My crafty plans for the year - an update

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At the beginning of the year I wrote about my crafty plans for the year ahead, and I thought that it was time for an update.

The last few months have been all about the cross stitching. I'm really enjoying cross stitch at the moment - I like that you can pick it up and put it down easily, you can carry it around the house or out and about with you, and it's very satisfying to watch a picture come together. My main project is the Design Works Christmas ABC Sampler (affiliate link) which is made up of different festive pictures, one for each letter of the alphabet.

Normally when I work on cross stitch I work by colour, but for this project I'm completing a box at a time, apart from the beads which I will add last. There is quite a lot of metallic thread which I've not used before and I'm finding it a bit of a pain to work with if I'm honest - it gets bunched up really easily and keeps slipping off the needle. I'm having to force myself to keep up with it as I go along! It's also quite complicated in parts with lots of colour changes, it's really keeping me on my toes.

As much as I'd like to finish the sampler in time for Christmas I don't think that I'll manage it. I've only completed 10 of the 27 boxes (the last one says Merry Christmas) and along with the beading and framing I'll be cutting it fine to have it ready to display by the time we put up the decorations in early December. Hopefully by Christmas 2019 though!

The other cross stitch project I've been working on is the Cross Stitch Map (affiliate link). I'll confess that I've not quite finished adding in all the countries I've visited yet - some of the states in the US and Canada are quite tricky to fit in so I've been putting it off. I have made a start on one of the pictures around the edge though. It's a representation of a Center Parcs cottage which I'm quite pleased with, and I've come up with a simple design for a lucky cat to represent our holidays to Hong Kong and Singapore which will be stitched underneath.

I'm planning on having different shaped rectangles with pictures all the way around the edges and in the middle of the continents. They will all have blue borders in different shades, and then I'll fill in the gaps with blue patterns for the sea. It's going to take a while to get it all done though! There are also going to be large gaps in the map because for larger countries I'm only filling in the state that I've visited. So large sections of Russia and China for example will remain empty.

I share updates of my crafty projects on Instagram if you want to see how I'm getting on, and I also co-host a monthly crafty linky - you can currently find us sharing our projects under #craftingismytherapy_june and I'd love to see what you've been up to -we share our favourite photos each month. I'm also venturing into Instagram stories to share some crafty updates. You can find me here - Jennifer Jain on Instagram.

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