Some Finishes

I had to work at a new site on my job yesterday - and there was no one else there and I had not a single customer - weird!

But it got these little monsters finished - yay!



There are 8 different shades of brown/gold/yellow in those bells, and you really can't tell at all XD

When I got home I finished this:



I had all but half the edging done, when I ran out of yarn and had to get some more.  Either I counted my gauge wrong, or the pattern tester was smoking crack, because I had already used about 4oz more of each color. :P

So that's one present down, and now I'll be starting on the next!  My mum loves the color purple, so when I saw this afghan I was sure she would want it.  (This is from the book 'Top Technique & Special Stitches Afghans', which also has the spiral pattern)



It's called 'Mosaic Stair-Step' and it's a little complicated, but not as much as it looks.  Anyway, I showed it to her to be sure, and she did love it - then stunned me by asking can I change the colors!  She wants it to match their bedroom so it can go on the bed, which means dark green and probably a light brown or tan.  Oh, well.  What Mama wants, Mama shall get!

Here's my to-be-made presents list:

Spiral Afghan for BIL - done
Mosaic Afghan for Mum - started
God Bless America for Dad - 1/4-1/3 done, has to be done by Nov to be framed
Amigurumi Ninja for the Goth Chick
Ruffled Knit Scarf for the Goth Chick - started
Yellow & White Ripple Baby Afghan for my SIL (she's pregnant! yay!)
Amigurumi Angry Birds set for my Nephew
Something for my brother - IDK what
Anniversary PM Project - 1/3 done, has to be done by Nov to be framed

Growing Day by Day

Okay - the angel? Never has turned up.  But I'm still looking!  I expect sometime I'll be going through some random stuff and there she'll be.

My wee PM Brave has a whole head now:



I'm backstitching this one as I go - something I always say I'm going to do and yet very rarely do so.  His feather and headband don't have any backstitching.

With the cat in the chair, I hit a snag - I don't like the way the backstitching of the doily on the chair back is done, but I keep having to frog my attempts to 'fix' it because I can't do math to save my life.

My spiral afghan was up to 32 stitches between increases when I took this pic:



Then as soon as I picked it back up to work on it, I saw I had done two increases side by side on a previous  row and had to pull a whole round of green out.  It was the equivalent of two rounds on a regular afghan.  Annoying!  But I didn't even stop and now I'm up to 36 stitches.  I have to get to 40 and then there's the edging.  I may have it done by tomorrow; I've been working on it while freaking myself out watching ghost-hunting shows on YouTube.  I've watched a lot of Ghost Hunters, and now I'm working my way through GHI - Paranormal State is next on my list.  I'm not sleeping real well, though! XD

Oh, and Witch Stitch and Bits has been down for almost two weeks but they came back online yesterday, with a sale!  In American dollars, it brings each pattern down to about $2.  Since I had missed two paydays while it was down, I splurged (if you can call $8.01 a 'splurge') and got four patterns.  Two I picked myself, off of my list of thirty, and two I let a random number generator pick for me.

Picked by me:

Bantanna


Aztec Warrior



Picked by the generator:

Hanging Out


Naval



I'll be posting again soon - my Eagle is next up in my rotation!

Lost & Found

I was trying to add up my very small amount of finishes for this year, when I realized that there was a stocking missing.

This one:



I have stitched this wee angel (sorry for the tiny pic) but she has vanished!  I stitched her back in May, I think, and I vaugely remember that my camera batteries were dead, and then when I got new ones I had forgotten about her.  So I went hunting and - she's nowhere.  Not with all the other finishes, not in my Rotation bag, not laying on one of the many cluttered surfaces in my craft room, not stuck in any of my spiral notebooks (I have a bad habit of doing that with small finishes) not in any of the bags and project boxes I've been carrying around - just nowhere.

So until she turns up, I'll have to use that pic!

One good thing - while digging through bags in my closet, I found this:



Which was supposed to be lost for good about three years ago and I've been trying to track it down on eBay!  I used to do one of these kits a year, but I knew I had started this one so, darnit! I wanted to do it next!  But, suddenly, there it was!  Hiding in a canvas Magic-Mart bag XD

And here is what I had done (wow!)



And here is what I could not resist adding last night (finishing one color)



And now off it goes into a drawer because I can't add it to my rotation just yet :D

IHSW - September :D

It's a conspiracy!  I didn't work on Lovers on Thursday; I worked more on the little Brave, because Monday was free and clear for a long, lovely stitch-fest.

Then I got called in to work. So instead of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then freedom! an extra day got eaten up.

*insert wail here*

At least my paycheck will be nicer XD

Here's how Lovers did look:



And how they look now:



I think I finished up most of the background.  His profile stands out clearly, of course, but right now he looks ready to kiss the Wicked Witch of the West!  There are a few stitches that are prolly background, and a big chunk under her chin that confused me until I remembered his hand was there.  But I did finally start a few stitches of his hair - so I feel all accomplished, lol!  Even though I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted.

Today at work, I took the Ghost Cat in the Chair (I thought ghost!cat, too, rosey! even thought about doing a pale grey outline, but I didn't feel like doing the half cross of the chair and cushion he would have needed behind him to look all invisible!) and finished up all the crosses.  I started the backstitch - beyond the rug, of course - but not until after I took the picture.  The next time I post about this, it will be with a finish!



I took Christmas Bells along, too, but lately they have just gotten no love at all.  They're so little, and yet I have done only a few stitches when they could be another wee finish.  Oh, well.  Soon.

A Feather in His Cap

I didn't get to start the little PM boy until today - here's his small beginning!



I'm going to work on him more today, I just thought I'd post the pic because I could think of a cute blog title.  I'm shallow that way XD

I had a moment's confusion when finding the pattern in the book - stuck in the page with the girl's pattern was a 3-strand ort.  I was sure I had stitched the girl with two strands, so off I went to dig her out.

I was right about the two strands, so that ort was random - but I also discovered something forgotten! I had stitched the girl on a piece big enough to add the boy, as well.



That was a bonus, as I wasn't sure I remembered if she was on antique white or natural aida.  No worries now!

In other stitching, I finished off the chair and backstitched the rug beneath it.  I like that it looks like one of those old oval braided rugs my grandmother used to have.



On to the kitty!

Getting Back to a Rotation (Very Pic Heavy!)

Hello again!

Normally, in September, I would be putting away any projects except the HAED SAL, and starting gifts.

I'm not gonna do that this year.  Mainly because I had already planned on some of these being gifts :D

So here's how my rotation is now.

1. Fred!  He's not a gift, he's mine!!! But he's too close to being done to put away.  I finished off the green book, about half the blue, and started the last rust-colored one.  I have some black shadow to finish, too. Then there's only the gold metallic and the backstitching to go!



2. God Bless America.  This is for my Dad, for Christmas.  Here's how it did look - I haven't worked on it in a while.  I'm stitching the next darkest shade of brown on the Eagle and I have a good bit done, but I didn't dig it out for another pic yet.



3. A new start - but only sort of!  I was planning on stitching Psalm 23 for my parents' 40th anniversary - then Mum just mentioned, out of nowhere, that she'd rather have that Precious Moments set that I started a loooooooooooooong time ago.  I was like, 'what Precious Moments set?'  It took awhile, but I scraped up a pic of the finished girl (she just needs my Mum's name under or over her; I'm not using the original words that go with the patterns) I haven't actually found her yet, but I know she's in the box of finished but framed projects :



There will be a boy to go with her; he's my new start - planned for tomorrow:



Sorry for the crappy pic.  The flash is bright and the book is old.

And this will be the last part.  The part of the verse I'll be using says 'Many moons in the same canoe'. I'll be leaving off the 'Bless-Um You' as I always thought it was dumb (sorry) And instead of 'Happy Anniversary', just their wedding date.  My framer says she can put them all in one frame with three openings, four if I do the verse on a separate piece like it is in the pic.  I'm thinking of just doing it over the canoe, with the date under.


So I'll be starting the boy tomorrow - hopefully finishing him, this month!  My Mum is Native American and my Dad is about 1/4, although you can't see it in him at all.  He looks all Scottish :D  This will still be something she'll love and he'll like because she likes it.  They're still silly in love after 40 years!

4.  An ornament.  I finished another stocking!  I really like this one, too - I think it looks very Victorian!  The camera flash burnt the fabric color out a bit; I did it on a darker-than-usual piece of antique white.



And so I'm picking up Christmas Bells that I started in August but only got this far:


It will be a quick finish.  Once it's done, it's back to another stocking, then the last four Avengers if it's still September.  They have their black outlines done, but I can't find the bag I put them in when I switched purses.  They'll turn up.


5.  A 5x7 kit - this one is Home is Where the Cat Is after its teeeeeny-tiny bit of progress in August.  It was like - maybe 20 whole stitches!  This is a prezzie!



6.  A crochet or knit project.  Spiral Afghan grows larger daily!  I have to get up to forty stitches between increases and right now I'm at twenty. The rows stop curling when the next one is done, and the edging is crab stitch which will eliminate the curl in the last row, which is a bonus!  I also plan to go back and pull the hole in the center together - the next time I stitch this pattern, I'll know to start with a smaller loop than what the pattern actually says.



The owls are working perfectly.  Tazzy - they are made with snap-back earring posts, but they weren't made to be earrings.  They have to be able to open for crochet, so I think the earring backs are a great idea!  Linda - working with two colors is easy for this one - just drop one and move down to the other.  Thankfully, crochet doesn't unravel easily and the owls stop any chance all together.

7. The HAED Freebie SAL project, QS Lovers, during IHSW.

And just in case you guys feel that you haven't seen enough pictures Oo  here's some drool-worthy stash!

I got one more HAED before the sale was over - Sessler's Ranoel:



Question - does he look like his background is dark brown to anyone else or is it just my monitor?  The pattern calls for black, but I always thought it was brown and like it that way, so I plan to switch to brown.  Actually - I plan to totally cheat by buying or dyeing a piece of dark brown fabric and not stitching the background!

And I got another from WS&B - I'm gonna have to start a page for these because I went surfing on the site and found a lot more that I like when I thought there weren't any!  So I figure one a payday - they cost $2.50 US.  This one is the Tapestry version of Angel of Death.



I chose the Tapestry version because I have a really good conversion chart, the purples were much brighter in it, the wings and flowers show up better, and the cross stitch version doesn't have the red tears.  The Goth Chick actually chose this pattern.  It'll be for her - y'know, someday XD

And now I will torture you with pics no longer!  Have a great evening!

The Beginning of Presents

I've started my first crochet Christmas present - I had no idea who this was going to be for at first but it has since been claimed.



It's a spiral lap afghan from a book of specialty patterns - you work with two colors at once and you need two markers, which as you can maybe tell I was using bits of black yarn.

I kept pulling the yarn out by accident and it got really annoying! So I went on etsy and bought these:



Tooooooooooooooooo cute! and they work great!