I realized this morning that I haven't been able to do any stitching in two days. Today is Little Man's birthday, and my husband and I spent all day completely focused on him. So, no stitching again. I knew before today that there was no way I'd be able to finish this quilt by Little Man's birthday party, and that's probably why I avoided blogging for a week, but I'm finally okay with it. I'd rather take the extra time now to do a good job and make it awesome. Hopefully not having a deadline for finishing the quilt doesn't lead me to procrastinate.

I've finished 8 of the 30 embroidered blocks so far, and I'm going to try to get a few more done each day. Here are a few of the ones I've finished:

A, B, C, and D blocks for ABC Quilt

I'll be sharing more ABC Quilt progress photos as I go. You can check them out here:

Flickr

Instagram