Yarn stash and Afternoon in London Stitching ♡

Good morning everyone! I hope you had a good weekend. On Friday night, I went through my stash of linen to see if I had fabric for the ice cream ladies and the Eiffel Quaker design and guess what?! I actually had fabric for both. Don't you love it when you have things in your stash to use and don't have to buy them?! 

I know I do.....especially since Hobby Lobby seems to be getting rid of a lot of their cross stitch fabrics, at least a good majority of the evenweave and linen. I'm hoping they don't try to make their own brand. I've noticed their brands of other items aren't as good as the name brand.

On Saturday, I was getting things organized for the convention later this month. One thing I didn't have were treat/gift bags to put my amis in when people buy them. So I ended up going by Michael's to see what they had.

You know me, I wandered over to the yarn section to admire their Caron cakes and 'lo and behold they had a new range of colors! They have cotton cakes and baby cakes.

(You can tell I don't get to Michael's that often, can't you?! Maybe this line has been out for a while and I just didn't know it....it's completely possible.)

So the cakes were new to me. I love the colors!

I was tempted by this color, ballerina, and ended up buying one of the cakes. My aunt asked what I was going to do with it.......I have no idea. It was an impulse buy, I blame the soft, pale colors of that yarn. I couldn't resist it.

In the end I didn't get any bags. I had texted my friend Amanda a picture of the Caron cakes and was telling her I was on the hunt for bags and she offered to go by Daiso and get a bunch of bags for me. Gotta love the fact that I have a friend in CA with a Daiso store nearby. Part of me wishes we had one here, but then again, I would be broke all the time by the awesome kawaii-ness that is their selection of goodies. LOL

I took an ever so slight break from crocheting on Friday and Saturday. I had finished making my sushi amigurumi on Thursday night, but didn't want to drag a bunch of felt, etc. to work the next day in order to finish it up. So I brought my Afternoon in London cross stitch instead.

When I started on Friday, I was missing a lamp post, two clouds, and a double decker bus.

And by Saturday night at 9pm, I was finished with the top half of the pattern. I apologize for the bad photo, but I was trying to photograph it without getting shadows in it.

I am using the DMC colors that the pattern suggests so the colors aren't strong, more of a muted soft palette, which I find to be quite lovely. I like that the double decker and the telephone booth aren't a glaring red as they are in real life.

The motifs were quite fun, though it makes me giggle when I see the guards on either side of the British Museum. There are no guards at the museum.....at least not dressed like the guards at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere. Who knows, maybe there are guards like that now. I know there weren't any when I was in London in 2007.

With the top half finished, I'll be able to start on the second half in August! I haven't decided on whether to make it my Frolicking Friday project or maybe one of the other patterns like ice cream ladies or CCN cakes.....hmmm....

Anywho, I hope you guys have a lovely week! Hopefully a nice, cool week with less heat and humidity. A Southerner can dream, right?!

Until next time ^____^