Project 200 - 118/82

And here's another one. This was a commission piece... for a friend of my mum. In that long post I did there was a picture of the word "Raven" which was for another friend.

118 down
82 to go

FREE GIFT!!!

Hey there. I'm sure you've all heard me mention my etsy store?



If you go there before the end of April 2012 and buy ANYTHING, you get a free pattern of your choice :-) All you have to do is message us once you've paid and let us know which pattern you want.

And... you can get a pattern without any purchase at all! All you have to do is blog about this current offer, and send me a link so I can have a nose.

Good News!!!

Our Etsy store has made its first sale :-) One of our patterns went. Technically it's nothing of mine. The one thing Cayden had time to finish before we opened, and he sells first.

But it's a start!

2011 into 2012

Where to start? It's really hard to write this post at the moment, considering that I'm in the middle of an Episode and all I really want to do is curl up and cry. Or other things that are not nearly as healthy, but I'll try.

2011 was not the best of years. My relationship with Neil ended in March. I broke up with him, although of course I regret that. I've seen him twice in nearly two years, but my feelings for him haven't changed. I don't foresee them changing any time soon either. I still think of us as together. We both talk and text as though we are. And on the very rare occasions when he's up to it, we meet as though we're still together too. I'm not sure what's going to happen. As long as he's depressed, and we're sixty miles apart, it's not going to be easy. But for some stupid, stupid reason, I can't give up.

The photography missions failed... you might have noticed. It's hard to take pretty pictures when you're living nocturnally and don't have a high-end camera.

Project 200 is still going strong though. It's no longer a one year project. When I made the decision to work harder on opening an Etsy store, me and my adjudicator (Cayden) agreed that it could become a two year project instead of a one year. I'd intended to get to 75 (which is half the number needed for minimum pass) by New Year, but that hasn't happened, because I've been working on the store.

The weightloss failed. Miserably. I think I'm probably at least a stone or two heavier than I was this time last year. I managed to get into a cycle. I'd try and lose weight, put weight on, get depressed, binge eat, put weight on, get depressed... I was advised by a mental health professional to hold off on the weight loss until I had a better handle on the depression.

I got a little better with money. Sort of. I was just starting to get the hang of things, and pay my bills, and start to clear off my debts, and even save a little, when the stupid government decided it'd be a good idea to stop my benefits. They're in the process of switching over everybody on Incapacity Benefit to an Employment Support Allowance thing. They sent me the form, I filled it in, sent it back. And they decided that I had zero of the fifteen required points to qualify for ESA. Which is soooo wrong. And they'd had no information from my doctor either. So I'm appealing. At some point in the next month or two I'll have to go to a tribunal and hopefully they'll give me my benefit back. For a few weeks I had no income whatsoever, and was unsure of my financial future, but they are paying me now. About two thirds of what I was on, so I'm struggling a bit. It's all a big mess, but there's nothing I can do about it until the tribunal.

My depression has wavered a lot this year. It's been hard. I have a new kitten, Lexie:



And in the last few days I've managed to make a brand new friend - meaning that I now have three very close friends. I have about five other friends, all of them far away. I have hundreds of semi-friends on Ravelry who have sent me dozens of Christmas cards and lots of presents. But I'm so lonely. All the time. It doesn't go away.

My family has had a hard year. My youngest sister is now living with her dad, after all kinds of mayhem. My middle sister is barely speaking to our Mum. Most of the time it feels like my entire family has fallen apart, but there's nothing I can do to stop it, or to fix it.

I have lots of plans for 2012, but at the moment I'm struggling to see past how bad I feel at the moment. My sister is married and happy and they're looking for a house; all three of my brothers have beautiful children; two of those brothers are in happy, committed relationships and one of them got married this year. And then there's me. Living alone with my cats and no relationship. Feeling like a complete failure. My best friend in the world and I had a big falling out, and have a very tentative friendship at the moment. The love of my life is lost in a fog of his own depression and I don't know when or if I'll ever see him again. My financial situation is a complete mess, and I have no idea if that'll get better or much more worse. I turn 30 in 2012, and I have absolutely nothing to show for my life.

Aargh! I hadn't intended to get so miserable in this post. I'm going to go and get some food, then I'll come back and write my plans for this shiny new year.

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Okay, so I've had some food (bacon, beans and fried egg - nice healthy start to the year) and I've made some pointless lists and sorted some things out, so I feel a bit better.

I do have some good plans for 2012. Aside from continuing and finishing Project 200, I'm opening an Etsy store! Finally. I've been making plans to do it for a couple of years, but I finally decided that New Year's Day would be the opening day. I have a stock of products ready to go up, the store is all there waiting. We even have business cards!

Celeena Cree Creations!

Don't expect too much: there's nothing in there at the moment. But there will be by the end of the day.

I'm also raising money. I'm doing a Discworldathon to raise money for Alzheimer's Research. I have the first book - Colour of Magic - sat right beside me. I'm going to read a bit in a minute. I've set my first fundraising target at £150, and I've already raised nearly a third of that. I have £7.25 on my Justgiving page. Here! And I have another £39.50 pledged.

My other plan for this year is 2012 Fantabulous Things. I have a couple of hundred things already, and I'll add to them as I think of them, so keep an eye out for that.

Celeena Cree Creations

Guess what I got in the post this week. Well, aside from a bunch of Christmas cards and a couple of swap packages (now residing under my Christmas tree)... these arrived.



The official open date for my Etsy store is January 1st 2012. Plans for this month include finalising the PDFs for the patterns I've created, nagging Cayden until he gets round to giving me the things he's made for the store, finishing off some beading pieces and photographing everything on our nice background.

I'm very excited :D I'm not expecting to make millions, but I'd like to get some business at least. Pass on the word!

Filbert

Thought I'd show some stitching. This isn't a Project 200 piece, but it's something I quite like. His name is Filbert, and he's the first in a range I'm making for my Etsy store. I can't sell this guy, because my last safety eye was a little squished in (I don't know if you can tell by the picture). I'll be making lots more in the same basic shape with differing decorations and will sell them for loads of moolah. Well, little bits of moolah that will build up :-)

Feltaversary

July 14th 2011 is my 2nd Feltaversary. Which means that two years ago I made this delightful little piece.



I haven't shown much of my work recently, because it hasn't been Project 200 stuff. I've been working on pieces for my Etsy store, and designing patterns, and trying to finish this damn Mammoth Secret Project. But I have been working with some felt for the store, so I can show you one or two pieces.

Sorry for the misery

Hiya Internetz. Sorry about the lack of blogging. And I'm sorry that this blog will be a bit miserable too.

I haven't been blogging mostly because I haven't been finishing off any Project 200 crafts. I've been working on patterns and designs for my upcoming Etsy store, and project testing those patterns, and making other pieces to sell. I have been working on Project 200, it's just been small parts of big projects. I have restarted the Mammoth Secret Project. Well... I haven't "restarted" it, that would be insane. But I have started working on it again. I'm getting there. I'd like to have it finished by the start of September, so that I can deliver the bloody thing. That's all I'm working on this month. That and two or three cross stitch pieces. Nothing else. Not until the MSP is finished.

In the meantime... ouch. I have the plague. Well, I have the flu. Probably not even flu. More like a cold. But I don't do sick well. I do sick like a man. I feel like I'm dying. I have a completely stuffed head, a nose that can't decide if it's runny or stuffed, a stomach that gets queasy when I think about eating but that has me starving all the time. The light hurts. No energy. Can't stop sleeping. Mind you, that isn't all that different from normal.

I feel... wrong. I want nothing more than to be curled up in bed with a certain Lancashire Lad, watching a movie or something. And I can't have that. There's not much more in life that I want other than that. I wanted ice cream and milkshake earlier, and spent four hours mustering energy to go out to Sainsbury's, before I remembered that it was Sunday and the shops had been closed for hours. Wham. Depression. Because I wasn't in a bad mood already.

When I thought I was moving to Basingstoke, I scoured the internet looking for clubs and groups and societies and classes and things to get myself a social life. Checked out all the libraries and colleges and community centres and things. In the past week I've been doing the same thing for here, now that I've decided to stay. I'm going to start getting bus passes in September again, and go back to Stitch and Bitch at Keele, and restart Brownies, and join all these new groups. Get myself a social life. Give myself somewhere to go, make some new friends.

Except that right at this very moment, that seems like a really stupid thing to do. Yes, it kinda sucks being lonely. But it's safe. I can't get hurt or wound up or anything by people if I don't interact with any of them. People are evil. What I really want to do is stay the hell away from all of them.

I wish I could switch myself off. I don't mean that to sound suicidal, because it isn't meant to be. I'm not suicidal. I don't want to die. There are lots of things in life that I want, that I enjoy, that I look forward to. It's just that 90% of the time I'm not enjoying myself. I'm working hard, all the time, just to stay conscious and not collapse in a big pile of flesh and tears. I'm so tired of it. I want an off-switch. So I could just turn myself off right now, and wake up again when it's Christmas. Or when Neil is better and wants me again. Or when they've found a cure for depression.

I'm tired, and ill, and frustrated, and angry, and worried, and exceedingly uncomfortable and all I want is Neil. And then I feel worse, because I'm not meant to want him. He's just my friend now, nothing more. I shouldn't want him anymore than I want Cayden. But I do. I want Neil, and I want to stop feeling so shit all the bloody time.

Decision re. Project 200

Today has been very rough emotionally, and my decision to move to Basingstoke has changed. Instead, I'm going for a different dream. One that is going to need money. So, I'm moving my focus onto making items in order to start an Etsy store to raise money. I'm also going to selling a lot of non-handmade stuff on Ebay. I'd sell a kidney if I knew how.

I'm never going to complete Project 200 as well as make lots to sell - I'm starting with cross-stitched Christmas cards - but I don't want to give up on it altogether, so I'm turning it into a 2 year project.

I'm going to be creating and testing a lot of patterns in the near future, hopefully. Anyone want to be a pattern tester?