Gifted Gorgeousness: More MH3U Goodness

Hello again! It is time again for another Gifted Gorgeousness, hosted by Queen Serendipity herself. Jo "warned" me to not have any more disasters regarding GG posts! It does seem that this year is conspiring against me. However, this post was safely typed up ahead of time so while we are indeed surrounded currently by flooding (we're safe, just very soggy), the show will go on~

click me!

I have continued to work on the MH3U piece that is destined to become my husband's gift.

before

after

Finished his other pounder!  I love the colors in this guy... and I'm loving stitching him. Apart from having a fabulous palette, his attacks are neat and his armor is fairly awesome (except the alien helmet) and his weapon is hands down my favorite.  We're getting close to his battle in the new version.  wiggling intensifies

This is not part of GG but I completed my hat for the Ravellenic Games! :D

nyaa~!

I found the pattern free on Ravelry and I thought it'd make a good newbie hat. And it is! Knitting in the round isn't that hard but I still need a bit of practice with the initial join.  I know with the hat flat like that it doesn't look like much but when one puts it on, the corners perk up into ears.  It's very cute.  They yarn is the same as the ever-growing Kitty Prints scarf and, yes, I made it to match. Turns out this lovely soft yarn is not quite sturdy enough to hold up the ears so I put a cottonball in them before tacking them down. Perhaps the floppiness was also because I used a larger needle than was called for; I have no smaller circulars.  I added the embellishment as an afterthought.  What do you think?  Should I keep it or leave it plain?  Maybe make the nose pink?

Technical Details

• "KitKat hat" pattern by Andre Sue, found here on ravelry (free).
• #9 29" circular, one #8 DPN for bind off.
• Yarn: Yarn Bee Soft Secrets, aqua.
• Cast on 92, did 2" of ribbing - 9.5" wide, 7.5" tall.
• Started August 5, finished August 10, approximately 8 hours.

Lessons Learned
(hopefully)

• How to knit in the round (not magic loop)!
• 3-needle bind off - LOVED this. 

I definitely see more hats in my future!  They're surprisingly simple to make.  I thought about making another one of these kitty hats in black and white.  I don't know how to change colors while knitting and I feel this is a big gap in my education!

Okay, that's enough babble from me. Thank you for reading~ :D

Update: Just One July

I'mma just dive right in here before August teleports away.  This is the next side for the Monster Hunter cube, filled with toxic green goodness!  This pattern cleaned up rather quickly once my computer parts stopped catching on fire and worked like they should(?).

endure the punches

I wound up not using a single one of the preliminary floss toss colors. Super Husband to the rescue picking colors! I love turning him loose in the store with the instructions to pick good colors haha. Maybe it's a bit silly to have him pick stuff for his own gift... oh well, he does a wonderful job of it.

hey there

Rather short on the update.  Of course we have over 60 hours in the new Monster Hunter game so progress ground to a halt.  Imagine the things I could accomplish if I didn't spend that time gaming!  But, gaming comes first, especially co-op gaming.  Then, the last part of July was spent on vacation down in Alabama and Georgia.  The Georgia Aquarium was really neat, even the gift shop with the silly fish faces.  Driving in Atlanta was horrendous.  Exit only lanes pop out of nowhere and speed limits are mild suggestions.  Nope, nope, nooope.  But all the stitchy progress was vacation stitching, that's a win for me!  I made sure to prep my fabric in advance; that helped a lot.

Oh!  And I decided to participate in the Ravellenic Games this year.  I will be knitting a hat for the first time and maybe making something else if the hat finishes faster than expected!  Having never done one before, I have no clue about time frames.  It's not a huge goal but it will teach me to knit in the round (normally; I was taught magic loop first) and do a 3-needle bind off, woo!

Just One Gifted Gorgeous in July

Hello! Thank you all for drooling over my sugar cookies. They were dutifully inhaled as is Proper Cookie Etiquette. I wondered if I would miss another Gifted Gorgeousness post this month. Why? Remember that I had a new computer build? Well, the battery backup/surge protector for it caught. On. FIRE.

ಠ_ಠ

I think I set a new world record for the speed of shutting down my computer. Luckily there was no harm done to the computer and only minimal smoke to the house. I won't use my computer without adequate protection so I had to wait for a new backup to arrive. Ugh. It arrived yesterday, whew!

click me!

Anywhoodle, you are here for some gorgeousness, not things catching on fire! This is a c-c-combo post for both GG and JOJ.

before

after

YAY! Madame Rathian is done! :D  I had a lot of issues with her.  First trying to pick the colors.  I went with the avocado DMCs for their brightness.  The olives would've been more "true" perhaps.  The original glyph had her eye blue like Rathalos (see below) but at no point does she have blue eyes in game!  They're golden!  So, I picked a drab sort of brownish yellow that I still don't know if I like.  Another issue was the lack of symmetry.  I wish I had made the pattern better!  Her tail came out well though, and that's her annoying important part. Her only goal in life is to poison you with it.

together forever

Technical Details

• "Rathian" 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: February ??, Finished: July 8. 9+ hours, not including infinite floss issues.  

I intended to continue on with these glyphs as part of Just One July but seeing as I needed a computer to make the next pattern, that didn't happen.  I unfaithfully worked on knitting in the meantime.  Of course once I set things up again, the next one just fell into place!  If you know your monsters, perhaps you can guess by this (preliminary) floss toss:

best weapons ever

This one will be fun.  That is assuming I will have time to stitch.  This post is going up on the day Monster Hunter Generations is released here and of course two copies were pre-ordered.  I am going to bet my guy flies home from work and we'll never be productive again.  \ :D /

Just One (4th of) July!

Hooray, the 4th of July! Go America, escape from those silly Over-Puddlers who sought to tax our tea! Shame!

via Google Images

Yes, I like the 4th. It's probably my favorite holiday. The town puts on a lovely fireworks display... and so do our neighbors. The neighbors might even do better than the town. We will attempt to grill fancy burgers and hot dogs and otherwise stuff ourselves silly. Hopefully we will not be rained out; this has been a very soggy, stormy weekend!  Of course I had to make some cookies, but I was good and sent most of them into work with my husband on Friday.

need all the sugar

Just One July
So, being the sucker I am for one-focus projects, of course I had to join in when Justine suggested Just One July! So, what have I decided to work on? I bet you're thinking FFIII since it's so close to being finished! Welp, you are... wrong! Buu, buu! I have to admit to myself that I really need a good amount of mojo to work on that piece and I am currently lacking the required mojo. So I am not going to force myself into it and wind up hating it.

before

So, Rathian will get some love this time!  She hasn't been touched since early February, which totally shocked me, even more than the idea of this being July and the year half over soon it will be Christmas again o my goodness.  ahem.  There's not much left on her so I will content myself with a possible finish.  I will count working on the next pattern as part of Just One July as well since it's all one project.  I'll leave it to my husband to pick who the lucky monster will be.

Knitting

swimming on the kitchen table

I needed something new to knit and decided that since all of our bathroom washcloths are completely functional and boring, I would make a new one that would be functional and less boring!  It was my first time knitting moss stitch (the border).  I love how it looks but I could happily live my life without ever knitting it again!  It requires more focus than I want to give but it does help me with "reading" my stitches.  I also added the little loop because I didn't want to totally forget how to do an i-cord.  It was good practice.  Small steps. :)

Technical Details

• "Dolphin Dishcloth" freebie pattern by Kelly Daniels, found here (ravelry)
• Yarn: Unknown cotton, best guess would be Peaches n Creme in bright blue
• Size 3 (3.25mm) needles, size 2 (2.75mm) DPNs for i-cord
• Approximately 8.5" (21,5cm) square, 3" i-cord
• Started June 22, finished June 27, about 7 hours.

It helps when there's a two-hour knitting meetup, twice! After the first meetup though, I did wind up ripping it back several inches. I wanted to try knitting on the purl side to see if I could make it reversible but it made for a rather wonky looking dolphin.  At least it boosted my confidence in ripping back and putting stitches back on the needle correctly!

Okay, that's enough Iskabibble Babble! Hope you have a great 4th of July (holiday or not) and if you're in America, give your pets a safe place to hide from the fireworks!

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.