No brain, only crafts

 Progress has been made!

 

Pardon my exceptionally crooked picture, I had to hold my phone *at* my head height to get the whole thing in frame. It big. But that is one whole side done! Now I unfold the other half of the canvas and take up my whole floor instead of only most of it. 

 I mentioned last time I had to slow down on the peacock lace curtain because my hand started cramping. But I have still been chipping away at it, and have the peacock itself done:

(6" ruler at the top for scale.) Now I basically just finish the outer trellis across the top, and this will mostly be done. I've gotten more on both this and the rug than I was really expecting, so I'm going to have to start looking for curtain rods and mounting options sooner rather than later. 

Despite that, I'm not able to work on either one as much as I want. I can only work on the crochet so much before my hand needs a break, and I can only take sitting on the floor so long to work on the rug. Clearly, the only solution is to add a third project.

 I have a little bead kit called Papillon d'Or from Reflets de Soie that's been hanging out in my stash waiting for fabric. Then I signed up for the Martha's Satin Pincushion class from Thistle Threads, and it uses a mounting technique I've never done. So I decided to use this beaded project to practice that mounting. And I'm glad I did, because there are already several things I'll do better on the next time! But this will be fine for this piece. (It's not really a butterfly? It's more of a swooshy floral thing. Weird that this is the second project I've done titled Papillon that won't end up being a butterfly.)

Home Decor

 I haven't been posting lately because I haven't really been stitching and I'm behind in not one, but two classes. The momentum from my last stitching trip did not last long...

But I have been watching a lot of crafting videos, and particularly saw a couple where people redo their houses or rooms, like "I turned my entryway into a medieval hall!" And I realized, I too, could realize my Victorian-medieval-revival-maximalism nightmare.

 First up: when I was looking for peacock patterns for the Papillon filet needlelace project, there was a vintage pattern that kept popping up. I loved it, but it was HUGE and couldn't be adapted down to something I'd be willing to stitch. Alas and alack, I moved on.

Related: I have a walk-in closet but it has an awkwardly narrow door. It had a folding door originally, which just made the entrance even narrower. I took the door off and it improved greatly, but I still want something to close that space off from my main room. I've been thinking of some kind of curtain?

Then I remembered I have literal miles of white crochet thread, and I know how to filet crochet. 

I love it so much! It's turning out really well and fits basically exactly across the width of my weird door space. I'm still not entirely sure how tall it's going to end up: obviously I have to finish the peacock, and then the outer filigree is pretty substantial across the top. But speculating, I think it'll only come down about a third to half of my doorway if I mount it right at the top of the doorway. Which I intend: I think that will be enough to visually separate my closet, without hanging low enough to tempt any of the cats from messing with it. I'm also going back and forth on whether I want to do some kind of edging around the very outside. Which will also have to take into account the cats.

That's about how far I was able to get before my hand started cramping if I so much as looked at my crochet hook. I'm still working on it, but usually only a row or two at a time before I need to take a break again. Fortunately, I have another project to alternate with:
 

I was looking at Herschnerr's for something completely different, and stumbled over their latch hook kits. And they had this Fire Drake kit, and how convenient, if my room has a color scheme it would be red and gold. I had been putting off buying it, because the last thing I need in my life is acquiring another project. And then it went on sale, so I mean, that's a sign right? I'm so happy, I absolutely love this. I love how vivid the colors are, I love his dumb teeth, and the yarn is surprisingly really soft for an acrylic.

I will not be using this as a rug, but intend to hang it like a tapestry over my bed. The finished dimensions are given as 30" x 50", which should *just* fit on the wall over my headboard. However, I will have to vacuum the heck out of it; the yarn is shedding pretty badly PLUS it's picking up all the cat hair anywhere in my vicinity. It's finding cat hair I didn't even know was there.