The Stitch Up

New Orleans

We snuck a trip to New Orleans in at the end of Spring.  This is a town that I have some really nice memories of and it was nice to see how it had changed since our last visit.  Mostly however, we ate a bunch of cajun food, wandered around sipping hurricanes and just relaxed.

We took the trolley up to the Garden District on one of the days of our trip and wandered around the pretty houses there.  It was a really relaxing place to spend and afternoon.

We did a short day trip out to Mamou to hit Fred's Lounge for the Saturday morning Live Cajun music show.  The bar is open at 9 am and people were crammed in, two stepping and having a great time.  The drive out covered some pretty country and we even stopped for gas at a station that had a live tiger.  Louisiana is wild.

I found time to do a little craft shopping while we were there as well.  The Quarter Stitch has some really lovely needlepoint canvases by local artists as well as some great cross stitch patterns.  I picked up a couple of patterns which I'll hopefully get to soon.  I also picked up a cute charm for my charm bracelet at The Bead Shop but their selection of beads was amazing.  Next door to the The Bead Shop is Uptown Needle & Craftworks which had some cute fabric and I picked up some great Cotton and Steel fat quarters.  Most of these shops were along Magazine street which was great to meander and pop in to whatever caught our eye.  One of my favorite stores was not a craft store but had such cute stuff - Kawaii NOLA had all kinds of adorable japanese accessories and gifts.  I bought a cat coloring book that just cracked me up and a cosmetic bag with a deer design that was made by a local artist.  

We spent our last day having an awesome breakfast at Restaurant Stanley and taking a final walk around town.

That last pic is a little cat who lived in a weaving shop in the quarter.  She was so cute but it made me anxious to get back to my own little gato.  We had a great time in New Orleans, but it's always so nice to be home.

WIPs and Where has the Time Gone???

I started a new job right before the new year and it has surprised me how fast the time has flown by as I'm trying to learn some new skills and adapt to a new schedule.  However, while I haven't been blogging about them - I have managed to finish a few long standing WIPs.

First up is a crocheted cowl that I have been picking up and putting down for a while now.  I finally finished it and blocked it which helped to jooj it a bit, but I could really see where my stitches were inconsistent.

This is a skill I'm working on with my knitting and crocheting - more consistent stitches.  Still, once it's on you don't notice the inconsistent stitches as much:

I love the pink color.  I think it's going to cheer me up a lot during some of the gray days of winter.

Next up is an old sweater I wanted to give a little more life to with some embroidery.

I used Sulky Solvy water soluble fabric stabilizer to transfer the pattern and keep the sweater from stretching out while I stitched.  I found the pattern in a japanese craft book on Hungarian embroidery.  The book has so many beautiful patterns it was tough to choose just one, but I'm sure I'll refer back to the book for future projects.  After stitching on my pattern I had to darn some worn out areas on the sweater but in the end I think it came out very nice and will give a few more years of wear to this sweater.

The final project is a slightly off color cross stitch sampler I'm making for my husband.  

CrafterDark has a ton of cute patterns and I bought several.  I'm hoping to finish this up in the next week and then I'm going to start on this one.  I think I'm going to hang it in my office at work so I'll probably be leaving off the "bitch".

I've also just bought fabric to make a gift for an upcoming special occasion so that may end up taking up most of my time for the next few weeks.  I'm hoping I've got my routine down enough now that I'll be a much more regular blogger again!

Happy Summer All!