Today, I will re-set my guidelines on my cutting mat to trim the other half of the photos. I need to do this because the other half have much more space around the photo that needs to be trimmed off. Once I get new guidelines set, I should be able to finish the trimming today.

This has turned out to be a great project and I am very much enjoying the planning and execution of it. I think having different albums will give more people a chance to properly browse our patterns instead of feeling that they are taking too long. One album limits the amount of time people can browse because they feel they are holding others back from viewing the patterns. I could not find store-bought albums that would allow me to include everything I wanted, so, being the craft-minded person that I am, I am creating my own. Such fun!!

The company I found, after contacting several, is in New Brunswick, Canada and the owner was extremely easy to work with. Here is a link to her website if interested: True North Diamond Art. My custom kit of my Jocelyn rug pattern arrived in the mail on July 7th! I was so excited, I had to start it right away!  This kit was a birthday present to myself and arrived just in time. Above is the bottom left corner of my design done in square diamond drills. Due to the nature of Diamond art, all pictures end up with a pixelated look when looking up close like this photo is, but they look great from a distance. This picture will eventually go into a frame I have on hand and I look forward to watching this one progress.

If I wish to compare a shade of red to a shade of green to see if they are right for each other, I can't put them side by side using the color card because they are too far away from each other.  Although I have a great number of the actual floss colors already, I don't have them all.  They are housed in 3 project boxes at the moment and I sometimes have many of the colors separated into a specific project I am working on. 
I put on my thinking cap and decided that the best way for me to compare colors would be to actually have all of the colors.  As there are 500 color in DMC, that is a lot of colors!  Luckily, I have over 300 of them already.  I also wanted to have a color swatch available to me at all times and not tucked away in a project.  I finally decided to make up small swatches of each color using the idea they have used in the DMC color card.  I went to my local Dollarama and purchased 3 flexible cutting mats and two small, compartmented project boxes.  Then I went to a craft store and purchased a new package of the DMC number stickers.  For the last little while I have been cutting these cutting mats into tiny rectangles that are 1/2" wide x 3/4" long.  Each rectangle gets a number and a length of that color wound onto it, as shown in the photo above.  It is a painstaking job but, I feel, very worth it in the end.  
With these small color swatches I can then very easily check my color compatibility from one place and not have to find all of my floss that could be scattered in several projects at one time.  I will still be using my DMC color card all of the time, but these little swatches will be invaluable to me for the final color choices I make when designing my rugs and other projects.
When I explained the idea to my mother she immediately offered some of her DMC floss so that I may have a length of them to make up my swatches if she had a color that I don't have.  That saved me from buying 66 of the 194 colors I need to complete my set!  Each evening I have been winding a few of my colors onto the rectangles and making more rectangles as I need them.  I have made a list of the colors I still need and will pick them up whenever I see floss at a good price.  Of course this may take a while, but I am thrilled to have this underway and love the little swatches I have already made.

Since my last post, I have been dividing my time between creating fun things on my new CNC machine and working on my rug.  I finally feel as if I am on the homeward stretch now.  I am currently working the light blue background around the top half.  Once that is done, I will only have the center to finish.  It always feels good when I pass the halfway point on a particular project because I then know that I may soon start the next one.

I have also been having a lot of fun with my new machine and have been cutting out my new creations to see how they look.  So far, I haven't had to tweak much in my designs and it is so satisfying being able to create something out of my imagination and see it come to life. 
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I have decided to expand my blog from only stitching projects to include other projects I have created for my shop.  I think it gives a more well-rounded view of my activities and those of my daughters.  My youngest daughter has agreed to join me in my miniature venture and is currently working on writing a miniature book for me.  Heather absolutely loves to write and is currently working on a full-length book she wishes to publish eventually.  I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with for me. 🙂

I have also been very busy inventorying and preparing some vintage furniture for my Etsy shop.  The four pieces below, I have finally gotten listed.  The one on the bottom left has been Hand-painted by artist (and daughter) Cheryl Waugh and turned out beautifully.  I am so proud of her!  You can see all of these pieces (while they last) in our Etsy shop if interested: Double the fun Crafts