Nostlagy's Hair

It's done, at least on the first page.



I even got a little tiny bit of the next page.

Onward! to the rest of the hair : D

By the way, remember my little adopted plant, Patty?

She's feeling much better!  (and apparently reaching for something...)

I think it's sort of neat that her newer leaves are very shiny compared to her older leaves.  I don't know if they'll change or not, but I like them.

Some more HAEDS - these two are sort of a set.

Sessler's Companions: Friendship


and Companions: Trust

At Last

I was beginning to think this would never happen.



So when it did, a few minutes ago, I had to come and post about it.



I just laid it and its plain but pretty edge on my king-size bed, to get an idea of the size.



I didn't even wait to cut off the yarn bits on the back.



Or to block down the wavy single crochet edges.



It's done, and you would not believe how happy I am to be able to say that!!!

Now it'll get a gentle blocking (those curly edges will straighten out like magic), then be folded up to wait for Mother's Day.  Since it was supposed to be a Christmas present, it won't hurt it to wait a bit longer : D

Blocked

And ready to start sewing together!


Now if only I can find my yarn needle...

This is one more HAED - not from a layaway, though.  I decided to knock a QS off my wishlist during the St Patrick's day sale.

Hannah Lynn's QS Angelfish

March IHSW

Alternate Title - 'How I Did Not Stick to My Plan'

Here's QS Lovers after a small amount of love on Thursday and Friday evenings:



I was going to just focus on his face, but I printed out the other pages and thought - well, there's the rest of his face... and his neck...  and so my plan to get his face (at least from page one) done this turn went right out the window.  I also added to her neck and his hand.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I had to work, as always, and at the busiest of my job sites, so I didn't want to take a HAED.  I thought I'd take along the two Sprites I wanted to finish, and see how I could do on lunch breaks.  But I somehow managed to abandon that plan, too, and just start filling up the bit of material with black outlines.

Like so:



I must not have been paying the least bit of attention, because they don't line up at all.  The three Avengers were already done - I've stitched four Final Fantasy outlines and two and a partial of the Batman ones.  There's room for two more Sprites on this piece (they'll eventually be cut apart) and the Joker will go after Harley.  I dunno who the last one will be.  Maybe Rinoa and the dog.

I also got my Mosaic afghan from 105 repeats to 120.  Only ten left to go before the edging!  Yay!

Since I showed off some work on a Nene Thomas pattern, here's another of her's from one of my HAED layaways.  This is 'House Divided'.  That dress is going to be sooooo very gorgeous!

March Turtle Trot!

It's Turtle Trot time!

Allow me to apologize for the lousy pic - I nearly forgot what day it was so this was taken long after dark.

These are the Turtle Trot projects I've worked on since Feb. 13, except for Guardian Angel.  He has a bit more, but I left him at my parents house.

QS Lovers, Snowing (there's more stitching, I swear!), Mary Wigham, Wufei, and Frederick the Literate.  I got both of my other Angel projects out, but so far they're just sitting there mocking me while I stare blankly at the computer screen. XD

IHSW is this weekend - I'll be working on Lovers again.  I already know I have to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I'll prolly pick them up for some quality time tomorrow, if I gt my housework done.  You wouldn't believe the stack of dishes in my kitchen, lol!

Another layaway-d HAED - Mermaid of the Deep



I have already stitched her as an SK - although she's on 18ct and so is much too big for a bookmark; I had her framed - but I've always liked the large version with the ebil!fish and I figured I'd go ahead.  Now I'm just hoping her hair shows up well.  I love the way it looks.

Excuses

I haven't been cross stitching much, for two reasons.

1 - I don't feel all that great.  I can't shake this cold/flu/virus/whatever.

2 - this:



All the squares are done, edged, and I'm in the midst of blocking them because the medium-sized squares like these always seem to curl.  Smaller, they lay flat.  Bigger - like afghan sized - they lay flat.  12 inch squares?  Completely curly.  You can see the difference in the little stack of done ones, right?

There's only water in the spray bottle - pin 'em to the towel-covered cork board, spritz 'em, and when they're dry, they're mostly flat and lovely.  If only my cork board was bigger!  Next step is to sew them all together.

Another HAED - Soldier Boys by Tracy Butler.



Handsome fellows, aren't they?  They make me think of the Harry Potter universe, only not Harry and Draco.  A younger Severus and Lucius, maybe, if they were dragon-warriors?

A Motif for Mary

I took a look back through my blog, and I think the last time I posted about poor Mary Wigham was in 2011.  I stitched another set of initials since then, but nothing else.

Yesterday I added a motif - this lovely half-motif in black and blue.  I had to tweak it a lot - I'm not stitching this as an exact replica, since I'm using my own choice of initials  and so I've been fixing the mistakes as I go because I kinda like symmetry.  Sometimes the mistakes are little, and I don't worry about them, but this motif was all kinds of messed up.  I didn't realize it when I stitched the top half, so it's the bottom half that got fiddled with the most.  I couldn't fix it perfectly without moving the motif over and down a bit, and I didn't want to have to adjust the whole rest of the sampler, so it's as I could, and not quite as I would.  But I'm happy with it.



I may stitch another motif this month, but I will definitely stitch another next month.  When I do, I'll take a picture of the whole project.

I've now paid off all of my HAED layaways except for the newest one - yes, I put some more on during that Valentine's sale!  I couldn't resist... I think stash-buying is a disease.  But I have 'til May to get it paid off.  In the meantime, here's another from one of the earlier layaways - another of Dahlig's Sins.



She's far from being the last of the new patterns!  I'm not getting any more for a while unless they have a sale of at least 35% off.  Even then I think I'll just knock one or two of the QS patterns off my wishlist.

I Forgot About YOTA!

I completely forgot about a stitch-a-long I joined called YOTA - you can see the details here.

I went back to my little notebook and saw I had marked Wufei down for it before I joined the Turtle Trot - but I decided to just leave it and use Wufei anyway, since I'd like to get a lot done on him this year.  There's a spot on my wall calling for him to be done and framed :P

These are the newest pics I could find of my progress - it's been quite a while since I worked on him!





Chang Wufei (sometimes it's capitalized WuFei) is Pilot #5 from the anime Gundam Wing.  I made the pattern with an old version of PCStitch.  I'd like to do all five Pilots someday, although not all this big, but Wufei is my favorite.

Anyway, this time next month I hope to have some real progress to show!  He's got a lot of easy big blocks and some intricate bits in the other half of his face, so he'll keep me amused.  His hair was the hardest part, and that's long done.

March Goals!

Here's how I did for February:

1. Work on Snowing (done!)

2. Finish the leaves and 3371 on Nostlagy (did the 3371, did some background to make up for the leaves)

3. Work on 'Lovers' during IHSW (done, although not the goal I completely wanted)

4. Start Guardian Angel (done, although it's only a tiny start)

5. Don't start anything else (done! go me!)

6. Finish a stocking ornament (done!)

7. Work on afghans (done!)

8. #8 was a silly goal XD

9.  See if I can finish the main stitching on Fred (I did!!! Yay!)



So not too bad!  Here's my goals for March:

1. Work on Snowing

2. Finish the black on Nostlagy and whatever background I can

3. Work on Lovers during IHSW

4. Work on Guardian Angel

5. Work on Wufei

6. Work on afghans - try to finish one

7. Do a motif on Mary Wigham

8. Stitch two Sprites off my list

9. Stitch the metallic bits on Fred

10. Try not to start anything besides my usual birthday start

11. If I don't go insane getting this done, maybe a bit on Archangel?