Wednesday, October 15, 2014

2014 Xmas Cross Stitches #3 & #4: Happy Elephants

The Bob Crochets family has always had a thing for elephants. Elephants with their trunks held upward are lucky, so when I found this third adorable pattern from Mini Stitches, I honestly couldn't resist. I stitched two of them over the course of day and I am extraordinarily happy with how they turned out. And they're so teeny weeny! I'm wondering if I should stitch up a whole army of lucky, rainbow-colored elephants this year! Even SO said that they were some of the most adorabe pieces that I've done in a while.


Monday, October 13, 2014

2014 Xmas Cross Stitch #2: Winter Fox

Last year, Frie loved her penguin ornament so much that it has been hanging up in her bedroom ever since. Because she likes them so much, I decided to go ahead and make her a second ornament to go along with this year's penguin (see last week's 2014 Xmas Stitch #1 post).

As part of her Christmas gift last year, SO and I bought her a really cute gift card to Michael's with a fox that looks almost exactly like the Mini Stitches pattern that I found when I was pulling patterns last week. Because of the similarities, I pretty much had to pull it and stitch it... so I did! And here's the result! I worked on him over the course of two evenings and I have to say that I'm really happy with how he turned out. Maybe next year I can find a pattern of a fox and a penguin together. Then Frie can be doubly happy!


Friday, October 10, 2014

Lissa Charity Square WIP 001

Well, I finally manged to snap all of the needles I had saved up for Yoshi, so as of September 29, he's on hiatus for a while while I manage to find some more. I swear that there's a shortage of them in San Diego County, so it might be a while before I can get back to work on him. (Which is a shame, too, because I was booking through WIP 058...)

Original Image
Since the only needles I have lying around right now are 26s, I broke down and decided to start on my Sprite Stitch Charity square for 2015, a screenshot of Lissa from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Lisa isn't my favorite character, but I've always found this image to be really adorable, so I'm diving in and trying my hand at a 6" by 6" quilt square to be completed by August 31 of next year.

I have to admit, the pattern I created is pretty intense for me. I've never had to work with so much confetti stitching before and I'm not one hundred percent sure what I'm going to do to make sure that I don't make mistakes, but for now, with Day 001's progress under my belt, I'm pretty happy. (And I'm not counting stitches because I already know that I'm going to have to pull stitches out because of my inability to count properly. Such is life.)

WIP 001

It isn't a whole lot of work to complete in a day, but some progress is always better than no progress in my eyes. Bottom-left corner complete!

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

2014 Xmas Cross Stitch #1: Cute Penguin

Last year, I stitched a really simple penguin Christmas ornament for my best friend Frie. I wasn't planning on stitching her another penguin this year, but when I found such a cute and easy pattern on ministitches.tumblr.com, I really couldn't resist. And I finished it so quickly! From start to finish, I had it done in less than an evening. It was a bit weird since I'm so accustomed to large pieces like Yoshi and Lissa, but it was a nice change of pace and I'm really looking forward to finishing up my other Christmas items over the next few weeks.


Monday, October 6, 2014

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 048

Thursday, September 4, 2014 marked a pretty neat day for Yoshi. The 464 stitches that I added after work and school tipped me over the edge of the 40% completion mark at 8,650 total stitches. I am super psyched. The hours I've dumped into HSHY are tremendous, but they have been incredibly worth it and SO is really excited to have it complete and hung up in our home someday. His excitement (and my excitement, too, quite frankly) is what keeps me fueled on this project. I'm hoping to complete the tree's outlining, soon, but for today I decided to focus on the eaves' shadows and finishing up the background section between the tree trunks that I'd been chipping away at for so long.


Total Stitches through September 4, 2014: 8,650/21,600 (40.05%)
Total Time through September 4, 2014: 2 days 18 hours 39 minutes

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Pattern Postponed

This week's Robin pattern from Fire Emblem Awakening has been postponed until next week. I mistakenly left my laptop at Home Base before heading to a client's home this week, so I am not able to produce patterns until I've my laptop again sometime this next week. Sorry! Here's a picture of Sophie and Meme, two of the super sweet dogs I'm watching, to make up for it!


Friday, October 3, 2014

Site Updates, Christmas Planning, and October Goals

I think the only good thing about having contracted walking pneumonia last week was the fact that I had an excuse to stay home and rest. While I clearly did not get much done online, I was able to get some cross stitch work done and sleep as much as I could before my three exams. Let me just say for the record that I am very much looking forward to being done with my university in the next year.

In the crafting world, though, things are going well. Slowly, but surely, I am creating and adding patterns to the site and intend to have weekly pattern releases through March of next year. These patterns will be released on Sundays and posted to the Patterns page as well as the main page of this blog. Last week's release was Anna from Fire Emblem Awakening. This upcoming Sunday will be introducing two more FEA sprite patterns for Robin.

Yoshi is currently on the back burner due to a Size 28 tapestry needle shortage. I have looked for them at four different stores and still haven't been able to find them, so I've had to change gears and begin working on new projects that I can work on with my stash of Size 26 needles. Primarily, I have been focusing on my Sprite Stitch Charity Quilt Square and as silly as it sounds I feel like I'm working on it faster just because the X's are so much larger. So far, I'm about three days into it and plan on having a significant portion of it complete by the end of the year. I have also begun my annual pattern hunt for Christmas ornaments. So far, I have found five tiny patterns to complete and plan on having the cross stitch work done on them by the end of the month. (I'd tell you more on the subject, but that might ruin the surprise for the readers that are also on my Christmas list.)

All in all, life is moseying along at quite a nice speed. Because I'll be spending over two weeks at clients' homes this month, I'll have a considerable amount of free time on my hands, so I anticipate that I'll be able to complete all of my October goals which are listed below:
  1. Stitch in significant portions of my SS Charity Square (500-1,000 stitches).
  2. Cross stitch at least four Christmas pieces.
I'll be posting WIP pictures of my Lissa square as soon as I can get them typed up, so stay tuned!