2015 Recap & 2016 Ambitions (Image Heavy)!

Aloha world!! I hope you had a Merry Christmas and received all your stitchy desires. :D 2015 is drawing to a close so I thought I'd better start working on my recap post since our Internet is probably going to protest the whole way.  We've just had a ton of rain, more than was really necessary and I think all of our state is closed due to the drama it has caused.  They've moved the planes at our local airport to higher ground because the Mississippi River is in major flood stage.  We are up on the bluffs so no danger here unless getting stuck in the muddy driveway is a danger!

Cross-Stitch
I managed 2.5ish SALs this year! In order to not have so many images in one post, I made a (rather ghetto) collage of them.

2015 finishes!

One SAL was Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. I think it was the most successful even if it doesn't have the most finishes.

1. I designed and stitched a Muppet "baby sampler" for a friend's first baby! I think turned out really cute (sorry, I won't show the whole thing because it contains the full name of their child). Would you believe I still have it?? We've been trying to get together for a while but life has just not played fair. I am afraid to mail it because it's somewhat large and with the glass and questionable mail services...! 
2. Next was the Dolphin Trio, a Dimensions kit given to me eons ago which turned into my longest WIP that I just sorta snacked on when the mood hit. I am so happy to have it finished!  It is not finished-finished but you know how it goes with finding Perfect Frames.
3. Next was Rathalos, a wyvern glyph from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, a game both my husband and I love playing together.  The plan was to also stitch Rathian to go with him but silly me mentioned how nice a cube would be so four more are being planned.  Rathian colors continue to be a struggle.  Maybe I just don't like olive greens!

before

after

The next SAL was the Flower of the Month SAL hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair.  This SAL seemed to fizzle out at the year went on though several did manage to keep posting about it.  I finished January, February, April (March was finished years earlier!), and May.  They are all done on 14-count ecru huck towels.  Since this post will also serve as the last FotM update, I made a tiny bit of progress on June's flower.  It felt good to get back to Xs after all the yarny things I've been doing lately!  And while I was stitching on this I thought to myself, "Hmm, these look somewhat like Rathian colors."  And then it hit me, these ARE Rathian colors!  I think.  But they do look right in the floss toss.  I'll probably fret some more over them though. :b

before, dug out in June

Lastly was IHSW hosted by Joyze at Random Ramblings.  I decided to work on Final Fantasy III during the weekends of this SAL took place/I felt like it!  It started off with a troublesome mistake which I finally put on my big girl panties and fixed it by means of doing the letters.  I keep feeling disappointed in myself over this piece thinking I hardly had any progress but with the before and after, it doesn't look too bad.   And the mistake is fixed!  I shall be very glad when I never have to stitch on it again though.  This one is determined to drive me nuts.

after

Crochet

just three more!

Since learning this in 2014, I feel like this year was a year to kinda expand my knowledge.  I joined a CAL that went waaaay too fast for me haha. But now I know Very Well how to do corner-to-corner crochet thanks to the zillion squares in the Christmas blanket yay!  I have all nine of the main ones complete now and have the others planned out in charts.  It is so very tempting to say yay~ I am done with the squares ahaha.  But I will be good and make three more so my blanket will be a more acceptable (to me) blanket size.  Rudolph was a Pain In The Buttocks.  Holy moly.  That mouth area was enough to drive me bonkers.  The gingerbread man was pretty rough too.

hey, more Rathalos colors?

doily in action oooo

I also made my first doily and first pair of house slippers, both of which I'm happy to say went over really well with Mr. Husband. :D  It's nice to have such an appreciative guy.  I will be making another pair of the slippers for myself (bluuuue) as my house slippers are currently disintegrating.  You can find the free pattern for them here (ravelry link).  I am disappointed to say this little doily is all that I managed to get finished, though.  Even though each motif takes about 1-1.5 hours, there just aren't enough sneaky hours in my day without ignoring everything else that needs done!  But now I don't have to be sneaky so I'll be able to work on them more often.

Knitting

dishcloths!

kitty prints scarf

This was my new adventure for the year!  I taught myself from books and am continuing to learn through a little group that meets roughly every two weeks at the library.  I first made some potholders (gotta start somewhere) and am currently working on a scarf that wants to curl like there's no tomorrow.  Since it is just the one skein of yarn, I take it almost everywhere with me.  The doctor's office, Mom's house, hotels...  I am a rather slow knitter so far though.  I am very excited to learn socks and then no foot will be safe from my needles!

Miscellaneous

this is Halloween, this is Halloween

My husband's company called for wreaths for their Christmas party with the "requirement" that they be the main colors of red, black, and white.  There was only one solution to that in our household! :D  We had a lot of fun making this and I learned a new thing about Mr. Husband -- he's really, REALLY good at picking colors and making little felt flowers (those swirlies at the bottom were all made by him proud peacock wife moment).  Sally's hair is a bit long in this picture; I trimmed it afterwards to make it even with the bottom of the wreath.

soooo tasty!

Next were these little ornaments made for some friends we have over for game night.  This little cat is named Airou and he's from the Monster Hunter world (same as Rathalos and Rathian).  They're made from felt and stuffed with yarn ORTs and felt scraps haha.  I love how these turned out and I think I should probably make another one for ourselves. :D

Overall and Ambitions Onward
I think I did okay for 2015.  I learned a new skill and that's always an amazing thing!  I also bought two patterns online (Frosted Pumpkin patterns, too! Eee!) for the first time ever (if you don't recall the vaaast majority of my stash is freebies and/or thrift store finds).  My goals for 2015 (this post) were mostly met *scooting FFIII under the bed* and thanks to the generosity of some stitchy friends, I got TWO needleminders!  They are remarkably useful inventions and I'm not sure how I survived without them.  One thing I mentioned in passing without any real goal was getting a calendar for my stitching.  My husband provided a small planner from his workplace (he does everything digital so he doesn't need it) and it worked rather well to track hours/days!  I hope he can get another one for this year and I will include crochet and knitting in there too.  Maybe.  :)

I'm not going to be overly ambitious in 2016 and just do what I want (like I don't already :b).  I have already signed up for 2016 GG so I can continue putting a dent in my gifted collection!   I love this SAL!  I don't know if the FotM SAL will continue but I will keep working on my huck towels because I want the set to be finished.  If IHSW continues I'll try to make appearances in it once in a while.  TUSAL will keep going too, maybe with yarn ORTs this time, oooOOOooo.

I WILL HAVE FFIII DONE IN 2016.  RAR.  famous last words

I think that is all from me.  I hope you all have a fantastic 2016!  My husband and I are rather stick-in-the-muds.  We'll probably just go to bed tonight and not watch any ball drop.  But we will have black eyed peas for supper on New Year's Day. Greens will have to be a salad haha. :)

Gifted Gorgeousness - May Edition

We interrupt my giveaway(s) to bring you May's Gifted Gorgeousness as hosted by Jo! Where we work on gifts from/for others! With or without gifted necessaries!

click to join the fun!

Can you hear it? Maybe only bats can hear it, that excited squeaking.

Muppets.

Are.

Done!

Since the garden is in and things have settled down for now, I was plowing through a letter a day which was magical. Granted, the last few letters weren't all that difficult, around three hours each.  But that's three hours I don't usually have to spend on stitching!  Here are a few more letters I can flaunt:

Sam the Eagle

Statler

Do you think Statler would heckle my work?  :)))

The Swedish Chef

This piece wasn't terribly dirty but I still wanted to wash it because I think it makes the stitches look more full, plus makes the ironing easier.  I stitched what I felt were "questionable" colors on a scrap of Aida (I always keep scraps for this purpose) and washed the scrap first -- safe!  It felt really good to wash the piece, washing away that naughty center mark (remember the first fiasco?).  I also need to go over the piece with a pair of tweezers because holey moley, the cat hairs!

I am considering mounting this piece myself before taking it to be framed.  It's a bit big to be laced (14" x 14") though I did leave plenty of extra fabric (20" x 20"), so I am asking y'all for some help:  What do I do?  Foam core with pins?  Go ahead and lace it?  Leave it to the professionals?  I think Jo (forgive me if it was someone else!) mentioned to outline a piece in a running stitch or something similar to ensure it is mounted straight.

Technical Details

• Muppet Letters by Mike Boon, capitals and (modified) lowercase
• 2 over 2 on white 28-count evenweave, black 4 over 2
• Finished size: 14" x 14" (35,6 x 35,6cm)
• Started: February 2, 2015, Finished: May 13, 2015
• 65 hours, not including pattern making (+10ish?)
• First large attempt at evenweave fabric.

My verdict on evenweave? Undecided. I do like the higher count fabric though I did not think it was any easier or harder to work with. It was much softer than Aida. One thing I noticed and did NOT like is that the warp and weft of the fabric was not even. I realized this when a 6x6 stitched square was taller than it was wide. 6 stitches wide and 5 stitches high wound up being the square I was looking for and required a few adjustments to the pattern on the fly.

It's a little (hah) exciting to have this finished.  It's later than I would've liked but I will console myself with thinking it would've been done earlier if I hadn't screwed up the first piece of fabric.  CONSTANT VIGILANCE.  What do I work on next?!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.......

This post is scheduled for the wee hours of the morning for you crazy people on the other side of the Earth.

Gifted Gorgeousness - April Edition

Here we are for the April installment of Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness.

click to join the fun!

I'm still plucking diligently away on Muppet letters which will be a gift for a good friend ('s first baby). These letters were tweaked from this and this alphabet image which I ran through KG-Chart.

Can you guess them?  K worked up quickly (comparatively) though his one eye looks a little weird.  Will probably go back and fix that.  I am hoping next GG this piece will be done.  Probably won't be though.

Sorry for the slight blur. And cat hair. And short post.  Until next time.

Gifted Gorgeousness - March Edition

Hello again! Here is my March installment of Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness. Still plugging away on the Muppet letters; I've reached the great milestone of having one part of the child's name finished! I apologize in advance for the somewhat sparse post, privacy being what it is and all. But here's one new letter for your viewing pleasure!

meep meep meep meep meep meep!

Beaker and Bunsen! :D They're some of my favorite Muppets and I'm quite pleased with how this one charted up. I may go back and play with Bunsen's glasses some, though. They seem small and too round! Or I might just be being picky.

Until next time! :D

February IHSW

Hello, howdy, hi! I'm a bit late for IHSW posting, forgive me!

First, let me say I am completely shocked how many of you do not know what snow ice cream is! I thought this was a delight known everywhere?! All you want is fresh snow, milk (I use evaporated but according to the great Internet, you can use regular or even condensed), sugar, and vanilla. The best ice cream comes from the best snow -- you know, the perfect snowball-making snow. Ours was kinda dry this time but snow was snow at that point. I do encourage you to give it a try, even if it's just for the novelty. It's really fun to dig out a container of it in the middle of summer. :)

click me for more info!

Now for IHSW! My goal this time was simple: Finish another Muppet letter. This was because I knew we were due for icky weather Friday night which would probably leave us with work to do. We got hit by a somewhat substantial ice storm (I love snow but I do NOT like ice). And this was on top of the still-present mountain of snow we got last week. So, we were locked at home and needing to dig a path to the highway. We went out and tried getting our truck out -- we'd get so far, have to stop and shovel, go a little bit more, shovel some more. A quarter-mile driveway is not so fun on ice-covered snow. We got it to where we were able to get out and back in by staying in our shoveled ruts and called it a day. Shoveled the ice off the sidewalks and tried not to collapse upon entering the house. I started a late lunch when my husband asked if there was a tractor rumbling by? I said no, it's probably just the snow plows out on the highway and we paid no mind. Here one of our wonderful neighbors took pity on us and plowed our driveway! I called around asking if different neighbors did it so I could shower them with baked goods of gratitude, all no!  We apparently have a ghost tractor working for us.

Anyway, with our new-found freedom I finished a letter.  There's been a few changes on this guy since my last post.  I picked out the bottom left portion and made it more D-like (hopefully?!) and made him one row higher to match the heights of the other letters.  Dunno how I missed that either.  I'm not overly thrilled with his hat because Dr. Teeth has a big hat not a little boater ahaha.  But there are size limitations to contend with so I did the best I could with the space available~  After I have more done, I may go back and tweak it some.  I did fish out my gold metallic floss for his tooth, a whopping six stitches.  I survived.

But I wasn't done there! I finished another letter (no picture).  I started the next letter (no picture again).

I started (finally) FotM - February Violets. Not looking too hopeful for a finish this month. :<   I'm still good because I have March's finished.

Whew! I hopefully didn't exhaust my productivity for the next few weeks!

Gifted Gorgeousness - February Edition

Hello one and all! I hope everyone is bundled up nicely because it is freakin' cold! Or maybe y'all on the warmer side of the Earth are in short-shorts and the envy of us all! I am woefully behind in blog reading.  Our new little kitty, Klondike, has fooled us all into thinking he is a perfect little angel but alas! So I am keeping certain rooms closed off, including the office, until I'm 100% sure he isn't being a little stinker. This post is brought to you by typing a teeny bit each day and scheduling during cat naps! I will catch up eventually.  :)

click to join the fun!

Anyway, on to the gorgeousness! Or at least the gifted-ness.

Ta-da! The Muppets have been started! My mom, The Awesomest Mom Ever, managed to find a piece of evenweave on an excursion to the Big City so I washed, ironed, cut, and marked the center WITH FABRIC PEN. Permanent markers were banished from the room entirely. I apologize in advance that I will not be able to show this piece in its entirety. As you can see (hopefully, lol), the letters are individual Muppets, tweaked from this and this alphabet. As such, they will spell out the child's full name and I don't like that info online.  Instead, I will show snippets.  Feel free to guess the characters~ :D

There is not a ton of progress on this piece because 1) I made this pattern -- some colors were off (pattern maker is an older version) and some things, once stitched, looked odd and needed redesigned. So even the pattern is still a WIP! This letter in particular is giving me a lot of grief. 2) I find I absolutely cannot stitch with my glasses on the 28-count. I must, must, must be wearing my contacts and that is not an everyday thing in winter.

Anyway! PROGRESS WEEEEEEEEE. My goal is the end of April. I CAN DO THIS. /frantic.

lemony goodness

And here, help yourself to some bread. I was quite upset at FedEx delivery on Friday and what better thing to do when upset than to beat the living daylights out of eggs and sugar? I wound up making two regular loaves and four mini loaves of lemon-zucchini bread. I followed the recipe as written except I used 2 teaspoons of lemon extract instead of 2 tablespoons lemon juice.  I find it makes for a stronger lemony flavor and we're lemon-lovers in this house!

Anywhoodle, I'm sure your productive fingers have made a substantial dent in all of your gifts! :D