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

Gifted Gorgeousness, Maybe

Well! Hello! This silence went on for much longer than intended. It was time for a new computer build and of course it decided to be the Build from Hell. Long story short: Skylake and Windows 7 do not like each other.  Windows 10 is currently installed and I'm still trying to figure out how to get my soul back from it because boy-o-boy does it have a lot of invasive privacy defaults.  There are still some hardware issues to work out but at least I'm up and (sorta) running again.  Of course all my blog follows are still on the old computer which I am going to rebuild for my mother.

click me!

I figured I'd try to get a GG post up though I haven't much to show for it.  I'm sad that I didn't get to post last month; it really bugs me to skip out on things I sign up for which is why I don't sign up for much!

before - with bonus parked string

after - with different bonus parked string

I'm not going to beat myself up too much. The stand this project is on, while appreciated, is very uncomfortable to sit at for any length of time. Add the heat of summer arriving and I practically want nothing to do with it.  I am trying to be particular with the second leg of the cross stitch as there are only four colors going from green to blue.  I want the transition to be as unnoticeable as possible.  I hope I've succeeded so far!

Oh!  Remember those baby afghan squares that I gave away before taking a picture?  A lot of you cheeky people admired my invisible projects.  Well they are invisible no more!

such soft much wow

At our next get-together, I asked for my squares and took a lovely(?) shot of them in the library under perfectly ideal(?) lighting. :D They hadn't been blocked yet so they look a little squirrely around the edges.



Our teacher has started piecing them together which she says has been an adventure! I suppose that's what happens when you have many people with their many tensions.  Mine were fun because, you know, tight. :D

I received a wonderful RAK in the mail during the Computer Crisis which made grey skies blue again!

huck towel and bonus!

After hearing about my plight with Hancock Fabrics shutting down and the ecru huck towels vanishing into the world of darkness, Tiffany at Tiffstitches a Blog offered to send me one she got in a "job lot" (new term for me!) on eBay!  Yay!  Thank you so much!!  I'm determined to have the Flower of the Month series completed before I'm 80 haha.

bonus goodness

And look, a bonus! I'm tempted to display the skein on the wall, it's so lovely.  It's a Jodyri Designs hand-dyed thread in Alaskan Beauty.  I have not heard of this dyer before Tiff's blog so I went exploring their site; so many beautiful colors.  I am still a bit afraid of hand-dyed threads because they are not colorfast.  I think this particular skein would look wonderful on some sparkly Silkweaver fabric I picked up last year.

Welp, that's all on this edition of Ishkabibble Babble.  I think.  The heat has fried my brain.

Faithful April and a Bit of Kindness!

Here we are, April done and over with, whatever is the world coming to! Thank you for all of your lovely and snarky comments on my last post about my invisible squares!  I suppose I could have all manner of things completed if they were all invisible ahaha~ :b  Please feel free to join me in my Invisible Escapades and we shall take over the world with our imaginations!

First up!  If you haven't heard of Kim's 60 Random Acts of Kindness, it is her awesomely crazy way of celebrating life this year!  It's so fun to give during your birthday!  But! I can't believe I am RAK #2 and lookit the exclamation points the mail brought!

the goodies

A STONEY CREEK PATTERN!  Yes, I squeaked.  I really like Stoney Creek patterns.  She also sent some lovely fabric!  This is my first new fabric in eons!  And those little squares down on the bottom?

home is where you are ♥

Eeee!  They are so tiny and adorable!  Each block is ~1.5" square (I measured them at her suggestion haha) and they're stitched on perforated paper.  I've worked with perforated plastic but haven't been brave enough to trust myself (or cats) to paper!  Eeee! :D   They reside on my geeky shelf, not because they are geeky!  It's just my space for stuff I love. :)

Thank you so much, Kim!  :D :D :D

Now, since it's the end of April (egad, pt. 2), Faithful April, Justine's brainchild! It was so nice to work on just one thing again and I continued on with Final Fantasy III, letting it shoehorn its way into Gifted Gorgeousness along with invisible squares. Here's what happened!

before, start of April

after - with bonus parked string

Eee. I am so close to a finish. I hope the subject is more apparent to those who have not seen the final image.  I imagine the WIPs looked rather odd!  I feel like I'm in the area right before the final boss battle. I'm still free to roam around the map (chart), doing all the side quests and gathering all available ribbons (putting in backstitching and filling in the other leg of the cross).  But the boss is still there, waiting.  

I am going to continue with Faithful April right on into Faithful May and have. This. DONE(???). Two years, shameful! I've already started daydreaming about which one I'm doing next.  It will be the "easy" one haaaaaaaaaah.

Thank you for tuning into this week's edition of Ishkabibble Babble!  wriggles away

FotM! FFIII! Babbles!

Oh dear, oh dear!  It seems April is trying to slip past me.  Thanks for all the fun comments on the Easter Blog Hop post. :D  I even got some new followers (spastic waving), hi!  I kinda feel like I'm going every which way right now.  I can't believe I had to start mowing the grass in March.  The garden is worked up with onions, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, sweet peas, garlic, and one (of only four) cabbages planted.  The tomatoes are started in their little pods to be put outside when it warms up more, as well as the assortment of peppers, cucumbers, and squash.  I had to dig up some of my blackberry as it's trying to take over the world!  It felt good to work outside in the sunshine but boy-o-boy was I pooped after.  On to the stitching!

before

after

First up, I have a small bit of progress to show on the lovely Flower of the Month series, July's Larkspur/Delphinium.  I am very much enjoying working on this piece though I don't often sit down to work on it. The blues are magical and I finally found the remaining four after a trip to the Big City.  It's a bit like violets was but it must be the enjoyability (new word copyright Rosey175) of blue that doesn't make it so bothersome.  That or I am still in my "I'mma do what I want, when I want" mindset and not worrying about silly little things like Time.

I am in a bit of a panic though.  Hancock Fabrics has declared bankruptcy and is liquidating all of its stock.  While this means (the sad kind of) sales, it also means the end of being able to find these impossible ecru huck towels!  They're available online (for double the price) but I'd really rather avoid that route if at all possible.  I will need five more to finish this set.  I'm hoping to get to our local store and snag some before it shuts its doors forever.  Bah! :(

before

after

Next, delicious progress on FFIII (sorry for the derp after picture; it is not curved).  There's a full word over there, YAY.  Even a start on the III -- that's the black blip at the end.  And even MORE YAY is that the green point above the letter Y is exactly where it is supposed to be which almost made me cry with relief.  Something going right on this piece for a change weeeeee~

And lastly, Crafty Sasha is having a giveaway!  Do check out her blog; she does a neat assortment of projects.  ----  This is what one gets for spending days typing up a post!   Her giveaway is over now but go check out her blog anyway. :D

I think that's all for now.  No crocheting this time!  I do have a bit of knitting but it's Gift Knitting and will be next post.  I didn't work on the Singer 201-2 more since I (still) need to order the rewiring kits.  Maybe I'm hoping it'll fix itself, hmm...  I did clean up all the little bits and bobs that came with it though.  Some of the parts got fresh oil, but most just got a dunk in rubbing alcohol.

Okay, done! Have a productive time! :D

ETA: I'll be joining in Justine's Faithful April after an email encouragement haha!  I will stick to one project at a time, first the knit squares as they need done this month, preferably before Wednesday after next!  Then I will devote the rest of the time to FFIII and see how far that takes me. :D

IHSW - July! And a Few Finds!

Hiya, hermiters! I hope you were all productive enough for your tastes!

click me for more info!

I had progress... and negative progress! I work on FFIII during IHSW and this time, the mistake finally showed itself! Doing the letters worked! This is more exciting than it really should be being that I spent a good portion of my stitchy time frogging haha.

before

after - FINAL(ly)

wrong!

A close up of the area before I picked it out. The letters are to have a 1-block "border" around them where the color touches. The top left corner of the N does not! But, the right side does. So at least I knew the mistake was everywhere to the left of the N which wound up not being too terrible to fix, especially since I start out the colored portions in half-stitches only (see, I learn from previous mistakes lol).  I took out the entire area above N just in case though; in the after picture, you can see the outline of the frogged area.  I put a small length in before I started stitching the I... not letting another mistake happen again (famous last words :b)!  I am very pleased that this mistake is gone, Gone, GONE!

☆*･゜ﾟ･* \(^▽^)/ *･゜ﾟ･*☆
Since I don't have a lot of IHSW to show off, how about some of my thrifty finds? If you don't know, I get most of my crafty supplies in thrift stores.  I am definitely my mother's daughter when it comes to spotting bargains!

most were 25¢ each

Crochet books, leaflets, and magazines! I adore the older Star/American Thread Co. magazines and squeal like an overly-excited dolphin whenever I find one.  I was particularly happy with the "Doily Bouquet"; there are some truly stunning pieces in there.  Unfortunately they are not always in the best shape!  Some are missing covers or are falling apart at the seams.

tatting supplies - $5

A tatting kit! My great-great-aunt was a prolific tatter and I love the delicate look it produces on the edge of things. I was tickled to find this in the thrift store. It came with two large balls of thread, two small balls, and two different shuttles, all with the original prices lol. Anyone know some good resources to learn this amazing art? Preferably books as our poor Internet does not much like YouTube.  Though if there is an absolutely amazing tutorial I will haul my laptop to the library and practice with headphones!

front, minor cosmetic damage - free!

This is probably my most exciting discovery. Since we live in a rural area, we do not have trash or recycling pickup. So, I take my recycling down to the center once a month and always toss a glance at their bulk trash pile. There's usually some interesting things, though almost always broken. This time, I noticed a nice little desk looking thing (only the back was visible). I like old furniture so I snooped. It's a sewing machine! I am unashamed to ask for trash (lol) so the guys helped me load it into the truck.

cast iron glory - free!!

After spending a few hours looking things up and taking a "what is it?" sewing machine quiz, it is a 1951 Singer 201-2 (potted motor).  I am unsure if it is the original cabinet but knowing the area, I would suspect it is. It was obviously well-loved at one time, and came with a great little diagram on how to thread the machine written on the back of an envelope. :)  It also came with an assortment of feet (including 4 hemming feet of different makes lol), spare bulbs, and a tiny mountain of metal bobbins.

I had low expectations of it working (it was put out for recycling after all). BUT IT WORKS. There is just something about older machines' sound that I just love. It does need a good cleaning and I'll have to get some fresh oil and grease for it. I think I will have it rewired as well. Most of the wiring was intact but from the machine to the pedal you can tell it's showing its age.  I really look forward to playing with it and sewing again.  More to learn! Maybe I'll finally be able to create some finish-finishes!  :D

beautiful!  FREE!!!

It is really amazing what people will throw out. Those of you who thrift shop or perhaps get lucky in recycling centers, what are your great crafty finds?

Have I talked you to death?  Maybe I should stop rambling.  I'll just leave you with a friendly reminder about my little giveaway!  Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely life this week~! :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?

Seventeen Hours and BOBBINS!

I haven't done an IHSW in so long~ I didn't sign up for this one as I wasn't really sure what was going to happen this past weekend (plans? who makes plans?) but it turned out I got around four hours in on this Final Fantasy piece. In case you haven't guessed it yet, it is the Final Fantasy III (DS remake) logo, one of at least five (shhhh) games I'm currently playing. If you would like to see what it will look (somewhat) like when finished, you can click here.

Anywhoodle, this is where I left off just over a week ago:

seven and a half hours!

And the march of progress:

nine and a half hours!

thirteen and a half hours!

seventeen hours!

Whew! I feel like progress is rather slow on this but I'm not going to get discouraged. The more I stitch, the fiddlier this pattern seems so it takes some staring and thinking and fretting over what color to put next. While I love all the colors in this, I'm scared about the blue. It seems so dark. Unless it's under a bright light; then it looks right~ @_@

My absolute favorite time to stitch is when my husband is playing video games. He plays games I'm not necessarily interested in playing myself but I like to stitch along and get the story. Stitching ... or winding bobbins. Because I got bobbins. 1000 bobbins!!

BOBBINS

Amazon finally had them on sale ahaha. So, 1000 plastic bobbins of joy. While I don't think I (and I kinda hope I don't) have 1000 skeins of floss, I do have a huge amount. I tend buy it when I find it in thrift stores or yard sales and they're usually of a questionable age and shape. Putting them on bobbins seems to satisfy my deep-seated urge to tidy up spaghetti blobs.

Of course, now I'm running out of storage... I have one clear box and one pink one. I cannot for the life of me find another box in a different color -- does anyone know if they're even made anymore? My mom had the highly-coveted teal one but she gave it to my niece.

Anyway, please enjoy your productive fingers this week too!

EDIT - Derpy me didn't include the link to the bobbins! I bought them on Amazon (US) here, where they are currently going for $10.87, the cheapest I've ever seen them. I, however, try to stick with Amazon over 3rd party sellers and they're currently at $12.82 which is still pretty cheap for the amount.

They are Darice brand instead of DMC and my initial impression is that they are a shade thinner than the DMC variety. This may just be my imagination... or that the DMC bobbins I have are so old they were made thicker. They're bundled into little bobbin stacks of 25 with a rubberband so you don't have 1000 bobbins running amok all at once.

No, No, Anything But a Frog!

Not too much progress this week but any progress is still progress! :D

last week @ three hours

Sooo, I started off the week swimmingly -- with a frog! A lovely four stitches were somehow accounted for without actually having been stitched. And it wasn't in an area where I could just politely ignore the mistake; it would've thrown off all of the lettering which is kinda important. So, I picked out the bottom green area and remedied it.

post-frog, six hours (sigh)

seven and a half hours!

Is it making any more sense? (Hint: It is a logo like FFVII and FFVIII.) If I wasn't the one who made the pattern and stitched it, I would have absolutely no idea what was going on! Claws..? With wings? Maybe?! This was a very fiddly pattern to make and it's proving to be very fiddly to stitch. I foresee myself doing the "lay some floss on the picture and dashing across the room to see if it looks okay" thing again.

Also. ALSO. I haaate this fabric! It was something I found at a thrift store (of course), new in package. At the time, I was super excited because it was the right size/count for a Final Fantasy for 50¢. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. It frays if it's looked at wrong, it's crooked, and stitching on it is something else. I know hardanger is woven a bit differently than Aida but it is sooo easy for the floss to slide out of the little hole where it belongs! I will continue to use it for this project because I'm stubborn (silly) like that but I cannot say I recommend Regency cross-stitch fabric after this experience (previously had used Charles Craft). Has anyone else had problems with that brand or did I just get lucky?

Okay, enough complaining! I have some chicken katsu curry to make for dinner (yum), brownies to bake for dessert (super yum), and stitching to do (no yum as I don't need that much fiber in my diet)! Enjoy your productive fingers next week, too! :D