Soul Eater ~ Blair

Yosh, it is indeed Blair from Soul Eater (日本語で：　ソウルイーターのブレア…化け猫です。)! I enjoy the manga quite a bit. I chose her cat form for decency (hah - guess I could've chosen Lust chapter form :Q~). Plus, her cat form is cute. This is where I got her pose. I thought that an image existed of her in a similar position, or her sitting on a pumpkin (cat form) but I couldn't for the life of me find it. It sorta dawned on me as I was stitching that if one didn't know the subject was a cat... she kinda looks like a purple monkey, lol. The pumpkin itself needed a face because what is Halloween without jack-o'-lanterns? Google didn't fail me this time as I found the face I was looking for: the logo. I've dubbed it a "Soul Pumpkin".

おたくじゃありませんけれど…

"Soul Pumpkin" kinda has a hat at the moment...

Just miles of orange and backstitching left...

In this picture, my hoop is "upside down" from what I normally do. When I was adjusting the positioning of it, I noticed it said "THIS SIDE UP" on the full circle part. Wait, what? I've been loading my fabric wrong since the beginning?! Puzzlement ensued. I've always put the full circle part underneath the fabric and the screw part on top. I obeyed the great and wise hoop for surely it knew better than me.

Urg. I do not like how it feels in my hands this way. Perhaps I'm too used to holding it the other way and it has blinded my ability to follow directions. I can see where it could be a tad bit easier to stitch as you know where the smaller hoop is but I'd rather have it easier to hold. My wrists give me enough trouble as it is.

Hoop users, how do you load it? Am I an alien?

A Fresh Start

Yay, my desktop is fully functional again. I celebrated by making a new pattern! Something a bit smaller than the FF pieces, hah. I wanted to get it done by a certain time.

Hooray, a purple... blob?

Any guesses as to what it may be? LJers, NO CHEAT!

No?

No purple blob illumination?

What about if I rotate it 180°?

No, it's not Grimace.

I didn't take any interim pictures so this next one should flicker a light bulb in at least one of you (Topcho, I'm looking at you as you've stitched something related o_o).

Yes? No?

The colors are a bit off. I told myself I was absotively posilutely limited to what I had in my stash for this project and I didn't have the precise purple-y gray-ish black needed. Plum works well enough, and looked nice with the rest of the floss toss. The pattern, I think, turned out remarkably well for me drawing it from scratch in KG-Chart.

I hope.

Fans may disagree. :B

I ship SoMa liekwhoa.

Sept IHSW ~ Finish!

Hello to any new people checking out my blog! :) I feel like this was pretty successful for my first IHSW because I... I actually finished it! *squee* Without pigs flying or the piece bursting into flames or my eyeballs falling out of my head (though they did come close).

"Even if the world becomes your enemy...
I'll be your knight, I'll protect you."

I thankfully didn't have to frog whole letters; it was the backstitching that was making them look a little odd. Once removed and redone, the letters looked more appropriate. I did redo Rinoa's flying hair a little bit. It's more inline with the original image now, but not quite there. I didn't have to adjust the cloth to finish her swoop! I could jussst barely stitch the last few on the end, but it was possible.

Squall's jacket poof remains unfilled. I practiced the clipped velvet stitches and while they do look pretty awesome, they don't really have a feeling of fitting in with the rest of the piece. Perhaps I need to think more on it. If anything, they'd have to wait until the piece is washed or they'd get a weird stiff sort of feeling I would guess.

Which brings me to a question. To wash or not to wash? I'm still (relatively) new at this, so more experienced stitchers stopping by, please let me know what you think. I think the piece needs a bath as it has been on the frame for 5½ months. It's a bit dusty and has a few kitty helper hairs. I've washed other pieces with no trouble, but I'm afraid of washing this piece with its abundance of bright reds (floss is DMC cotton). I'd probably shrivel up into a little dust heap if the colors bled.

Technical Details

• Chart designed with KG-Chart and featured 46 colors originally. In my tweaking, however, it actually wound up being ~15. Yeah. I discovered early on that KG-Chart likes to go crazy with artifacts in web images and can't handle blending or fading.
  
• 1 over 1 on white 22 count (hardanger). Black 2 over 1.
  
• Finished size: 11" x 14" (26.5cm x 35cm)
• Started: April 1, 2011, Finished: September 18, 2011. Roughly 60-70 hours.

Lessons Learned
(hopefully)

• Tweak chart. Tweak again. Tweak five more times. Tweak. Think you're done? Tough, tweak more. No matter how much you tweak, once you start stitching, things will look different and you'll tweak some more.
  
• Confetti color transitions.
  
• Half stitches are so much easier to pick out when a mistake is found and make it much easier to discover areas that aren't going to look right. Exception: black.
• Work black one line at a time, preferably up. My eyesight is horrible to begin with and I darn near went blind stitching black that had been tent stitched first.
  
• Maybe bright lights and magnifiers would be helpful.
  
• For the love of potatoes, GRID, YOU FOOL.
  

The "artsy photo" attempt.

The timing for finishing this is pretty awesome. I should be getting a new OS drive today which will allow me to set up my desktop computer again (it has all my charts on it). I'm pretty sure which one I'd like to stitch next but feel free to speculate. :D

First Issue!

Hooray, I'll be taking part in my first IHSW! I tend to pronounce acronyms out instead of saying the letters so IHSW has been dubbed "issue". Yes, I know I'm weird. Thank you. I look forward to making the time to sit down and actually, possibly finish stitching FFVIII. I'm so close but I've been rather busy this week stripping old and poorly installed caulk from a tub. Very unfun. Yesterday I smelled like some awful combination of Goo Gone, rubbing alcohol, and caulk, yuck!

Goals for IHSW:

1. Frog those inappropriate letters 
2. Restitch those letters appropriately 
3. Adjust fabric on stand and finish the last little bit of Rinoa's swoop  Adjustment wasn't necessary!
4. Practice clipped velvet stitches to see if I like them enough to give Squall a fuzzy jacket poof. Currently vetoed though they did look cool. Just not sure if they were fitting with the piece as a whole.
5. Finish?! :D :D :D

We'll see how much I actually accomplish. If I defy all odds and actually complete it with time to spare, I'll work on the Dolphin Trio. It has been a WIP for far, far too long.

楽しみにしてる！

Cruel Finish

Cruel indeed. Four. Four little pine boughs. Fourrr. And I ran out of yarn. It'd be hard to find a replacement for the yarn as the kit is 30 years old. So, I improvised. I used the closest green yarn I had in my stash to finish it up. It's a little darker than it's supposed to be but it works.

...Right? D:

Count the French knots? :D

Also, if it is possible for yarn to hate, the replacement yarn really hated me. Maybe it didn't like being taken apart (I only needed one little ply) but I'd stitch. And it would fray apart. I'd get a new piece and stitch. It would fray apart. I persevered and so, finished. Take that, yarn! You cannot defeat me!

I hope you like French knots because there's more than the grains of sand on every beach in the world. Luckily, most of them aren't "pretty" French knots. In other words, they didn't have to be perfectly tight little balls. Instead, they have a little loopy sticking out one side. It's most noticeable in the girl's hair (which I find adorable despite it being warning cone orange).

Now, how should I actually finish it? I think a rough wooden frame would suit the piece quite well. Finding one might take another couple of years. I also considered a felt back lining and turning it into a sort of wall or window hanging thing. Any other suggestions? I'm really hopeless when it comes to Ultimate Finishing Techniques.

Stitches involved: satin stitch, stem (outline) stitch, French knots, back stitch, long and short split stitch.

Of Cats and Crewel

After browsing around on here, it came to my attention that a very large portion of cross-stitchers (and crafters in general!) have feline friends. Well, the internet does tell me that cat owners are more intelligent... ;) Seriously, though, I find it kinda interesting that so many crafty types are cat lovers. I have three kitty helpers - a silent, hyper, mixed Siamese male (Peanut), a vocal, black-and-white, head-butter female (Oreo), and an ancient pinkish/tan and white grandma kitty (Sandy). I have to make sure to put away my cross-stitch stuff because the temptation to steal a skein of floss is too great for them~

I had to take a break from FFVIII. I'm very, very close to being finished, but I was starting to feel like I was rushing and the stitching was suffering as a result. I put it aside for a while so I could step back, breathe, make mental adjustments before I go crazy and frog the last few letters entirely. Because I couldn't just not do anything, I dug out an old WIP that has been sitting forgotten in my stash box for a year.

Not my work - as picked up at yard sale!

Not the best pic but it's as of tonight

Crewel work is interesting. This one is so... 80s! I found it at a yard sale for 50¢ already started but it was so cute I couldn't pass it up. I don't necessarily like stamped canvas as there's no guarantee that it will line up with the fibers in such a way that one won't be able to see the stamps. I can hear some shrieks over the internet at the amount of french knots, haha. Both lambs, the girl's hair, decorations, etc. French knots don't really bother me but I'm not so great at satin stitching. I think my tension isn't tight enough in the hoop, or something.

Ah, well. I feel like it's a movie sort of night so I think I'll dig out some snow ice cream (well, maybe I should make supper first) and zombie in front of a different screen for a while. :D

Tweakerings

Tweaking with more settings on here, hah.  I'm still not completely understanding why I'm not showing up in certain places.  My blog is visible in my profile but not on the window that pops up on the following gadgets.  I'll get it eventually, right?  Sorry if it re-posts everything (or not).  It's not my fault, I swear!  ;)

I managed to get two letters done today despite my protesting eyes!  I find it easier to take my glasses off entirely and stitch with my nose about two inches from the fabric!  I should probably look into getting a magnifier and/or stronger light source before I go (more) blind.

Wanna Fanta?

I'm not at all pleased with the T.  It's supposed to be more like the F, with the curving inward and whatnot.  Yet another thing in which to be picky and frog, haha.  Two more letters and the Roman numerals!

And the frogging.

And possibly the poof filling.

And the last little bit of swoopy that will require adjusting the fabric on the stand.

And the washing(?).

And the framing.

Oi.

ETA (the following morning)!  Oh, happy day!  I figured out the problem linking my blog! (I think.)  Whenever I'd follow another blog, my avatar wouldn't show up and although it was clickable and had information about sites I've followed, it didn't link back to my blog.  I have now fixed this!  This was immensely helpful, once I found the correct search items.  Once I changed it for one blog, it changed for them all.  One step closer to victory!