April Smalls: 'Merica

Hello to you all!  Here we are for a proper Small SAL post at a proper Smalls SAL time.   I rummaged through my Drawer of Wonder and chose this little kit to work up.  I did not notice it was double-sided even though it says it in plain English right on the front of the package.  Luckily even double-sided it is quite small sooooo...

click for info!

Of course this kit was found in a thrift store, this time by my mother.  I thought perhaps I could cheat on the French knots with little glass beads but alas, they turned out just a tad bit too large.  I don't hate French knots but this plastic canvas was so tough to get the needle through with just stitching.  Then to go on after with the knots... eh, I persevered.  100 little knots later, I had a completed American flag.

Klondike, don't eat that

Boy, they knew what they were doing with this kit!  Each length of floss was just enough to finish one line of a stripe.  The plastic canvas was cut to size which led to a terrifying second flag until I knew it would fit!  The kit also came with the tiny dowel and stand so it could be displayed upright.  And the front and back were mirrored images so it can look correct no matter which way the wind blows.

little LEGO dude, don't eat that

This is actually my first Americana anything if you can believe that.  I'll set it on the little shelf beside the door all by its lonesome self (and the ever-present candy for guests and a husband coming/going) during all the flag-y holidays.   Yay!

Technical Details

• "Stitch 'N Hang kit #2001: American Flag
• Three-over-one on white 14-count plastic canvas
• Approximately 8 hours stitching.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
This is obviously not for the Smalls SAL as it is very much not small (although they certainly had a lot of "small" issues).  I took Final Fantasy III and VIII back to the framer to address some of problems.  She straightened out III and VIII got a new cutout design entirely. In case you've forgotten the speech bubble:

before, plus bonus VII

after - the difference

I am still not happy with the workmanship of this framer and unfortunately I do not think I will be going back to her.  There was not the attention to detail that I guess I was expecting.  III never should have been presented crooked although to be fair, when they are viewed at a flat angle, it is not noticeable.  But wouldn't a framer set them upright?  Or notice the fabric is warped?  I mean it's not like cross-stitch fabric doesn't have "lines" to make sure things are even...  I can still tell it's a bit crooked in the "fixed" version. Is this something only a stitcher (particularly the one who did the work) would notice?  I will say this (again) though: The fabric for III was horrible and could have very well contributed to this drama.

VIII... I'm not sure how I feel about it though it certainly looks better than before.  It was not re-stretched so there is an outline of the previous cutout mats' shape on the fabric.  There is some sort of water damage on the red mat, under the glass.  The red mat was not supposed to have the little "flairs" at the corners.  Apparently the mat cutter available could not do the curve all the way?  She did not discuss this with me and instead just left it (this is the second time I felt like I was "supposed" to like it so she wouldn't have to do anything else).  I did not want to argue the point so I just went with "they're fine" to be done with it.  They may grow on me as I do not hate them, just the surprise that they were.  The water staining and the outlines aren't acceptable.  That doesn't inspire confidence on how the actual stitching was handled.

All-in-all, kind of an underwhelming experience especially for projects that I get SO OVERLY EXCITED over.   Maybe these pieces are just too weird in the cross-stitch world to be easily framed.  I have saved the information and will keep future finished stitches until I can do the 200 miles (~320km) drive to my old framer.  I will probably bring these two with me and see if she can do anything to fix them.  I am incredibly patient, but on the flipside, incredibly picky.  Or maybe my pickiness is justified this time.

Okay, I've complained enough hah~ Tune in next time for another edition of Ishkabibble Babble! :D

March GG: Special Edition - "Toads!? I hate toads! Don't turn me into one!"

Hi!  Hello, howdy, hi!!  I don't usually post so soon after a previous post but this is the last day to link up for GG so it had to happen!  I've been kind of silent this month due to my husband and I running away for an anniversary vacation.  And then after we got back, I got sick!  I am feeling much better by now, but still have a nagging cough.  But who cares about that!  It's time for exclamation points!  And there are probably more exclamation points than really necessary in this post!  Can you guess what that means?(!)  If you're a regular reader, you probably know!  !!!!!!!!!!  I was thinking that some shoehorning would be required for this month's Gifted Gorgeousness but as you'll see, it worked out in the end...

click for more info

EXCLAMATION POINTS YAAAAAAAAAY!

an accurate representation of my life

This post has been too long in coming.  Way too long. I was so afraid of his face haha.

I can't believe I started this back in 2014!  It's been through a lot with me and me with it.  It was plagued with frogs (I eventually grew up and fixed them).  I hated the fabric (though admittedly this became less of an issue once I got it in proper Q-snaps instead my old frame set up).  I will give myself a pass for one year because admittedly last year was a bit on the dramatic side.  But still, even three years would be far too long for such a piece!  But it's done, Done, DONE! !!!!!!!!

better lighting required

His face terrified me for the longest time, not only because it was a face and faces are hard enough but also because it happened to line up with a color change.  Poor Luneth, he got stabbed in face an awful lot before I was happy ahaha.  The swords were another perplexity.  I am thinking one is the Brave Sword (a regular in Final Fantasy games) and the other is the onion knight sword from the original FFIII.  I had to figure out a way to make them sword-like with both cross stitching and the backstitching.

Boy, did it need a bath after four years on the stand(s)!  There was no way I was going to chance the floss without a scrap to dunk first!  Luckily, it was safe.  And good thing too; I actually wound up washing it twice as it was just that filthy (I guess four years on the stand will do that.).

bath #1

And I've found a framer up in our new location who was able to match the style of FFVII.  I took both this and FFVIII in to have them both done at once! !!! I'm so excited! I'll have THREE done!!  eeeeeeee I also got a free upgrade to museum glass which is great!  It was a bit expensive to do both at once but it has become our 5th anniversary present (there's that GG requirement)!  5th is wood, right?  The frame is wood!  The pattern was on paper, which was once wood pulp, right?!  Totally fits!  I'll shoehorn anything. :D

horrible fabric

She had to sew additional fabric on III to make it work. Part of it was my fault for using too small of a piece, but if it hadn't frayed so badly or had been cut straight, I think it would've worked out okay.  Because I had the paperwork from FFVII, she was able to make sense of the numbers and get the exact frame and black mat.  I took my husband with me because I trust his judgement with colors and he (looked like he) had fun picking out the color mats!  Then the details with the mats...  I think that took a good portion of our time trying to gauge distances and the fancy cutouts, whew! 

Technical Details

• Chart designed with KG-Chart with a whopping five colors including black.
  
• 1-over-1 on white 22 count (hardanger). Black 2-over-1.
  
• Finished size: 11" x 14" (26.5cm x 35cm), ~10,000 stitches.
• Started: March 3, 2014, Finished: February 28, 2018. 
• 100+ hours including design time.

A silly little bonus: It felt so nice returning the game case to its proper shelf with the other games ahaha!  I had kept it with the project for these past four years as a reference point.

Lessons Learned

• NEVER USE REGENCY HARDANGER EVER AGAIN.
• Fix mistakes promptly.
• Q-snaps are pretty awesome.
• Four years is a lot of funk/dust/cat hair.

a trio of frames

A know issue is the cutout at the bottom of VIII is not correct and the framer acknowledged this when I picked them up, however it will take a while to fix it as she had some life events of her own happen and I am quite patient.  However, I'm not sure the fixed cut will look good either.  The whole piece has a feeling of a speech bubble which I cannot UNsee.  Another small issue is that III is not straight, but this was not noticeable until it was up on the wall with VII and she immediately said she'd fix that.   I'll be taking both back in sometime next week for her to remedy and to discuss options for VIII.  I may wind up picking out about an inch or so of the longest swoop in order to have a flat bottom.  I am open to fancy cutout suggestions for VIII!

#5

And in case I'm being too cheeky with my shoehorns lately, I did make a small start on the next MH3U glyph for the Husband Cube!  I must've been in a picky mood this month as I had a hard time making this guy's chart.  That tail!  *grumbles incoherently*  At least an annoying tail in chart form is fitting for the actual monster in game.  Beaver slap, anyone?

totally looks like a thing

Okay!  This post was really long!  Excitement!  Easter Blog Hops!  Really late for GG!  And then I got a surprise in my email that I am Blogger of the Week this week!  WOO!  We even bought "fancy" furniture today!  I am so pleased with March! :D

2011 Recap & 2012 Ambitions

Well, hello there, outside world! We still haven't got Internet and prospects are looking grim for ever having it! For a modern technology lover, this is most definitely a hit below the belt, haha~ I spent this weekend attempting to catch up on everyone's blogs but please forgive me the lack of commenting as of late. I am reading everything (hopefully everything -- Blogger is still acting wonky for me) and enjoying everyone's progress and holiday posts (I've lived my Christmas through y'all!). :D

Since I've got no new progress of my own to post, I thought I'd do a recap of my victories in 2011! It was a rather slow year of stitching for me; too many other things seemed to be happening!

Companion Cube - January

First accomplishment was a badge of the Companion Cube from Portal (video game for the unfamiliar). I was in such a hurry to make it into a badge, I forgot to do the backstitching detail! I designed the pattern in KG-Chart but didn't have the specific flosses in my stash so I worked with what I had. I took a darker gray and blended it with white for a lighter appearance. I think it worked pretty well but you can tell I'm not a railroader, ehehe~ Despite its unfinished-ness, I still really like it and it resides on my purse for all to admire.

Sunflower Tag - August

After a long expanse of no completions, I finished up this little piece for my guy's wonderful grandmother. It was a quick stitch pulled from a sampler in BH&G's America's Best Cross-Stitch. It was also my first attempt at learning a new stitch - blanket stitch! I felt wonderfully accomplished for it was quite an easy stitch and really helped make the edge look neat. Now if I could only cut straight. :D

Christmas Crewel - September

I started to pick up the pace and get some things done during this part of the year. Mostly because it gets too darn hot to do anything but sit inside an A/Ced room! This was a crewel kit I picked up at a yard sale. It had been started but I think the amount of French knots may have terrified the previous owner. I love French knots and these weird ones were especially fun. They could be "messy" and look perfectly fine! I did run out of the right green for some of the boughs and had to substitute in something from my stash. It doesn't quite match and was an absolute nightmare to stitch with but I'm glad I persevered and finished it!

FFVIII Logo - September

Possibly the crowning achievement. I'm planning to stitch all the logos in the main Final Fantasy series (again, a video game for the unknowing) but the order is somewhat haphazard. My boyfriend chose the first one and his favorite is Final Fantasy VIII. I designed this pattern in KG-Chart and promptly ignored most of it. Even still, it was fun to design and stitch and I learned a lot about the pattern making process! In retrospect, I almost wish this wasn't the first one I stitched because it's one of the more complicated logos. The gradient was very hard and there's only one area of it in the completed project that turned out as close to perfect as I could wish (the area directly above the T). I've taken that learning experience and applied it to the next FF pattern!

Halloween Blair - October

The last completed project of the year was my Halloween stitch! I designed this pattern from images in the Soul Eater manga (Witch Blair in kitty form and the Soul Eater logo on the "Soul Pumpkin"). I also charted out the font from the Pumpkin font found through a Google search. Limited to only items in my stash, the colors are a little bit darker than I would have liked but it turned out pretty well methinks! Especially considering this was the first pattern I drew completely from scratch in KG-Chart!

Only five completions and two of them were smalls! And no Christmas completions! Ah, how terrible~ I'm hoping to do much better this year. I've got the next Final Fantasy pattern ready as well as the materials for it. I'm raring to start stitching it but I still have to get some things in order at the new place. Maybe I could do some smalls to pacify/motivate/relax me. I really like making the badges.

As for some ambitions for 2012, I'm hoping to get at least two more FF logos under my belt (three or more if I really buckle down). I want to attempt a new style of embroidery (hardanger, perhaps?) or at least learn another new stitch. I'd also like to stitch a few Christmas cards. In terms of pattern designing, I was hoping to really get more active in the Sprite Stitch request forums but without Internet... Quite a damper! Maybe I'll actually finish the Dolphin Trio which is turning into a UFO. I'm signed up for this year's TUSAL (found a jar, wee!) and I'd like to join in a few (all?!) IHSWs! Internet being an issue (yes, I'm going to complain about this way too much), however, posting results won't be as punctual as I'd like but hopefully it'll work out!

I apologize for the wall of text and will let you have your eyeballs back now, haha. Enjoy your stitchings! :D

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

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!

FFVIII Update~

Gosh, I just get started and Blogger changes things up on me.  Less is more seems to be the trend.

Oh, well, let there be progress!  Since the last (pictorial) update, I have finished the remainder of the color and have started the trek across the fabric with black.  My horrible, horrible eyesight is catching up to me, but I aim to finish a length of floss in a day (a length being six separated strands but you knew that, right?).  Today I manged to do two lengths, but at the cost of wearing my eyes out!  I stitched a page width of the underline and this will take me out to the Y in FANTASY.  I would guess that each remaining letter is going to take at least two lengths of floss; maybe I can upgrade my daily requirement.

Assuming my eyeballs don't fall out between now and completion!

Yes, I am the final fan.

Hao I Du

Hmm.  I will get Blogger figured out... eventually.  Coming from LJ, it hasn't been easy trying to get things set up the way I'd like.  I have suspicions that something is up with my feed as I wasn't showing up in my dashboard despite having followed myself.  I hunted around in settings, changing nothing but re-saving my original choices.  I then unfollowed myself, re-followed publicly and voilà.  I switched back to anonymous out of curiosity, but I'm still there.  So, I'm not entirely sure what the issue is / was.  I can't imagine public vs anonymous had anything to do with it, but that's about the only straw I can grasp.  The images don't seem to preview on my dashboard, though.  Scouting around Blogger help makes me think it has to do with off-site hosting and the resulting link.

No pictures today, but I've completed the remainder of the color, yaaaaay~  Now for miles of black lettering and possibly redoing Rinoa's hair.  And adding Squall's poof, if I decide it is suitably awesome to do so.

Eeeeeeee.

Will I wash this piece?  I'm not sure.  It has some fairly bright reds and although DMC claims to be colorfast, red does seem to be a problem.  I'd probably go up in flames if I washed it and it bled.  I probably should have washed the floss before starting, just to be sure.  Luckily, the project isn't dirty as it has been exclusively on a stand allowing me to two-hand stitch with minimal fabric touching.

ETA:  Hmm, it appears to be not working again as it didn't appear in my dashboard.
ETA2: It appeared ~1.5 hours later.  I'll assume (for now) that this is the norm.

FFVIII Update and a Sunflower!

"...Whatever."

I was highly amused at Squall's expression at this point. Think of the emoticon -.- face.  I got so amused imagining his trademark "whatever" despite the loving embrace.  The giggling at my stand was probably a sign that I had stitched enough for the day.

So of course I stitched on.

August 27

They have faces and hair!  Rinoa's hair doesn't look right to me so I'll probably dig out graph paper and play around with designs until I get something I like more.  Squall's poof actually doesn't look too bad as exposed cloth now that he's 'finished' but I still like the idea of a clipped velvet stitch.  Decisions, decisions.

At this point, I feel like the end is near.  The black, despite being a pain to stitch, goes pretty fast.  There's only a bit more color underneath the lettering to finish out the yellow swoops.   Eeee.

Front

Back

Sunflower!

I apologize for the blurry pictures; my camera refused to focus on these for some reason.  I included a scanned image of the front, but my scanner decided that half of the back didn't exist despite my orders to the contrary.  

This is a gift tag type thing I stitched for my boyfriend's grandmother (her favorite flower is a sunflower).  This was my first attempt using a blanket stitch for a finishing technique and the idea came from here.  It's a bit rough around the edges as I was terrified of cutting the floss, haha.  The stitch itself was quite easy and I really like how it gives it a bit of a professional finished look.

The sunflower motif came from BH&G America's Best Cross-Stitch Prairie Blooms sampler. I didn't have half the colors called for so I tossed my own from my box of mystery floss.  The "happy" font from Leisure Arts Leaflet 705.  I designed the 75 in all its simplicity. :)

Final Fantasy Cross-Stitch

Because I'm curious about how images show up, I give you an entry.  Most of it is copy-pasta from my other journal.

This is my current BAP (although it really isn't too big).  I had the incredible brainfart of stitching each of the 16 main Final Fantasy logos (1 - 14, including X-2 and XIII-2).  I found the highest quality image of each logo online and charted them with KG-Chart, a program that is quite wonderful despite being free.  Hunting up the materials has proven difficult as the most local of my LNS are over an hour away.  The colors are done 1-over-1 on white 22-count (hardanger) fabric while the black lettering is 2-over-1.  My floor standing frame doesn't adjust on the height so I had to baste some scrap fabric on the top and bottom edges.  The finished piece will be approximately 11" x 14" and is around 14,000 stitches.

"il rar" of course.

This was after approximately eight hours of stitching.  I discvored it is so incredibly hard to see stitching the black 2-over-1, but my eyesight has never been that great.  Can you guess which one I started first?  ;)

Approximately 14 hours.

If you know your logos, you probably squealed and said, "OMG IT'S FF------!"  No?

My dear boyfriend, financier of my housewifely ways, loves Final Fantasy VIII.  As he provides the money, it's only fair that he gets to pick what he wants stitched first, right?  :)  I think this is one of the more beautiful logos, although I don't know what Yoshitaka Amano was thinking when he did Squall's face like that, haha.  I might be a bit biased though; Squall is my favorite FF character.

No longer "il rar"~ :)

At this point, I discovered a perfectionist side to myself.  After counting 8o billion times, I still made the completed letters one row too tall. So, I picked them out and thanked my grandmother for giving me her amazing embroidery scissors (they're a stork variety, but old, German-made ones).  I stared at the picture for a while and wondered why I didn't do the flares of the letters in 3/4 stitches. The L at the time wasn't completed, so I stitched it with 3/4 stitches at the flares and liked the effect.  I picked out all the little flares even though they're not at all noticeable from a distance. 

I also fought with myself to not pick out the yellow of Rinoa's paint swaths, particularly below the black line. If you look at the original image, they're more like confetti, tapering off into oblivion.  In the pattern, they're one blob with lighter stitches in to "deal" with that.  I really need to learn to listen to my intuition because as I was stitching the far left swoop, I thought it looked pretty awesome uncompleted... and plugged on with stitching. I didn't mind picking it out, but I did worry about the little holes in the fabric (my needle is just a teensy bit too fat for 22-count, but it was the skinniest I had without going to a sewing needle and stabbing myself to death).

And then there was a lull in progress.  Spring showed up, and it is impossible for me to spend spring indoors.  It started getting much too hot to be outside, so that leaves me with ample stitching time.

July 10th.

I was having a horrible time with the gradient which is one thing that KG-Chart does not handle well (another being blended threads).  After wrestling with the orange - red transition, I finally decided to ignore the pattern for the most part.  I use it for the general idea, but I take the gradient and blending into my own hands.

Hi, Squall~!

A little less than a month later, on August 3rd, I'm at this point.  I've started doing just half (tent) stitches in order to see the transition points.  Looking back, I wish I had confetti'd the stitching along the color changes.

August 23

Earlier this week, I started filling in the half-stitches.  I confetti'd the top layer of the stitch so the gradient has a more diffused sort of look.  Hopefully, anyway.  :)

August 26.

I'm starting to get to "exciting" parts.  All of the intricate detail of this piece is in the top half, and it was a challenge figuring out how to represent Rinoa's hand and arm sock.  Her hand in particular has caused me much grief.  At first, I grabbed a scrap of 11-count Aida to practice on (which was huge, btw, after stitching on 22-count).  I felt I was just wasting floss, so I switched over to graph paper and wrestled with different designs until I found something acceptable.  When I stitched it, it wasn't quite as acceptable so I had to tweak it again.  In the original image, Rinoa's fingers are like daggers positioned to rip out Squall's heart through the back of his jacket. I took artistic liberties and made her blunt-tipped. She'll have to work hard for Squall's heart now

I am also debating what to do about Squall's jacket poof.  Leaving it exposed cloth has appeal (lazy) but a clipped velvet stitch would really look nice (and be fun to play with).  I'm concerned that it would make it harder to frame under glass, though.

That's all for catching up on this piece.  I really look forward to the completion because it will look amazing on the wall.  Plus I can have all the fun of kitting up the next project!  :)

My cat is trying to shove himself under a pillow and blanket.  It really isn't that cold, Peanut.