Gifted Gorgeousness, Faithful April #1, and Some TUSAL

Well, hidey ho~ Thank you for all the well wishes for finding more huck towels! I did manage to get two -- the only two they had. I don't know if more will trickle out from back stock but here is hoping! Three more to go so please share all your well wishes again haha. :D

click me!

Now on to the crafty things! I have joined in Justine's Faithful April, where we devote our time on one project. I have shoehorned it as "finish one project at a time" as I really wanted to join in but the local knitting guild decided this was the month to knit some squares for a baby afghan! These will also work for Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness as they are not baby afghan squares for me (thank goodness not ready for that haha :b). They needed to be done this month and I got the boss-lady's approval since knitting doesn't count anyway LOL. :D

Here are my two squares!

Well, here is where my two squares WOULD be but I completely derped out and didn't take a picture before taking them in to the lady finishing the blanket!  We decided to make a sort of sampler afghan with different 8" x 8" squares in yellow and white as the baby gender is unknown. Some of the less adventurous knitters will make some stockinette/garter squares for the corners. My squares are a triangle (yellow) and tile (creamy white) stitches. I am well known in the group for being a tight knitter (if you knit please be amused/horrified that I cannot slide my stitches on aluminum! needles without great effort!) so I was asked to do the tile square after one of the ladies brought her completed one in and was unhappy(?) with it (I thought it looked fine). She had four repeats of the stitch to my six.

I am unsure about the yarn. It was my first foray into using a merino/acrylic blend. The white in particular seemed to be prone to slubs (I haaaaate slubs). Otherwise it's very, very soft and lovely to hold the finished product. It splits like crazy.  At $8/213yd skein, I am not sure how comfortable I am using for baby items though it does make for a lovely gift. I would not recommend it for a beginner yarn unless one is willing to not stab people with needles after all the splitting and slipping and slubs.

Technical Details

• Baby Afghan Squares, tile stitch (example pattern here), and triangle stitch (example pattern here)
• Yarn: Cascade Pacific, 02 white and 12 yellow
• #7 (4.5mm) needles
• Finished size blocked: 8" square (20ish cm square)
• Started: March 31, Finished: April 10, 11 hours.

before

Also for Faithful April and GG, more progress on Final Fantasy III, YAAAAAAAAAAY.  When I was originally planning to just work on this (pre-baby squares) I was thinking how to squeeze it in for GG as I wanted to remain faithful to that too!  So, how did I plan it?  Well, FFIII is the only project I have that is stitched on the floor stand -- gifted to me by my mom.  The needle minder (my very first!) solely for this project is the adorable Chii from Justine!  The fabric for this piece was found in a thrift store, "gifted" by some random stranger, how nice of them!  So, there you have it.  I am Faithfully Gifted Gorgeousness-ing.  tucks away shoehorn

still not curved

As you can see, not a huge amount of progress but the squares had to come first. Since they are faithfully finished, I can devote the rest of the month to this! It's nice not having to put away the stand after every session haha.  Also, I swear this is the hardest thing to take a picture of!  If I'd take it off the stand (not happening until it's finished), I imagine the images would be more consistent.

safety first

Here is something I saw shared on Stitching Lotus; how one organizes WIPS.  I absolutely adore these plastic folders.  They're large enough that patterns don't have to be folded and are clear so I know what the heck is going on in them.  I keep the DS case from FFIII in there too so when I run into a weird spot on the pattern I can refer to the original (though tiny) image and make adjustments if necessary.

click me, too!

April strings

And lastly, TUSAL! There's a healthy layer of black in there this time. I find that DMC 310 is somewhat of a pain to pick out if a mistake is made. It always seems to fray and break no matter how careful I am. I usually don't like Sullivan's floss but black is the one color I prefer, though 310 is much more readily available.

Mkay, I have rambled enough and didn't have enough pictures. Shame!  I'll continue working on FFIII for the remainder of the month, ignoring my other projects and a crochet pattern that presented itself in a completely untimely manner and DEMANDED to be made.  An army of them, really.  I was really excited when it was uploaded to ravelry, and just as excited when I saw Snowflower Diaries May freebie.  I admit I squeak delightedly at the computer at any given chance.

Have a good'n!

GG, TUSAL, and Things!

Hi!! It's almost spring! My daffodils have started to bloom and boy are there sooo many more this year. I'm ecstatic. :D When we first moved in to this place I think we maybe got three or four blossoms. This year there are probably 100! Please don't mow your daffodils down before they have time to soak up enough energy for the next year. I will come to your house in the night and dig them up, my preciousssss....

the first blossom

click me!

before

after

It's time for the monthly installment of Gifted Gorgeousness. Rathian grows! She got her dangerous claws added in which means the bottom corners are now done.  I'm saving her most deadly bit for last even though it's the first thing I go for in-game!  If you're new, she is part of a set of video game glyphs I'm slowly working up to a little cube for my husband to show off have on his work desk.

need a good blocking

I have also managed to complete another speaker cozy.  Yay, two down!   These will be the smallest (lol/sigh) of the set and already have a happy home on the rear bookshelf speakers.  I will work on the towers next.

click me, too!

March "strings"

Here are my latest floss ORTs and yarn ORTs. I used to put them out this time of year for the birds to have high fashion nests but I decided I'd try to fill the jars entirely as a sort of mini-finish all its own.  Sorry, birds!

squint ... or click to enlarge

Not for any "a-long" but I managed to knit up this little dishcloth just in time for St. Patrick's Day.  I was very close to running out of yarn for it.  I'm not super fond of this colorway so I didn't want to buy another skein of it just to finish a dishcloth!  But I managed to squeak by, woo! That little squiggle is all that remained after omitting two rows and shortening the i-cord (which was a new thing learned, yay!).  There are shamrocks on it though it's a bit hard to tell in this photo.

Technical Details

• "St. Patrick's Day Cloth" pattern by Kris Knits, found here (ravelry) and here (blogger).
• #2 regular and DPNs.
• Yarn: Peaches n Creme Solids in rosemary.
• 8.5" x 8" unblocked. 
• Started March 8, finished March 14, 10 hours.

And last but definitely not least, Kim over at Wisdom with Needle and Thread is having a joyous celebration of her 60 trips around the sun and invites y'all to join in the fun!  She is offering up 60 RAKs to her party guests and if you've never seen her work before, go, go look!  She does such beautiful tiny things.  Really, the borrowers are totally in love with her house.

Alrighty then!  I think I've done enough talking for my two weeks.  I'll be around for Jo's Easter Blog Hop so until then, may you have productive fingers~ :D

Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL, and the Usual Rambles

help yourself

Hello, hi, howdy~ I hope y'all had a suitably romantic Valentine's Day, or do as we did, and mostly ignored it because we were in for some snow, yay!  I did find it a useful excuse to make cookies. :)  My husband loves sugar cookies and I have found this recipe to be just the perfect softness.  I do have to bake at a lower temperature but that's just my Specific Oven Persnickety.  They are glazed with this recipe.  I make these several times a year as I have quite the collection of cookie cutters; almost every holiday is covered. :D  And since it was a decent amount of snow (finally), I stocked up on snow ice cream again!  It's so nice to fish out of the freezer in July after an afternoon of mowing!

click me!

before

after

Here we have my contribution to Gifted Gorgeousness -- progress on Rathian, yay! I am glad to have done as much as I have on her, especially now that I'm past all the color issues. If you're new to my blog, this is part of a little gift for my husband.  It was originally just going to be the Mr. and Mrs. but silly me mentioned how cute a cube would be... and "doomed" myself as my husband's eyes lit up at the thought. :)  I enjoy making the patterns and stitching them up though!

growing, growing

I have also worked more on the speaker cozies, also for my husband. I seem to keep putting it off to do random other things (luckily he's such an understanding guy who knows the draw of books... video games... computers... something sparkly over there...) but every time I come back to it, I wonder what kept me away! They're such simple motifs and the pattern is pretty much engraved in my mind at this point. Here we have several little inner sections completed.

click me, too!

February "strings"

And here is my TUSAL update, completely untimely (didn't want to give it its own post). I must have a talk with the Moon.  It is being most unhelpful this year by falling squarely halfway between my normal posts.  I realized as I uploaded this image I hadn't taken a picture of the yarn ORTs.  There weren't many even though I did do something yarny!

guess how I took this picture

Tada! Here we have some fingerless mitts, completely finished no less! The lady who runs our little knitting group/class wanted to teach us the magic loop method. This is a way of knitting small projects on a single (long) circular needle. It's very handy but it does. Not! WORK! on super tiny things... like thumbs.  Perhaps if the actual needle parts of the circular would be only 1" long...!  I struggled through it on the first glove but decided that was for the birds and bought some double-pointed needles (DPNs) to finish off the second glove.  That was an adventure in itself as I have never messed with DPNs before.  I am one step closer to becoming an octopus.

At first, I wasn't too thrilled with the design of these gloves and originally intended them to be just practice and then they'd go off to the donation bin.  But they are absolutely amazing for cross stitch!  I always have cold hands and these provide enough warmth while letting my fingers be free to deal with the needle.  They're even great for sitting at the computer.

Technical Details

• "Uno" pattern by Annika Abbott, found here on ravelry (not a freebie), very well written.
• #9 29" circular, #8 DPNs.
• Yarn: Red Heart Classic Solid, light berry.
• Small size (6-7"), did a shorter starting rib (calls for 8 rows; I did 6). 
• Started February 1, finished February 8, 11.5 hours for the pair.

Lessons Learned
(hopefully)

• How to make cables, they're remarkably simple (C3F, C3B)!
  
• How to make a thumb gusset (M1R, M1L)!
• How to cast off with ribbing -- this totally baffled me, more than the gusset!
• Magic loop -- PULL THE STITCHES TIGHT ON ENDS! (!!!)
• DPNs - grow a couple extra arms for the first round!

Have I talked enough yet?  No?  Here, have one more item of interest.

bobbin case and hook assembly completely removed

I have been slowly puttering around with my Singer find.  On Saturday, I took apart the bobbin case and hook assembly down to the base and gave it a good cleaning using this great tutorial.  Only 65 years of gunk!  And quite honestly, not nearly as bad as some of the horror stories I find with Google image searches!  I used rubbing alcohol (carefully, as it will apparently do nasty things to the finish of the machine) and about five million Q-tips.  There's still a little bit of fuzz but it's noticeably cleaner around the hook assembly hole!  There's actually an uncoated surface down there!  It got fresh oil to make it slide around happily.  The bobbin case was a bit fiddly to get back in as one of the clips refused to slide over the little groves on the retaining clip.  Luckily I am (mostly) patient and eventually wriggled it into place.

all shiny and clean

And the feed dogs!  Oh my goodness gracious I was a bit grossed out by how much crud was in the little grooves.  It soaked in the alcohol for a while while I cleaned everything else and then got multiple passes with toothpicks.  It looks much nicer now.

One part done!  :D  I think I will next brave the tension assembly.  It's a scary part to me.  The machine stitches very well as is but the thread take up spring thingy is not quite positioned right.  I don't want to mess up a lovely stitch but something needs done so I'll spend some time reading up on how to disassemble and tweak it.

Hopefully your eyes haven't glazed over! :b  I think I will stop rambling now and let you get back to your life!  Have a lovely day!

Gifted Gorgeousness - Rathian Update, and TUSAL

Aloha!  Thank you for your lovely comments!  It was quite a surprise to see the emails as I honestly meant to disallow again for that post.  But, it was a happy surprise and since the holiday season is over I feel a lot less pressured to Do All the Things.  :D  I will slowly be getting back to commenting on blogs, though admittedly at a reduced capacity.  Last year I found myself overwhelmed with leaving comments.  I suppose it's because I talk too much.  I just can't leave a "looks great!" comment and move on.  Because of that, I was spending about 3-5 hours per day commenting (and trying to get blogs to load) and I burnt out.  This was also partly the reason I disallowed comments last year.  Why should I accept comments when I can't return the favor?  Is this silly?  I don't know!  My brain does what it does and sometimes what it does makes absolutely no sense but I can't always tell when it's not making sense.  Nonsense is a way of life for me or perhaps you have already noticed that~

Well, have you had quite enough of me rambling yet?  I'll get to the actual post now and ramble some more. :9

click me!

floss!

yarn!

Quite a bit more in there this time around. I've been plowing through the June Rose, finally figured out some Rathian colors, and found some scraps from the little Airou ornaments I made last year.  As I was admiring the layers it occurred to me that the thick dark blue band is a good indicator of time.  It was from my first crochet projects so the tail end of 2014!  Maybe I should put another yarn in to end 2015.  I'll have to steal one because, look!, a yarn ORT jar! Sorry it's so cloudy. It's an older jar and sat in the old food shed for untold years. I like the design on it though.  Those are the ORTs from the Rudolph square alone.  I think this jar will fill rather quickly!

click me too!

Next, the first GG of 2016! I made a small button to use this year from Jo's Mill Hill photo (it made me smile to see that as this year's GG image -- I gifted that! :D). I needed something smaller to fit on the sidebar without scrunching it up so I hope you don't mind, Jo!

before

after

But yessss, Rathian starts to see the light!  Turns out those avocado greens in the flower-of-the-months lend themselves quite nicely to her colors. Design-wise, I find myself preferring Rathalos but I prefer fighting him too. :b  If you're thinking the colors don't match the chart, they don't!  I made the chart with KG-Chart LE which is not known for matching colors very well.  I don't usually have my boxes of floss with me either so I couldn't compare -- which is hard anyway because monitor settings vary, image quality varies, blah blah blah.  But she's on her way after stitching/picking out what felt like every green I own.

That will be all from me for now!  I think this weekend is supposed to be IHSW but I don't know if I'll squeeze in any work on FFIII.  We'll see~  I'll post about it if I do, though it may be squeezed in with my next update for the FotM.  I decided to keep posting at the end of the month despite the FotM SAL no longer being held on blogger (it has apparently moved entirely to facebook, thanks again for the update Mini!).  I do not like facebook groups (no offense, it's just not my thing and they wind up overwhelming my feed no matter how many times I tell the page to STAHPPPP) so I will just plug along here.  :)

Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL - December Edition, Late Again!

click to join the fun!

I've zero stitchy progress to show, isn't that awful? :( Poor Rathian, she'll get love someday.

But I do have gifts to show! It seems they're all crochet this time. I'm typing this in the wee hours of the morning before Sir Giftee removes himself from bed, and hoping the Internet will work long enough to get some photos uploaded. Sorry for some duplicates; they're a little easier for me since they're cached. :)

almost like a snowflake

Remember this? I do have some completed doilies though not as many as I'd've hoped. I thought I would show an older in-progress picture to show how the individual motifs appear.

needs a good blocking!

Isn't it lovely? I'm glad I did choose to alternate the colors. I love the delft blue. It's such a pleasure to work with. The white is a bit more ornery. I will post finished pictures after Christmas!

is it a loafer?

Next up, a house slipper! This was an amazing pattern though I do believe my first attempt was not correct. It's not possible to really tell though, thank you variegated yarn! :D But I do really like the pattern otherwise; it works up so fast! If I didn't have to sneak and do other things, these could easily be finished in a day. The flap is not attached in this picture because I wasn't 100% sure I wanted it (it is optional in the pattern). It has grown on me but I will have to tack it down.

What you can't see is the sole on these suckers.  I'll take a picture of the next one as I piece it together.  It has foam between two pieces and I made it... fluffy. :D  I can't wait to make a pair for myself after I gift these out. If you're interested, it's a free pattern found here (Ravelry link).

Not a gift, but I did finish another couple of squares for the afghan. I'd like to post pictures but the Internet just gave out trying to upload them here. I have the gingerbread man and stocking done and am currently working on the last of the main squares, Rudolph. As easy as the stocking was, Rudolph is a spaghetti mess! The pixel square afghan has been my project in the evenings when I have time to sit down and can't fish out the gift goodies.

join all the fun!

last "strings"

Lastly, TUSAL!  Since there was no stitching and I haven't been saving my yarn ORTs, this picture is from last month.  :/ What a sad and neglected way to end the year!

Anyway!  I am boxing up cookies to send out today.  I did not make double batches of everything this year since one of our dear giftees passed away and we had so many leftovers last year.  But there's still enough for all! :D  Oooo I hear Sir Giftee stirring, must wrap this up!  If I don't get another post up before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all! 

Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL - November Edition!

Ahoy there, crafty peoples~ :D  It's time for the wonderful Gifted Gorgeousness update!

click to join the fun!

At least I have something to show this time!

before

after

...o_o. Well, it's something, right? I mentioned before that the colors were pending on the Missus, and that they still are! I took a picture after the second attempt but this too has been picked out. I think it will work best for her inner swirls instead of main body color, though.  I wonder if I can convince my husband that I need every single green DMC makes to get her colors right. It's his gift and he needs it to be perfect of course! ;)  Maybe I should fish out any and all olive-y sort of colors and see what I can come up with.

But this is not the only giftedness I've been working on.  Here is a test piece I worked up to see if a) I could understand the pattern, b) liked the pattern, and c) liked the color combination.

almost like a snowflake

It's not very large, 2" (5cm) square but as a motif in something a bit bigger, I'm very happy with how it turned out!  It was crocheted with a 1mm hook and ancient threads.  I cannot make the rest of them from this thread as there will be enough and I know from past experience trying to match old threads Does. Not. Work!  The motif is from the Star Book No. 78: Television and Radio Scarfs, published in 1950 (originally called for white/green)!  I had a remarkably hard time finding small individual motifs.  This is one of the smallest I've come across (and liked).

Since it's an older pattern, there were a couple of things that I found odd.  One was the "single double crochet" -- what on earth is that?  After studying the description and some Google-fuu the answer:  American half double crochet (half treble for you aliens across the oceans).  Another was the making of the inner "picots."  They're... weird.  Weird for picots even.  I might adjust the pattern.  Otherwise, this is a really quick and enjoyable little motif!  The whole doily calls for alternating the colors (i.e. switch the white and blue) to create a checkerboard effect but I'm not sure I want that... and I can't exactly ask the giftee what they think without spoiling the gift!  I'll make a bunch of this scheme and see if I like the look and decide after (going against all the doily-making rules of joining as you go cough).  I only need 112 by Christmas... if I can squeeze in five per day assuming no weekends or other pesky days off... well... at the very least I need 48 done LOL.

join all the fun!

A few days behind but here's my TUSAL ORTs, looking just lovely in the jar.  Filled with ripped out stitches (again, hah) and some random bits of floss I used for some mending.  I'm pondering starting a big jar for yarn ORTs next year.  I think that pixel square afghan would produce enough to fill it in one go...

November "strings"

Thank you for reading; I know I talk a lot without actually saying anything. :)

Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL - October Edition

Aloha! A bit late this time.  I am still busy... and sick. I spent all of Wednesday and half of Thursday in bed. I feel a bit more human today, although I'm sure if you'd poke a hole in me, I'd explode like that cockroach scene at the end of Men in Black. I am appalled at how much snot a body can produce!

click to join the fun!

colors pending

Gifted Gorgeousness - bit of a flop this month. I have Rathian kitted up but there has been zero work on her otherwise. Her colors are much more drab than Rathalos and are still pending approval.

join all the fun!

October "strings"

TUSAL - a smidgen of green in there from the next flower of the month, all frogged because I cannot count to three, several times. This is what I get when trying to relax with stitching after working myself to exhaustion apparently!

No new updates on the Christmas afghan CAL; haven't crocheted a thing. I've put in a few repeats on my next dishcloth for knitting and I'm trying to have better control of my tension. It's going okay, I guess. Sorry for the less-than-exciting post. It's hard to be excitable when all you want to do is curl up in a little ball and breathe through your nose!

September Edition: Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL, and More!

Whew, this post has a lot of tags! Prepare yourselves for all the excitement and exclamation marks!

click to join the fun!

before

after

Tadaaaa~ Rathalos is finished and I am so happy with how he turned out! I showed him to my husband (stitched for him) and he got that goofy big kid grin ehehe. I asked him how he wanted it finished and he said Rathalos can't be alone. Good thing I have the Missus (Rathian) charted up already! He didn't answer my question on how to finish this so I may have made a mistake because I thoughtlessly said, "Wouldn't he be cute as a cube!?" Well, obviously a cube has more than one or two sides so I suppose we'll have to figure out four more Monster Hunter glyphs to chart up! I'm sure Brachydios will be one, as well as "The Pickle."  I hope GG is running for the next 100 years hah.

Technical Details

• "Rathalos" glyph from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, pattern charted by me.
• 2 over 1 on 20-count light tan jobelan fabric.
• Finished size: 3.50 x 3.50" (9 x 9 cm).
• Started: June 9, Finished: September 7. 12.5 hours.  

bad photo, sorry!

I have been continuing on with the Christmas afghan CAL found on Repeat Crafter Me.  I finished up the next square, the Christmas tree, the weekend before last.  I have somewhat figured out how to carry my yarn within the stitches so, as you can see, there are MUUUUUUUUUUCH fewer tails to deal with.  Also, because this is turning into a major stash-busting project, I've been changing around the colors.  My yellow is a bit on the pale side so I was afraid the star wouldn't show up.  I made a small applique star using this freebie pattern.  After the ends are woven in (can you tell I'm avoiding these things like the plague hah) I will attach it to whichever side looks the prettiest!

about 50% complete

I have also started the next square!  Here you can see the C2C method growing since it's worked in the diagonal.  It's an interesting way to crochet!  I am trying something different with the yarn since there are so many color changes (one line changed color 12! times).  I set the skeins out in order of the line I'm working on, and then rearrange them as I go.  I don't wind up with a big blob of spaghetti yarn and it helps eliminate some of those ghastly tails.  I'm also using two skeins of the same color for the background as it's too far to carry from one side to the other.

knit stitch

knit & purl!

I can knit! (!!!!!!!) I practiced casting on for about a week, then moved on to the knit stitch which got practiced for another week. Then, the purl! Knit and purl combine in various ways to make all sorts of strange patterns but this is just knitting one row, purling the next row to create the basic stockinette stitch. I was so excited by my little practice blob I ran around the house brandishing my needles with it attached at my husband who was amused.  Yay!  I found a couple of dishcloth patterns that I will probably attempt, though I'm still not sure I'd use them as dishcloths!  I will probably make them into potholders.

join all the fun!

Last but not least, TUSAL as hosted by It's Daffycat! There's a healthy sprinkling of Rathalos in there as well as the Flower of the Month SAL finish (hallelujah).

I could keep going on and on but I think it would be safer if I stopped here!  Thank you for reading and I'll hopefully ramble again for IHSW!