FotM - June Edition!

Here we are for my June installment of the Flower of the Month SAL as hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair! And I have emerged victorious! The February Violets are finally done!  More exclamation points!

YAY

I can't believe I had so much trouble with this particular design. I suppose it was as Preeti said, so many color changes! I have looked over the remaining patterns and it looks like the rest are not nearly as involved as this one.  whew

And here's the GIF of this project! Towards the end it looks like I've gotten a bit better at taking mostly similar pictures haha.  I will try to do one for each of the months excluding March as it was finished 5 years ago and I am unfortunately not in possession of a TARDIS or Delorean.

Technical Details

• "February: Violets" freebie pattern by Ellen Maurer-Stroh, found here
• 2 over 1 on 14-count ecru huck towel (called for 3 over but I thought 2 looked okay)
• Finished size: 4.50 x 4.50" (11,50 x 11,50 cm)
• Started: February 19, Finished: June 16.  unknown hours as I didn't keep track during vacation, oops!

where the collection now stands

But wait!

:o

:O

I got started on April's Sweet Pea! It's stitching up much faster than violets; there is only one large flower and two tiny ones left to do.  It helps when one doesn't have Must Do projects haha.  Again, I didn't have all of the charted colors so I went stash diving to see what I could come up with.  I hope they look okay!

I shall see you next time!  It is a wonderful 3-day weekend for the celebration of MURICA.  Even though I don't have any stitches for it, the 4th is hands down my favorite holiday.  Bring on the fireworks and BBQs~! :D

IHSW: Progress!

Hello there, hermiters! I hope you all had a fabulously productive time and properly shoo'd away any distractions that came your way. We had a horrifically rainy start to the weekend followed by ridiculously hot, humid weather. Bring back spring, please.

click me for more info!

Anyway, rain and heat definitely helps me want to stitch as I find myself wanting to do nothing else but stay inside and be cool. I contemplated what to work on this time. I could work on Rathalos to show off next Gifted Gorgeousness. I could work on the Flower of the Month SAL and catch up. They're the only two projects I have goi--- No! Wait!

do you remember this?

Yes, I finally pulled up my britches and decided to tackle Final Fantasy III. For those of you who may not remember, it was set aside back in March/April 2014 as I'd somehow made an error that's probably going to be rather troublesome to pick out, especially as I can't seem to find WHERE the error is.  So, I decided to start in an error-free zone and work my way over to the offending area and see if that pinpoints the problem.  I had made more progress since the last photo but I didn't realize I hadn't taken a picture of it before starting this weekend.  I have only made progress on the lettering... and have yet to find the mistake!

For any newcomers who don't recognize this project, I have taken it upon myself to stitch all of the logos in the main line of the Final Fantasy video game series.  That's currently sitting at 14 titles, yikes.  I have FFVII and FFVIII done so far.  All of them are done on 22-count (hardanger) fabric, 1-over-1 for colors, 2-over-1 for black and the patterns are designed by me.  The colors get started in half stitches because I find it easier to make the random color transitions this way.  The patterns are not yet available to share with the world!  Depending on the logo, they're anywhere between 5-30k stitches.  FFIII is about 10k give or take a few. :D

This piece will be come a focus piece for IHSW so I can work on the other two projects the rest of the time.  Three WIPs is about all I can handle before I start getting... twitchy.  I might throw in a micro project here and there just for the Finish Status Buff.

Anywhoodle!  I look forward to seeing everyone's lovely progress which most definitely didn't involve any frogging, right?

Gifted Gorgeousness - June Edition! Finish, New Start, and TUSAL!

Here we are, already in the middle of June so it's time for an update on Gifted Gorgeousness project(s) as hosted by Jo!  And it's the second month in a row for a finish, yaaaay!

click to join the fun!

before

This kit was gifted to me by my husband's grandmother(s) when I first started stitching as they knew I like dolphins. I should've paid it more attention but somehow it wound up a piece to "snack on" so to speak.  It was started sometime in the latter half of 2010 so it is was my oldest WIP!  I'm so glad it's done although I did have some issues with the backstitching charted.  You can't even tell it's there in some of the spots so I wondered what the point was haha.  There's also a healthy sprinkling of French knots which I dutifully ignored the pattern and just put them wherever I thought looked bare lol.

after, and more true to color

And of course I washed it so that helped that goofy stiff Aida some.  There are a few (probably more than a few) mistakes in this piece.  My organizational skills weren't up to snuff at the time and I think I spent more time trying to figure out what color was what than actually stitching!

Technical Details

• Dolphin Trio, Dimensions kit 6817
• (Mostly) 2 over 1 on blue VERY STIFF 14-count Aida
• Finished size: 5" x 7" (13 x 18cm)
• Started: September ??, 2010, Finished: June 08, 2015
• Unknown hours as I wasn't keeping track at the time
• Contender for messiest back ever, I hope I have learned better!

king of the sky

And in the spirit of continuing on with GG, I have started a new piece (no, not a FPS, not yet)!  This little thing will be a gift for my husband who likes my "sewing" and sort of hinted that he might put a piece on his desk at work if I just so happened to make one.  I made the pattern from this Rathalos glyph, one of the signature wyverns in the Monster Hunter video game series we both love playing together. Doesn't look like much right now but I hope he'll like it (or at least be a good husband and ooh and ahh over it appropriately ahaha).  It is being stitched on 20-count Jobelan, light tan.  It's my first time using this fabric and it is so soft and so lovely to hold!  And unravels if I look at it wrong.  Or right.  Or if it just sits there.  My goodness gracious.

In other news, I found the ecru huck towels again yaaaaaay!  There is a Hancock Fabrics in the area and although their selection for needlework is quite small, they carry them!  Unfortunately there wasn't a coupon to use on it but maybe there will be one eventually.  Then I could just hoard the rest of the year and not risk not being able to find them again.  I bought just one so I can start advancing my FotM progress again.  Just gotta plow my way through the silly violets.  I won't start April until February is finished, I won't I won't I won't.

June TUSAL... already?!

Lastly, a day early but I'll squeeze my TUSAL in here so we can all sit around my ORT jar and admire the little snippets.  We've got a finish of Dolphin Trio, some snippets of violets, and a little bit of Rathalos.  Woo!  Also, right after this picture I returned the jar to its rightful location -- and dropped it end-over-end.  ORTs were packed so tightly in there nothing moved ahaha.

Until next time!  My fingers almost feel productive for once! :D :D

site update for self-reminder: widened the page, added new header (stitchy girl), added credits to "about"

Birthday Rambles and FotM - May Edition!

Hi! Did you survive May? Do you believe it's June? I'm still in denial. :b

I have safely made it through another birthday and even managed to get stitchy related stuff this year which is really exciting! I am never sure if gifters want to be announced "in public" so I have left out the names but I LOVE YOU GUYS! ;u;

The first was so completely unexpected that when I received the package I didn't understand why it was even coming in the first place haha. I opened it up and saw the little parcel wrapped in lovely blue paper and my husband, being the kind derp he is, decided that he needed to open it even though it was clearly addressed to me. o well, he opened it and I just gasped.

crystal whirlpool by picture this plus

:D Isn't it lovely?! I tried so hard to capture its loveliness but those of you with special fabrics know how that goes. It's a Picture This Plus fabric in Crystal Whirlpool, 28-count Lugana. My friend decided I needed it in my life and she was right!  It's such a big piece too! With SPARKLES~!  :D  Will I stitch one big thing? Will I stitch a million little things?! The possibilities are amazing! :D  I can even use this for Gifted Gorgeousness once I figure out what I'll put on it, eeeee!  :D

I may have blown up her Twitter feed in my excitement lol.


Next, way back in January I was RAK'd a $10 gift certificate to Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery! I knew (hoped) that they'd have their sale around this time of year and they did (code is SUMMER if you want to join in the fun too wink wink)! I have been wanting the Christmas Celebration Sampler since forever and figured since I had the gift certificate I might as well splurge a little and get one of the minis (lookit the kitty!). I did debate getting one of the SALs but I am very fond of display typography so the Christmas Sampler won out.  But when I went to check out, there was no where to enter the gift certificate code!  I think PayPal was glitching as it also said that I'd have a chance to review my order but nope, it just ordered directly.  I emailed them immediately after purchase because I was so puzzled why I didn't get a chance to enter the code. They were super sweet and applied the gift certificate amount after I sent it to them. 10/10 will definitely do business with them again!

three varieties!

Lastly, these aren't exactly crafty items though it is another hobby I love. I was complaining to my mom about a particular part of the yard that is awkward to mow/trim yet stays shady for about 80% of the day. She thought hostas would do well there so that's what she got me!  I look forward to mostly ignoring that corner now haha.

Also these lovely new pots. I teased my husband that I need more plants for them and he teased me that I should give the ones I have upgraded homes lol. We'll see who wins this battle. ;)

before

after

Now enough bragging and a shameful update on the still-incomplete February Violets. I did work on them more since Muppets are done.  I don't know what it is about this piece but they are very stubborn to stitch!  It's not a super confetti piece.  It looks cute.  What is it?!

I have also ran into a snag -- Hobby Lobby no longer carries the showcase huck towels! I liked buying them there (not only because they are the only store in ~50 miles to have anything needlework) because I could use the 40% off coupon. Now they don't have them! And they're not on the website! I have tried searching online at other stores with the cheapest being $6-8/towel. I feel unreasonably grumpy when supplies I like go out of production, how about you?

Hmm.... I almost feel like a new start...