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.
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| 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.
- 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...!
- 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.
- 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!
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| before |
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| after |
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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
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| 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.
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| after |
Crochet
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| 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.
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| hey, more Rathalos colors? |
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| doily in action oooo |
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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
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| dishcloths! |
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| kitty prints scarf |
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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
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| 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.
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| 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. :)
