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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Unspoken

I'm copying most of this post from my monthly post at 'A New Stitchy Start' to this blog.  Totally cheating, I know!  But there is some different info for A-Z at the bottom :D

I procrastinated this month because I made an error last month.  I thought I might work around it, but in the end I knew I would have to frog, and I hate picking out stitches on this tiny fabric!  But I finally did it and restitched, then got a little more done.

Last month:



This month:



A few more shades of gray and a little more across the top.  This whole page is just greyscale sunbeams, but the next pages will be fun :D  If I go across, I get tree branches and the start of the Elf's hair, if I go down, I get the small figure of the Queen (the artist has stories on her website to go with the pictures, so I know she is a Queen.  I just can't remember their names!  I need to look them up)

I'll be posting my A-Z challenge posts late in the evening in case I have anything else to post, like Stashy Saturday or something.  So if you see one post when you are looking for a Letter post, it will be there!  Eventually XD

Monday, March 30, 2015

Jumping on the Band Wagon

I wasn't going to do it, but I did. 

At the last minute.




I'll  be doing this immediately:



Cross Stitching!  One of those cute alphabets by fangirlstitches on etsy, like several other stitchers are doing.  I wasn't going to do this challenge, then wandered by her shop and saw the perfect alphabet for me! 

I'll be doing the Whedon-Verse Alphabet!  There is an Xander block!  And a Jayne block!! There is a Spike block!!!  (Spike is forever my favorite!)



My own fangirl squee-ing knows no bounds! :D :D :D

'Peace'



I didn't realize these had names until I was coloring it in.  I don't like this picture much as it killed the brightness of the colors and showed up all the scribble bits I did before I started getting my coloring smoother - but it was the best picture I could get.

This is my next poster project:


And this is a random bit that made me grumble - this was to the side as I took the picture above, and it shows up the bright, rich colors much better - but I could not reproduce the effect for anything!



Ah, well.  I had a blast coloring this!  I even went online and studied pictures of lava lamps and researched what color the hand should be. (Side note - it's teal, not blue.  All the teal shows up as blue in both pictures) I'm really tempted to order the other four tablets this company has!  I'll have to see how much I get in my payday.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Two More

Two more colors done on 'Great Light'

Red - hardly any stitches:



And another shade of green:



Lol - big difference in Day and Nighttime pictures!  This one is in my purse now instead of the stockings so it's getting random bits of love when I have to sit and wait somewhere :D  I thought there were nine colors left, but I was wrong, there are only four or five.  So maybe this will be done soon.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Stashy Saturday

My sister and I have big dreams when it comes to sewing - we're both at beginner level, mostly, but someday! Someday! We will make the most awesome of things :D

So whenever we happen to be at Hobby Lobby or JoAnn's and the patterns are on sale, we grab what we can, almost always costumes.

This time, when I went to Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, the McCalls patterns were on sale for $1.99, limit 10.  I got 11, because my brother was with me and paid for one :D

Here's the loot:





Had to get two of the uniform to get both sizes - I would have gotten both sizes of the women's patterns if I had enough money.  Some of them have all the sizes, though.  I wish all patterns were like that!

This summer we are hoping to take sewing lessons at a community center that is opening!  So excited!  Maybe we'll get to make some of these lovely complicated things!  We've made some easy patterns before, but like I said - we have big dreams...

Next Saturday's Stashy-Post will have my HAED layaway patterns - I'm getting them paid off this week.  Some I have already shown, but there are more! Also I had bought some last year during my posting hiatus that I have never shown, so next week will be lots of pictures :D

Monday, March 23, 2015

March IHSW

I almost forgot to post!  I didn't get much done on Lovers; just filled in more confetti.

Before:



After:


A lot of the stitches around the flower are done but you can't see them that well - they are a bunch of shades of pale-this and very light-that. His hair will be so much easier when I get to it -  still light colors but mostly big blocks.  The whole second page is so much easier!  I'm hoping it will go faster. But in April's IHSW I am going to do my best to finish this page off.  I thought maybe I could do it this time but I kept falling asleep instead of stitching XP

I did a little coloring too, not much - not going to bother with a 'WIP' pic for my posters, but my Mum came up for a while and wanted to do one, too.  She decided on this one:



We worked on them for a long time one evening and still didn't get much done - I'll show the posters off when they are finished.  They will take a while - so detailed!  And both of us are trying to be perfectionists :D

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Stashy Saturday

About six months ago, we had a Hobby Lobby open a lot closer to our area - it is a three hour round trip instead of a six hour round trip!

Thursday I was finally able to go!  So the next few Stashy Saturday pics will be of my 'loot' :D

For the first time ever, there were no cross-stitch kits that I wanted.  SHOCKING! lol!!!

I did buy some floss and almost kitted up Tournee du Chat Noir - I got every color but some of the ones that needed five or six skeins didn't get fully kitted as there wasn't enough available.  I also got all but one of the colors I still needed for Amanda and Axel.

And this - for which I fully blame JoJo!  She does such gorgeous stuff, and when I wandered past the art aisles, these were on the end.  One was on sale and one wasn't - I'm not sure what made the difference.



This is the first one I'm going to do:


I thought this one would be good practice before getting into the others - they are 10x14 and very detailed!  This is one of the least detailed ones XD  I did a tiny bit but not much, because it's IHSW weekend!  Lovers is getting some confetti filled in but it's slow going - I'll have a picture on Monday :D

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

On Sunday, I Went Crazy

Before I get started on the insanity, here's a wee bit of progress - I got another color done on 'Great Light'.

Before:



After:



I have already started the next color.  There are either nine or ten to go.

On Sunday, I took the invitation, from my Mum, to go shopping at Wal-Mart.  This is, as I've said before, an hour-long trip (each way, so two hours driving, total) and we don't go that often because of that.  We wait until the trip is worth it.

Well, we both needed some groceries that the little Mom-and-Pop stores around here didn't have, and I wanted yarn and she wanted herbs and vitamins, so away we went.

There's also a discount store called 'Roses' near there, and we stopped in because they usually have well-made but cheap shoes.  I got a cute little red pair, and a couple t-shirts, then found something they never had there before.

A bin of yarn.

Red Heart yarn, not the regular kind but the odd kind.  These came home with  me, with some vague ideas about cowls:



At Wal-Mart, I dithered in the yarn aisle for a while - they were sold out of half the Red Heart, which was annoying, as I needed more of the 'Latte' color for the 'Tree of Love' afghan I want to start and they didn't have any. :C  Just my luck!   But I wanted to try and pick the color or colors for my big version of Rings of Change.

Mum asked what was taking so long, so I told her I still hadn't decided if I wanted to do it a solid color or if I wanted to do one in ocean-colors.  She looked at my tentative selections and said something I truly wasn't expecting from my no-nonsense, frugal mother.

What she said resulted in us going to yet another store - Magic Mart (is that a chain anywhere away from here?  There are about four of them that I know of but not sure about elsewhere?)  They have a dinky selection of Red Heart there, and I was able to get a little more yarn.  Enough for this:



That's about half what I need for my striped Rings of Change - Aran, Buff, Macaw and Turqua, bought at Wal-Mart, and two skeins of Blue at Magic Mart 'cause it was sold out at Wal-Mart.

And then this:



Four more skeins of Turqua, but not for my striped version because... my MUM thinks I should do both!  A solid and a striped one!  And it was very, very easy to talk me into it, haha!  As in, she didn't have to talk at all, I said 'okay!' and tossed the yarn into the buggy.

So then I dithered over which to start first, and the advice I got was 'Just do them both at the same time'.

O_o

Right, then!

One solid color Rings of Change, started (up to row 8)




And one striped Rings of Change, also to row 8, and through the first color sequence:


I'm going to be sick and tired of Turqua in about a week, I bet.

After talking about nothing but afghans for half the trip home, I had to pull out a stashed project and make a decision.  The reason I was waffling between a solid Rings and a striped one is because I've wanted to do a big, solid, bright colored afghan for my living room for a while now.  This is where my trip to Insanity went completely sideways into Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.

With this:



'This' is a lovely afghan I wanted to make all in one color - it is not Turqua but is the old Red Heart Lt Teal.  When I started it, I calculated the yardage wrong.  The issue is that I would need 16 more ounces than what I have - and that color is discontinued. Despite haunting eBay. etsy and various crochet message boards for over a year, I haven't managed to get what I need.  So a few months ago I ordered some Aruba Sea, which is a close but not quite match and thought I would do it in stripes - one skein of Lt Teal, then Aruba Sea, then Lt Teal again and so on until it was done.

This is Aruba Sea, the Lt Teal, and Turqua in a row, so you can see the difference.



Aruba Sea almost matches.  So very close.  And yet if I did the last two or three skeins with it, the change would have been glaringly obvious.

But then, I dithered.  I do that a lot.  Over if I should keep going in the Lt Teal and just hope for the best - that I would find some more of my yarn before I needed it, or go ahead with the stripes.  I just wanted that solid color afghan so much and yet I wasn't willing to order more Aruba Sea and let all that Lt Teal wait for another, smaller afghan. (Because I'm nuts, I guess.  But the Aruba Sea didn't appeal to me the same way the Lt Teal did; not for a solid afghan.)

After Sunday, and the fact that there will be a solid-color afghan in my living room, I decided the stripes are good enough and probably will be very pretty.  But that adds another big blue afghan to my list.  It will look like this when done:



Only, you know, teal-blue.

If that isn't enough for you, I'm also trying to finish this:



That's the January square for the Moogly afghan, and once I get this done, may I never do another quadruple treble in all my life!  Also I dislike the Jacob's Ladder.  The sideways rows, at least.  Oh, how hard it was to make that first one look neat!  I cheated with the instructions 'cause I hated the way it came out at first.  I'd be further along if I hadn't had to pull the row I'm on out twice - after getting halfway through the second quadruple-treble row that comes after it.  I just can't seem to count this row properly!

If you notice, it's in blues.  I decided to do it as a stash-buster, but all in colors you would find in the ocean; blues and blue-greens and blue-purples and some teal and dark teal... and... and some bits of flotsam and jetsam here and there. The squares will be 12 inches each, and I'm going to add other squares to make a good-sized throw.

So that's four big blue afghans.  In progress.

My favorite color, by the way, is green.  I've definitely gone round the bend... because I don't feel the slightest bit dismayed by all this.  Every time I look at the piles of blue yarn in my house, I get a little giddy - with utter delight.  I've lost it!

PS: All of these afghans will be done with the same size hook, so I also bought the first of these:



A nice ergonomic hook so maybe my arm won't fall off!


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Turtle-Trot Replacement

Since I finished up my stocking ornaments, I decided to put something in their place for the Turtle Trot, which pretty much rules my cross stitch rotation :D

I waffled about putting 'Flower of the East' in the empty slot, but I decided that I would put my Snappers, instead.

They need some love, because it's halfway through March, but...



I'm only halfway through February :D

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Stashy Saturday

I very literally caught the last of a sale at Herrschners.com about three weeks ago - as in, I found out floss was 33 cents a skein fifteen minutes before the sale ended.  Here's what happens when you just desperately order all the black you need for three HAEDs:



I love the little boxes!  I never got those before!  But I will be stitching black forever and ever, I think XD.  That's the black for Unspoken,  Amanda & Axel, and Tournee du Chat Noir.

The rest of my kits came in (It somehow became three kits instead of two - I really don't know how that little Petite sneaked up on me).



They are all Geisha... this was not planned on my part, but oh well!  Enchanting Geisha, Blue Geisha, and Geisha Beauty.  So pretty!

Friday, March 13, 2015

Mini Rings of Change

The CAL goal for this week was rounds 38 - 40 and they pretty much hopped right off my hook!


Black, Hot Red, and then another row of GlowWorm, which loks very washed out in the picture.

Then, we were given permission by the CAL host to finish if we wanted because there were only two more rounds - so I thought why not?  And happily stitched round 41.

Then I started round 42 and my brain went sideways, because it wasn't working, for the first time a row wasn't working!

Turns out there was an error in the pattern, corrected in January but I printed mine in December.  I started to frog it out, back to the beginning of round 40, but then I thought, you know - I didn't like the way round 42 looked on this, when I was trying to figure out the issue I looked at bunches of Ravelry pics, and less than 1/3 of them did round 42 (prolly 'cause of the error) and I like this the way it is.  I wanted to finish up with Candy Pink all along.

So - it's done.  I love it and it's done!



Round 41, in bright Candy Pink, and a mini-afghan that's about 4 feet across.  I have no idea what to do with it but I love it!

I love it so much I bought the full size version:




It's possible I will never finish it, but I bought it!  I'm torn between doing it in one solid color, or doing it like this:


Only with blues, cream, and sand so it will look good in my ocean-themed living room. (The green one is stitched by babyme29, on Ravelry)

I almost want to stitch it twice!  But only almost.

There's going to be a new CAL with this pattern:


I'm leaning toward earth tones and neutrals for this one.  And already tempted to buy the big version, too! :D

Off to weave in the last of my ends on the Mini-Rings!  Only a few left, yay!




Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The Turtle Trot of March!

Well, I still did not manage to work on everything this month but I did manage to work on some different things.

1.  Wufei - worked on, yay!  First time since last March :D

Before:


After:



I didn't take a wide shot; I'll do that next month!

2. Frederick the Literate - worked on!  I did a bunch of backstitching.

Before:



After:



3. Snowing - worked on! First time since 2013!!!

Before:



After  (blurry night shot, sorry!):


I forgot how tiny the stitches are on this - I'm doing it one over one on 28ct and also it is my first project trying the parking method - it's slow going but fun!

4. Yarr - nope.  Poor Yarr.  So handsome, yet so neglected :C

5. Princess Palace - nope.

6. Mary Wigham - nope.

7. 30 Tiny Christmas Stockings - DONE OMG!!!



I will be replacing this with ...uh, something.  I have told myself that I must decide which project by tomorrow!

8. Lovers - yes!  During IHSW

Before:



After:



9. Great Light - yes!  Got one more color done, although it was only a few stitches.  I meant to go back and do another color that only has a small amount, but I forgot.  Kept thinking I had done it.

Before:



After:


I got a some missed stitches of blue done, as well - there were only a few.


10.  Unspoken - yes!!!

Before:



After:




There are pics of what these will look like on my 2015 SAL page, and Turtle Trot is hosted HERE

Thanks for looking - I really think I'll go get Yarr out!!!