Having completed the cross-stitch which started my Craft My Stash Challenge, naturally, I stopped stitching. I still haven’t turned it into the laptop/tablet case it’s supposed to be.

Instead, I turned to the card-stash, and to a relatively small crochet project. Cards are, naturally, an on-going sort of project, since occasions for them recur throughout the year, and every year. The crochet one, that I completed, and I haven’t done any since.

But, of late, I’ve been picking up some cross-stitch again. Nothing major, like my map-project. Just starting to work my way through the box of mini kits I’ve collected over the years whenever a magazine has caught my eye.

Currently, I have two kits on the go. First, a cute toadstool house with a mouse. Couldn’t resist buying the magazine – The World of Cross Stitching – when I saw this as the free gift. I suspect there were some other advertised patterns which I liked, and which justified its cover price. Second, a set of three card patches for autumnal sorts of birthdays (again, The World of Cross Stitching), with a fox, an owl, and a deer. The fox is nearly done.

I’ve also pulled all the Christmassy kits from the stash, to try and work my way through them now that we’re in September, and the Descent to Christmas has begun. I might even try to rope in M to help.

I’m not sure how far through them all I’m going to get, but hopefully I’ll make a good dent in the pile. I think I’ve got at least a dozen kits. Not including the Hobbycraft ones, though, because they do take some mental preparation for the (I think, not very good) thread colour lists. A shame, because I generally like the designs.

But I have plenty of other kits – for ornaments, card patches, gift tags, decor – to be getting along with before I need to tackle those. Or maybe they’ll fall into a Ruthless Clearout and go to a charity shop. I’ll decide that later.

For now, I’m finishing the mouse-house toadstool, and the fox, and a Christmas penguin I’ve had on the go for over a year. Bit depressing when you think like that, given how small a design it really is (unlike the map which has been stalled for longer than I was working on it; need to get back to that. Maybe next year).