It's WIP Wednesday!

Let's start with the basics: what in the world is WIP Wednesday?  The short answer is it stands for "Work In Progress Wednesday".  The longer answer is, as always, a bit more complicated than that.  I love to do a variety of different crafts and activities (I focus on scrapbooking, coloring, knitting and cross stitching, along with covering everything I own in vinyl thanks to my Cricut).  I know, it's a lot.  In the past I've gone through phases where I become completely obsessed with one of my hobbies and burn through it really quick in a few weeks before moving on to the next one and starting the whole process all over again.  Lately, though, I've been finding more of a balance.  While most of my energy has been focused on cross stitching, I've also been reading a lot more and have a knitting project going.  I honestly haven't scrapbooked in a while, but I do color every once in a while when I find the time.

Today, I just wanted to give a brief update on my projects.  I can't go into too much detail about them, as two of them are Christmas presents for other people, but I figured it would be safe to speak in generic terms.

Ever since I started cross stitching and knitting again (I've known how to knit since high school and taught myself to cross stitch with the help of YouTube over the summer), I've tried to keep only one cross stitch and one knitting project going at a time.  For a while, this worked out great for me, until I went to my boyfriend's took out my cross stitch project and realized I didn't have my needles with me!  To make matters worse, I left my project at his house and couldn't get it back for a few days.  Since I had a lot to get done, I didn't want to waste time, so I started a second project.  I'm about halfway done with the second project and about three quarters of the way done with the first project I started.  The first project has more smaller figures to cross stitch, so it's easier to feel like I'm making progress since I can finish one or two figures in an evening (depending on how many colors are involved and how complicated it is).  As for the second project I started has much bigger shapes.  Unfortunately, it has been exceedingly difficult because most of it was one color, and it was hard to keep track of what line I was on and where I was in the project.  Thankfully, the hard part is over.  My goal is to be done with both of these projects before Thanksgiving, but I know I'll get them done long before then (it's important to be realistic though).

As for my knitting project, I'm not in as big of a rush to finish it.  Yes, it would be nice to wear during the winter months, but I also want to keep it nice looking in preparation for next year's county fair (I have a few projects I want to enter already).  I'm making this fairly simple wrap (please note, the pattern is NOT mine, but it's absolutely adorable, so I wanted to share it).  I'm keeping the color the same and everything.  The body is extremely easy to make, but I'm not entirely sure about how to do the hood.  I'm hoping my boyfriend's mom can help me with that one, as she's a wonderful and proficient knitter.  What's nice is the fact that I'm using large needles (size 17), paired with bulky yarn.  This means it will be a much easier project to finish.  I've only done a few inches in the past week or so, but I'm hoping to pick up the pace soon.  Since I don't have to be done anytime soon (unlike my other two projects), this project has been pushed to the back burner a little bit in favor of more pressing projects.  My goal is to have this one done by Christmas, as I have a much larger and more complicated one to do afterwards (another one to enter in the fair hopefully).