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!

FotM - July Edition and Giveaway Winners!

Hi there! Here we are for the end of July (gasp) installment of the Flower of the Month SAL as hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair! I think my mojo has taken a break. It has been very hot here (heat index of 115-120F, 46-49C) and I just wilt with that sort of heat. Summer has always been my least favorite season because of this; I lose all motivation to do anything at all.  It is even warm in the basement where the computers currently are and so, I'm behind on blog reading.  I'm sorry. :(

Before it got hotter than hot I did manage to finish April's Sweet Peas.

Yay!

Despite the abundance of pink, this one was a very enjoyable stitch! It went quickly and the only hiccup I had was at the end -- I washed it and one of my subbed pinks bled. Luckily I caught it while washing so I just kept washing until it was gone. I made sure to mark the offending floss so I know to be careful with it on future projects.

~it's show time~

Technical Details

• "April: Sweet Pea" freebie pattern by Ellen Maurer-Stroh, found here
• 2 over 1 on 14-count ecru huck towel (called for 3 over but I thought 2 looked okay)
• Finished size: 4.50 x 4.50" (11,50 x 11,50 cm)
• Started: June 22, Finished: July 4. 11 hours.  

floss toss!

somewhat started

I also got started on May's Lily of the Valley. I had hoped to have it done as well but I have not been enjoying this particular flower. I suppose it's the colors; they seem so much more drab than the previous ones have been.  Or it could be the heat.  Or both.  One amazing thing though -- I wound up having almost all of the colors for this piece.  That almost felt a bit weird.

snow ice cream, delicious noms

Good thing about all this hot hot hot is fishing out the snow ice cream that I made back in February.  It sure tasted good and made me think of much happier (read: colder) times.  I do hope my mojo comes back soon though.  It will be time to throw myself fully into canning garden veggies in a few weeks and I won't have time to sit down!  I have started with bread and butter pickles (to give away, I don't like them myself).  Also I made some salsa verde from green tomatoes harvested from plants that volunteered where they weren't supposed to.  I think next will be pickled honey jalapenos.  I'm about to drown in them lol.

Lastly!  My Dolphin Trio winners! :D  I got to use the random number generator gadget again and the winners arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreee~

Mini at Miniz Diary

and

Preeti at Creat-E-witty Unleashed

Yay! :D  Please send me an email with your address and I'll get it out to you guys ASAP!  It will just be the kit and no fancy extras so hopefully the parcels will teleport themselves to you.  :)))

Thank you for reading!  I'll be back to ramble again for Gifted Gorgeousness.

FotM - June Edition!

Here we are for my June installment of the Flower of the Month SAL as hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair! And I have emerged victorious! The February Violets are finally done!  More exclamation points!

YAY

I can't believe I had so much trouble with this particular design. I suppose it was as Preeti said, so many color changes! I have looked over the remaining patterns and it looks like the rest are not nearly as involved as this one.  whew

And here's the GIF of this project! Towards the end it looks like I've gotten a bit better at taking mostly similar pictures haha.  I will try to do one for each of the months excluding March as it was finished 5 years ago and I am unfortunately not in possession of a TARDIS or Delorean.

Technical Details

• "February: Violets" freebie pattern by Ellen Maurer-Stroh, found here
• 2 over 1 on 14-count ecru huck towel (called for 3 over but I thought 2 looked okay)
• Finished size: 4.50 x 4.50" (11,50 x 11,50 cm)
• Started: February 19, Finished: June 16.  unknown hours as I didn't keep track during vacation, oops!

where the collection now stands

But wait!

:o

:O

I got started on April's Sweet Pea! It's stitching up much faster than violets; there is only one large flower and two tiny ones left to do.  It helps when one doesn't have Must Do projects haha.  Again, I didn't have all of the charted colors so I went stash diving to see what I could come up with.  I hope they look okay!

I shall see you next time!  It is a wonderful 3-day weekend for the celebration of MURICA.  Even though I don't have any stitches for it, the 4th is hands down my favorite holiday.  Bring on the fireworks and BBQs~! :D

Gifted Gorgeousness - June Edition! Finish, New Start, and TUSAL!

Here we are, already in the middle of June so it's time for an update on Gifted Gorgeousness project(s) as hosted by Jo!  And it's the second month in a row for a finish, yaaaay!

click to join the fun!

before

This kit was gifted to me by my husband's grandmother(s) when I first started stitching as they knew I like dolphins. I should've paid it more attention but somehow it wound up a piece to "snack on" so to speak.  It was started sometime in the latter half of 2010 so it is was my oldest WIP!  I'm so glad it's done although I did have some issues with the backstitching charted.  You can't even tell it's there in some of the spots so I wondered what the point was haha.  There's also a healthy sprinkling of French knots which I dutifully ignored the pattern and just put them wherever I thought looked bare lol.

after, and more true to color

And of course I washed it so that helped that goofy stiff Aida some.  There are a few (probably more than a few) mistakes in this piece.  My organizational skills weren't up to snuff at the time and I think I spent more time trying to figure out what color was what than actually stitching!

Technical Details

• Dolphin Trio, Dimensions kit 6817
• (Mostly) 2 over 1 on blue VERY STIFF 14-count Aida
• Finished size: 5" x 7" (13 x 18cm)
• Started: September ??, 2010, Finished: June 08, 2015
• Unknown hours as I wasn't keeping track at the time
• Contender for messiest back ever, I hope I have learned better!

king of the sky

And in the spirit of continuing on with GG, I have started a new piece (no, not a FPS, not yet)!  This little thing will be a gift for my husband who likes my "sewing" and sort of hinted that he might put a piece on his desk at work if I just so happened to make one.  I made the pattern from this Rathalos glyph, one of the signature wyverns in the Monster Hunter video game series we both love playing together. Doesn't look like much right now but I hope he'll like it (or at least be a good husband and ooh and ahh over it appropriately ahaha).  It is being stitched on 20-count Jobelan, light tan.  It's my first time using this fabric and it is so soft and so lovely to hold!  And unravels if I look at it wrong.  Or right.  Or if it just sits there.  My goodness gracious.

In other news, I found the ecru huck towels again yaaaaaay!  There is a Hancock Fabrics in the area and although their selection for needlework is quite small, they carry them!  Unfortunately there wasn't a coupon to use on it but maybe there will be one eventually.  Then I could just hoard the rest of the year and not risk not being able to find them again.  I bought just one so I can start advancing my FotM progress again.  Just gotta plow my way through the silly violets.  I won't start April until February is finished, I won't I won't I won't.

June TUSAL... already?!

Lastly, a day early but I'll squeeze my TUSAL in here so we can all sit around my ORT jar and admire the little snippets.  We've got a finish of Dolphin Trio, some snippets of violets, and a little bit of Rathalos.  Woo!  Also, right after this picture I returned the jar to its rightful location -- and dropped it end-over-end.  ORTs were packed so tightly in there nothing moved ahaha.

Until next time!  My fingers almost feel productive for once! :D :D

site update for self-reminder: widened the page, added new header (stitchy girl), added credits to "about"

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

Whoop-de-Doo and Dickory-Dock

Hello, world~ I feel like I've been silent for too long. The blame lies totally with our ISP which oddly improves when it rains. Luckily we have a rainy Christmas Eve! (It's Christmas Eve, eeeeek.) What better way to spend a rainy day than catching up on stitchy blogs (sorry for the comment spams)? I've gotten the entries down to 100 but I can tell my Internet is starting to die with the load so I had better get this posted before I lose everything (autosave doesn't play well with bad Internet)!  So what have I been up to?

COOKIES! I always make cookies to send out at Christmas and this year I decided to make double batches of everything so we actually have some left over for ourselves after shipping them all over the country. I spent 12 hours one day just making all the doughs, then the next two days baking and creating. This year's lineup was Thin Mints (not like the USA Girl Scout variety, more like peppermint patties), Cocoa Crinkles, Snickerdoodles, Cranberry Almond Bark, Rocks, Cran-Orange Shortbread, and the ever popular Snickers (a mini Snickers candy bar wrapped in peanut butter cookie dough). I ran out of the mints much to my husband's Great Sadness so I made up another batch a few days ago just for him. :b  I didn't take a picture of the finished hoard but I had every tupperware thing I own filled, plus a pitcher and an 8-quart stock pot!  This is also the time of year I desperately wish for a KitchenAid mixer haha.

Crochet World: Aaaaaaaaaaaa I have a scarf! And of course I ran out of the white mystery yarn two little lines from the end. I found a tiny ball of a close lookalike, enough for one line. Then I found a skein of not-quite-as-close lookalike for the last line. Should've just bought new, laaaaaa~~ >_> But! I have enough of the blue and definitely enough of the sorta-close white left over that I may attempt to make a matching hat!

with inspiration gloves

As you can see from the picture, the last skinny line on the right side is not quite as white as the others.  Sigh.  It can be the hidden part, right? :)  Also present are the inspiration gloves (not at all created by my haha).  The scarf wound up being 66" long and it honestly could've been longer (original plans were 60").  I like to bundle up into a Rosey Ball when I am forced out into the cold. 

I listened to everyone's advice on this post, thank you muchly! I had four votes for evenweave and two for linen. I rummaged through my stash to see if I had either before I went shopping and this is what came out of the black hole of stash.

options!

From left to right in a very horrible picture (sorry!), MCG Textiles 28-count evenweave, white; Zweigart pastel linen, pink; Flamingo Mills 22-count hardanger, white.  It's amazing what one can find in a thrift store (Rosey Motto?)! The evenweave was bought on sale at Micheal's though... I think. It was quite a while ago. Anyway, pink isn't gonna work out for this piece and I use the hardanger for my FF pieces so with everyone's votes and the process of elimination, we arrive at evenweave, weeeee~

tossin' bobbin

I feel like this is a fun floss toss; I love all the bright colors. Out of the 30 the pattern selected, I had about 10 so I got to go shopping for floss~ And then wrap some bobbins~~ I might hire myself out to wind bobbins; I love doing it. Some (most) of the colors are still pending judgement. The pattern maker I use is a bit hit-or-miss with picking appropriate colors so I have to see what I'm up against when I actually start stitching.

someone stole my spot

I think I've talked myself out for the non.  I'll try to get up a post detailing 2015 stitchy shenanigans if I survive tomorrow.  Merry Christmas to you all, and to all a... sleepy kitty?

MMMM #4

Hellooooo~

Despite it being IHSW, I got very little stitching done. In fact, I got very little of anything other than walking and eating done! My husband finally (finally) got some time off of work so we took a mini vacation and walked all over a million places like good tourists. Who knew vacations could be so tiring?!

bluuuuueeeee~!

Since we were in a "big city", I had a little stash enhancement. My friend found lovely blue and purple floss boxes and informed me that they were available at Micheal's and Jo-Ann's respectively. I bought the blue one but I wasn't willing to spend $7 for the purple (which was also designed a bit different). I also picked up a skein of E940 which is glow-in-the-dark floss (and is hiding in plain sight)! I'm excited about it because I can't find it anywhere around home and all online places mark it up something ridiculous. My first impression (besides squeaking like an overly-excited dolphin in the middle of the aisle) was that the skein feels weird, hah.

Of course it's time for my rather late MMMM update! The spiffy button was made by Alyssa who always manages to find the most amazing freebie patterns!

Anyway, here is the progress I made over a week. Isn't it amazing? Perhaps some of you recognize the pattern already (there have been a few adjustments) as I did a similar one before. :) Once I found a needle that I didn't have to shove through the perforated plastic, stitching on it became so much easier. I won't impress you with the amount of mistakes and picking outs that I had to do just to get this thing started. I don't know what it is about the plastic; it completely screws up my already screwed up counting abilities. I was also entirely too exhausted to be stitching. I dozed off a few times with needle in hand!

Most definitely you've had more productive fingers this week! Until next time~

MMMM #3

Aloha, everyone! I think I've fixed the comments issue. And gave my blog a Halloweeniesh sort of theme.

This will be a short post because I am simply too tired to do more than be a zombie. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise since I'm sure I ramble too much anyway. ;)

finally framed!

blinding flash

Please ignore the dismal excuse for a ribbon. It's one of those skills I feel I'll never master.

my first square!

This photo was shot at an angle; I swear it's square! It's not "finished" because I haven't learned how to do edging and didn't want to try on it after the countless efforts it took me to get this far. I think I will make another square of the same size and make it into a large potholder because I've never heard of a yarn dishcloth before (that's what the pattern called it).

new stitch floss toss!

This will be the next (two) project(s) for MMMM. I'm not quite sure about the colors but I didn't have the listed ones in stash and getting new stash requires a lengthy trip. I think they will work out. I hope.

And before I forget! CraftySasha is having a really fun pattern giveaway, found here. I suggest you head over there and join in the fun (and admire the super cute paperclip army)!

Until next time~ But now, I'm going to go crash in some soft-cushioned thing.

MMMM #1

Aloha new (and old) friends~ I think I have you followed back but if I don't, feel free to kick me in the pants with your URL!

At the end of September (wasn't it just May?), I went rummaging through my kit drawer to figure out just what I'm gonna stitch for Mega Mini Month Madness. I pulled out anything and everything that looked "mini". Then I went through my stash of magazines/books/leaflets and marked interesting small things. Then I went into my Internet folder.

I don't have a huge stash (unless one considers the online folder) so there's not much to choose from. Even still, I probably shouldn't make any particular goals. One a week would be great but then y'all would have to be watching for those flying pigs again. ;)

As you can see, I started with the tiny kit on the bottom right. I decided I needed to torment myself and "adjusted" the white to contain a strand of light effects floss. Which I cannot for the life of me railroad. !@#$%&

Anywhoodle, despite my first world floss problems, this is a super simple stitch that will hopefully be done over the weekend. Fall is always a busy time of year for me so I am glad to have an excuse to sit down and stitch... assuming I don't fall asleep when I sit down! :)

Hope y'all have productive fingers again~ ZZZzzzzzz...

The Birth of a New Project

Welp, I started the next Final Fantasy piece. YAY! Does anyone know which one it is?

The Project Gathering

one hour

three hours

And there I have stopped! Apologies for the crappy photos. My phone does not often like to focus on stitching (and I am not sure what exactly it IS focusing on). Anyhoodle, I am puzzled over this green. Is it dark? Is it bright? It is definitely dependent on the lighting. The floss toss looked great at Hobby Lobby (where my husband so kindly joined me on the floor in the floss aisle and helped pick the colors :D). I would hate to stitch the whole thing and decide I hated the colors after all. Plus, it feels like I've forgotten all I ever knew about cross-stitching after not touching it for over a year. It's kinda scary, haha.

I also did a little tweaking to my blogger page, too. Trying to give it a little bit more of a stitchy feel. And plaid is awesome. Please let me know if you see anything amiss! :D I will be very hit-or-miss with posting. Our Internet has been crap lately so I can barely load text-only pages. It took over 10 minutes just to stay connected long enough for a preview of this entry to load. Hooray for rural broadband...!

Family Mailbox: Finish!

First off, welcome new followers~ I think I followed everyone who had a blog linked in their profile section but if I didn't, comment and yell at me! :D

Wow, I managed to finish it with tons of time to spare! Exciting and Amazing! I took possibly too many pictures as I progressed through it, but it's fun to watch a stitch grow.

Here's where I was last time back on November 20th (oh, the shame!):

Needs more mail!

And here is the progress march through time:

French Knots!

More French Knots!

FRENCH KNOTS.

All Stitching: Complete!

Framed and Everything!

That was a long scroll, haha. I was too lazy to make a table to organize the images and blogger's "compose" section was making a royal mess of the arrangement. So, I just coded them straight down.

I apologize for the "rosey175" box in the last two pictures -- I put our names on the mailbox! :) It was quite a fun little stitch and I suppose the post doesn't look too bad now that the piece is complete. I like to do French knots but I think I might need more practice -- the poor wreath looks a little squished, haha. I did wind up having to frog a section of backstitching (compare the first French knot picture with the one right before it) and add in some stitches I apparently forgot!

The kit also came with a little press-for-music circle (what the heck are those things called!) but as this was a thrift store find and from the early '90s... well, the battery doesn't work. I don't know what song it played nor how to (or if it's possible) to replace the battery. So it will just be another little decoration to come out at Christmas time!

Technical Details

• "Family Mailbox" kit by an unknown manufacturer. If anyone had/has this kit and would be willing to share more info, please let me know!
  
• 2 over 1 on 14-count white Aida.
  
• Framed size: 5" x 6.5" (12,7cm x 16,5cm)
• Started: November 16th, 2012, Finished: December 18th, 2012. Unknown hours.

At last but not least, I have a new start that I can't show! It'll be a Christmas present assuming I can get it done. I didn't realize the new project would be such a fiddly little chart to stitch -- so many quarter stitches on very hard to split fabric! But other than that, it's a really interesting design and I have the wonderful conviction that that recipient will just be amazed that such a thing ever existed. :D

Until next time, have super productive fingers! Only a few more days until Christmas~