February GG ~ No Shoehorns Necessary

Hello again; I hope you all haven't Valentine'd yourselves into a chocolate coma. Or maybe you have and that's a good thing.

click for more info

It's (already) time for the next Gifted Gorgeousness!  I promise to behave myself this round and not shoehorn everything in ahaha (though the birdhouse totally fit).

First up, I received a wonderful package in the mailbox from Crafty Rahenna.  I've always wanted some DMC floss cards for when I make my own patterns.  I had just talked to my husband about them, wondering if it would be possible to make some of my own with bits of floss.

YAY!

I've already used them as I charted up the next side for the Monster Hunter cube (a GG regular) and they make things so much easier than digging through the floss boxes!  I especially love the one with the actual bits of floss.  Thank you so much, Rahenna~ \:D/

Since I finished the little bird house at the end of January I needed to hunt up something else to work on as the cube side has yet to be printed.  To the craft hoard storage!

brown squares

You can totally tell what this is, right?  What if I told you it was another bird (why is this turning into a birding year?) because it totally looks like a bird.  This little one is from a giveaway I won waaaaay back at the end of 2012 from Mii Stitch (where did her blog go?!).  I loved this pattern the moment I received it though it has certainly taken me a while to get around to it, especially since I totally fell off the map in 2013.

I am going to change it a little bit, maybe.  I'm using the supplied floss which has remarkable coverage capabilities but is darn near impossible to railroad.  I do wish American crafty magazines would supply such fun bonuses though!  The fabric is plain white Aida but the setting sun decided to "dye" it for the picture.

Next, I worked on a few more centers for the long-neglected Speaker Cozies.

spokes

It's been a while since they were last worked on (September of 2016, ergh).  They are a good choice for craft meetups so I think I'll keep bringing them, at least until I have another full doily (or two) complete.

Lastly, this is not for GG but I wanted to stick it somewhere as I don't do many posts a month.  Here is a little more progress on the Flower of the Month's September Aster.  I think I spent just as much time unstitching the lightest purple as I did stitching it.  I am a Distractable Do-er.

before

after

At least the glaring orange is pretending to moderate with the other purples coming in, thank goodness.  I'm still not 100% convinced it's the right color but I'm still giving it the benefit of doubt!

Okay, I think I've babbled all I can (not really but I'll stop).  My Ravellenics is Really Slow this year.  I've been having some weird days for the past couple of weeks.  I think my flu shot is protecting me... mostly.  Let's all hope it continues to do so!

Flowers and Afghans, Oh My

Hello again! Poking my head back into the blogging world for a quick(?) ramble.

We are mostly settled in our new place.  There was a terrible lot of rain over a few days and while the basement didn't flood, it certainly oozed.  Last weekend my husband and I ripped out the drywall in one room to see just what the extent of damage was -- luckily, not too bad!  And we got the pleasant surprise that the wiring down there is actually grounded, but the outlets had not been updated.  That is an easy fix; I am comfortable swapping outlets and it means less than half the house will need updated.  We will tear out one more wall, and probably a closet, to see if there are any more suspicious spots and to remove moldy drywall.  Renovations are kind of fun but I am so tired of being surrounded by boxes that had to be hastily moved and spread out to dry.

I have no vegetable garden this year, and the flowers already planted have been mostly disappointing.  I was hopeful the iris blossoms would be lovely... they were black.  A washed-out deep purple black.  Yuck.  They will be finding new homes with people who can appreciate them.  The daylilies turned out to be yellow and sort of scraggly due to lack of light.  No daffodils. This will be remedied next year.  I cannot live in a world without daffodils.  There are also clumps of what I suspect are going to be "naked ladies" (surprise lilies, or whatever you know those goofy things as).  The leaves have died back and I expect the flowers to pop out of the ground overnight within the next month or so.

almost worth it

 
We also have a small "water feature" that has some beautiful water lily blossoms.  I really love the flowers but I do not want to take care of a water garden, nor invite mosquitoes to take care of it for me! It is also in pretty rough shape; the liner is torn in places so it's not as full of water as it should be and there are weeds everywhere around it.

pink "evening" primroses

These guys are taking over the backyard.  I rather like them but they can be very voracious spreaders. They are native wildflowers here and I am contemplating getting them started in the ditch in front of the house. There they can spread to their little blossomy heart's content and I won't have to mow that (very difficult) area.

Then the lone rose bush bloomed.  It was in sad shape when we moved in.  I gave it some fertilizer and a haircut and it had a few blooms.  At first I thought it was going to be yellow, which was okay with me.  Then they blushed!  I think these are actually Peace roses (or possibly Garden Party) and I am gonna try my hardest to spread them all over the flower gardens as they are truly beautiful (even after a rough life) and have a wonderful aroma.

Corelle salt shaker vase

¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸
Well, enough about my gardening woes.  I have been a bit slow on the crafting front.  I have an item on the knitting needles, but no picture of it, and it's, like, way over there, far too far for me to move and snap one.  Instead, here is a crocheted small baby afghan for a family member who is expecting their first.  The father is a Dallas Cowboy's fan so this was a fairly easy choice to make.  The star afghan is quite popular on ravelry and I scoured the projects page(s) for notes and ideas for color placement.

little cowboy afghan

  Technical Details

• "Little Cowboy Afghan" pattern by Beth Parsons, found here on ravelry (free).
• G hook
• Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, dark country blue, grey heather, and white.
• Started March 17, 2017; finished June 14, 2017; unknown hours.

I have no idea how big or small a baby blanket should be!  A friend suggested I wrap up my largest cat and then make it a bit bigger, so that is what I did, to much amusement of my husband and much confusion of my cat.  It wound up being 39" from point to point, unblocked.  I suppose this is a little small.  Babies are a little small too, right?

a very confused purrito

It's done in (US) double crochet with a crab stitched edge for a bit extra strength.  I would love to make another one of these in rainbow colors, or all blues, or a Mario Star, just for us.  I was happy to make this one as a gift, but the colors are very drab for me to work on for long stretches of time.  It's not entirely mindless because it required counting or the points would spiral.

The yarn itself was nice to work with too, so very soft, until the second skein of blue.  What a yarn barf mess that was!  I don't mind untangling yarn but that was the closest I've ever come to snipping off the offensive part.  Yeesh.

Still no cross-stitch, though while I was crocheting the blanket, I was sitting next to the bag containing my few WIPs.  It was whispering to me.  :)  When projects start talking to you, that's a good sign, right?

Gifted Gorgeousness: For Your Reading Pleasure

Hello again!  It's time again for Gifted Gorgeousness, a lovely SAL where we work on/with gifted items or items to gift.  It's fun and you can click this little button for more info:

click me!

I have nothing stitchy to show, gasp!  I do have the next pattern made for the husband cube, and I have what I think are the right colors.  It's being another of those ornery ones.  :)

bookmarks galore

Instead, I have these little things to show.  Michelle at Ozark sew n' sews had a lovely bookmark crocheted back in early February.  She could not provide the original pattern but she did locate a similar freebie one for me!  As you can see, I've had fun making them.  I thought up a way to attach them to a bit of card stock for display and shipping purposes though they can be cut off!

I did not care for the original tassel; to me it seemed like such a big knot would bulge in a book, plus the ends would fray.  So, I made a simple braid about the same "thickness" as the bookmark crocheted up.  I didn't starch any of them as I don't like the idea of starch in a book.  They are plenty stiff as is, probably helped along by the smaller hook and the deep-seated need I have to strangle all my crafts by making them as tight as possible.  :B

Technical Details

• "Fan Bookmark" pattern by Crochetroo, found here on ravelry (free).
• 1.15mm hook.
• #20-#30 crochet thread, various colors.
• Started ?, finished October 2016, approximately 1.5 hours each.

a field of pumpkins

I liked the cute Halloween bookmark pattern too although I think it might have benefited from a good blocking!  Some of the little pumpkins (yes, they are supposed to be jack-o-lanterns) have three (or four) eyes!  It is also an easy pattern though I did have to brush up on how to make a treble crochet (double treble for you Brits); I rarely use that stitch.  It's just an extra wrap at the beginning!

If anyone wants to make this pattern, please be aware there is an error in row 4.  It should read:  ch1, sc in tr, *(dc, ch2, dc) in next 2 sc, sc in 4th chain of ch7 loop*.  repeat from * to * once.  I found this out after trying to make sense of the original and running to the project page on ravelry for clues.  Thankfully there were some!

Technical Details

• "Jack-o-Lantern Bookmark" pattern by Jackie Tyler, found here on ravelry (free).
• 1.15 mm hook.
• #20? crochet thread, J&P Coats.
• Started ?, finished October 2016, approximately 1.5 hours. 

These were all made as a THANK YOU! for the lovely gifts I have received this year (and previous years cough).  I have a few more to ship off but need to confirm the addresses first.  I hope the recipients liked them and will enjoy using them!  Everyone likes books, right?! I tried to be sneaky and find out favorite colors but that didn't work out so well so I tried to match blog colors as best I could with what I had.  A few creative liberties had to be taken haha. :)

blocking - attempt #1

Not a part of GG, but here is my latest knit finish: the Kitty Prints Scarf! I started this back in November of 2015 and snacked on it ever since. I am soooo pleased it's finally done! Unblocked it measured ~7.5" x 58" (~19cm x 147cm) which is a decent length for a scarf though I usually like mine much longer so I can really wrap up.  I didn't want to buy another skein though!  I did get lucky with my second skein... It was a different dye lot, yikes! It did not show (much of) a difference when worked up though, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, this blocking did not fix the curl it has. :(   This was wet blocking though.  Steam blocking is supposed to be better for acrylics but I am still not hopeful.  Luckily it is just a scarf for me and I can still wrap up just as well in a curly scarf as a flat one!  It's the same yarn I used for the mittens and kitty hat and they were quite possibly made to match the scarf.

Technical Details

• "Kitty Prints Dishcloth" pattern by Louise Sarrazin, found here on ravelry (free).
• #6 (4.0 mm) needle.
• Yarn: Yarn Bee Soft Secrets, aqua.
• Started November 2015, finished October 3, 2016, unknown hours.

These also put me at finishes 12, 13, and 14 which may not sound like a lot to most of you speedy needles but it is the most finishes I've ever had in a year! This makes me so happy. :)

Lastly (finally)!  Because Gifted Gorgeousness is a perfect time for this: I HAVE A GIVEAWAY, YAAAAAAAAY!  And I suspect this might be a popular one.

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway #1 - The Prairie Schooler Book no. 45 Garden Samplers

book no. 45 - garden samplers

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway #2 - The Prairie Schooler Book no. 20 St. Nicholas and bonus 1988 Santa

book no. 20 - st nicholas and bonus

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway Guidelines

1. Be a follower (upper right corner of my blog)!  Feedly, bloglovin', etc. do not count as there is no way to show it!  I am sorry; blame blogger for this one.
2. Comment and tell me which number you would like to win!  Choices are hard, I know!
3. Open worldwide! 
4. Closing date: October 29, 2016, 23:59 CST.

I hope you can contain your excitement! I found these charts in a thrift store (charity shop) and immediately thought my blog readers would like an opportunity to stitch these.  They are all in great condition.  Garden Samplers contains three charts, each 182H x 81W.  St. Nicholas contains eight small charts at 54H x 45W.  The bonus is slightly larger at 75H x 57W and has an edit on one of the colors -- I have not checked this to see if the edit is a fix or just someone being creative!

These will be just the charts to cut down on shipping charges so I'm sorry there will be no extra goodies in with them!  I'm sure you can find something in your stash to work with.  :)

I will announce the winners on my next blog post which will occur at the end of October/beginning of November assuming life cooperates.  It sometimes does!  :D

Whew!  runs away 

I have set this post to appear in the wee hours of the morning since people on the other side of the Great Puddle are in the future.

End of a Month: FotM and a Beautiful Surprise!

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. -- Anne Shirley

But I seriously can't believe it's October and it's less than two months to Christmas and panic eek.

half glad

In a delightful display of ignoring all thought of Christmas, I started the next flower of the month, August's gladiolus. Sorry there is no "before" picture.  I got the pattern printed and immediately started on it without any thought at all of pictures.  This one was so bizarre to stitch! I was doing one color at a time and every bit of it looked so wrong... until the last of the reds started. It was really amazing (and relieving) how it is coming together.

they fit

I also managed to knit up some (plain) mittens!  Mittens are not scary at all, although I did have some practice with the fingerless ones from earlier this year.  These were done entirely on DPNs and I'm not sure how I feel about that haha.  My joins are not good when doing K1 P1 ribbing but much better when doing stockinette.  I like that this pattern was the rounded tip.  I am getting good at M1 stitches.  I should've used a smaller needle for the ribbing but I do not have any size between a #4 and #8 in DPNs.  They are done in the same yarn as the kitty hat and kitty scarf because I like sets.

Technical Details

• "Paw Mittens" pattern by BEL designs, found here on ravelry (free).
• #4 for body, #8 for ribbing.
• Yarn: Yarn Bee Soft Secrets, aqua.
• Started August 31, finished September 13, unknown hours.

This was a well-written pattern.  I was a little confused by the M1 at the beginning of the thumb gusset... I did not know which way to go.  Was it a M1R or M1L?!  But a quick Google taught me a nice way to remember:  If the M1 is after the stitch marker, it is a M1L.  If it is before, it is a M1R.  I suppose the starting one is not all that important (it could be either R or L) but it was after the marker so L it became.

all the goodies

Lastly, I received a lovely surprise in the mail.  Sheryl at Sewing After Seven had a lovely display of pincushions for a pincushion parade (isn't that the most charming thing ever?) and it made me think that I needed to make one of my own whenever my sewing machine is done.  She offered me this lovely little Rosey pincushion for my very own!  She also sent some matching floss and a truly adorable piece of Christmas fabric!  I already thought of a few things I could stitch that would match the cute feeling (FPS anyone?). Thank you so much, Sheryl!  I love everything! ♥

love the button!

That is all from me this time. I will strive to get up the next GG post in a timely manner. We're entering the lovely busy time of year and there are some possible changes on the horizon that are doing their very best to freak me out! But let's not count chickens before they're hatched, right~? runs away

Gifted Gorgeousness: MH3U, Baby Blanket, Speaker Cozies!

Aloha! Here we are with another installment for Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness.  I feel like I have a lot of giftedness to show today so I will just dive on in!

click me!

before

after

Brachydios Mio!  Another square for the husband cube!  I so very much enjoyed working on this guy.  The pattern was great (tooting my own horn there), the colors were great, and he's just all around great.  I'm already thinking I want to make a little case for either my DS or games or something, just to have an excuse to stitch him again!

RGB

Three down, three to go! I have yet to decide on the next square. I am going to guess either Nargacuga or Zinogre. Or maybe Lagiacrus.  Or the pickle.  I'll let the giftee decide and absolve myself of difficult things.

Edit: He decided Zinogre!  I've tweaked up the image into a chart but I am not happy with the colors (again).  We shall go floss diving!

¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸

image courtesy of finishing madam!

Next up, here is the finished baby blanket for the lady who set up our knitting group at the library! Sorry these colors aren't quite optimal; they were taken under the library florescent lighting and at a rather weird angle. I like the way it was finished up but I do not envy the lady who finished it! All of our squares were different stitch counts and tensions haha. But she did a great job with what she had and the blanket is so soft and snuggly. :)  My squares are the top middle white (tiles) and the bottom right yellow (triangles).

¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸ . · * / ` \ * · . ¸

gears?

 
Next-next, also for Mr. Husband, I worked on a few more motifs for the speaker cozies... finally!  It really seems to fly when I work on the individual little bits before putting them together. Plus it creates a nice sense of accomplishment having little parts done.  This particular cozy will be for one of the towers and will be 4x5 motifs.  I will need 10 of each color of these little inner parts... and this little inner part is only 1/3 of a full motif... and I will need four 4x5 motifs......  I'll kindly let you do the math as I'd rather not think about how many more I will be making LOL.  (They really are enjoyable though; especially the delft blue.)

Whew!  Gifts are fun.  I have another gift to show but it has yet to reach its giftee so maybe the next GG~

I do have a question for you all before I scurry away.  Assuming a miracle happens and you manage to not lose your needle for many projects, what do you do with the needle when it gets tarnished and "squeaks" through fabric?   These are just basic non-gold needles.  I assume pitching them but it seems a waste?  And a bit dangerous to put needles, even blunt tapestries, in the garbage!

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

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. :)