Update on Mario Through the Ages

Okay, pun intended here, but it's been ages since I've worked on this project. And even longer since I've posted anything about it. The last post I put up on here was May 29, 2018 which was my third week of working on this project. For grins and giggles, let's say that I started this project on May 4, 2018. That makes today day number 335 of this project. And frankly, I'm pretty okay with that because I'd say that I'm about 35-40% of the way done with this piece. I don't work very fast on my cross stitch, so 35-40% is just fine with me.

In this post I don't have a full-piece progress picture, but I should have one posted soon. It's silly because for me the biggest change that I'm noticing is that I've changed my needle minder out, but in reality the progress that's been made on this piece is enormous. I've almost finished four complete pages with just Mario aspects left to stitch (the hard parts, of course!) The filler parts I've been knocking out on my breaks at work which is the progress that's in the picture below.

More soon. In the meantime, enjoy!

Before work                                            After work

MTTA: Week 3 Progress

Ah! How have I already been working on this for three weeks! Time is flying and I have no idea where it's running off to. Things are really progressing on this piece which is really making me happy. The long weekend was good to me and I was able to get both Tanooki Mario and Frog Mario completed. (Frog Mario was a PITA, though. My god...)

I think last week I had set a goal to finish Baby Mario, as well, over the weekend, but by the time I'd finished Frog Mario I was grumpy and pretty tired of looking at cross stitch for the weekend. So, he didn't get done and I probably won't work on him for a few weeks. I'll do him later on down the road when I'm feeling more animated to work on something more difficult. For now, I'm going to do fill work to my heart's content or I know 100% that I'll burn out and put everything aside indefinitely.

25+ days in and counting!

My goals for this next week are to get the dirt section of this piece completed by the end of the week. It's similar to the water in that all the stitching is pretty uniform and for that reason I think it'll stitch up pretty quickly. I just need to find something good on Amazon or Netflix to watch, though, or things might get monotonous. We'll see. Whatever happens happens--I don't need to get super hard on myself for not meeting trifling goals.

Fun Fact: I have put the blunt end of an embroidery needle through my right thumb two times now!

MTTA: Week 2 Progress

(I know this is almost a week late, but I keep telling myself that I'm going to post pictures every single week, so here goes nothing!)

My husband keeps telling me that I'm flying through this project so far and in many ways I have to agree with him. Within the week, I'll be finished with all the water on this piece and in that time I'm also hoping to have at least the tanooki on the left done and potentially the seaweed, too. This upcoming weekend is Memorial Day, so I'm quite confident that I'll be able to get it done.

After finishing the three characters in the water, I'll be moving onto the dirt section of this piece. It looks like it's going to be another extremely section to complete, so I'm excited for the relaxation that stitching it is going to bring.

In all honesty, I'm quite curious as to how long this project is going to take me. Everything is going really fast so far and the only areas that I think will take me a lot of time are the Mario sprites. Even then, though, they're pretty small, so who knows. I'll continue to update as things progress!

MTTA - Week 1 Progress

I saw that this is my Week 1 progress photo for Mario Through the Ages, but in reality it's my Week 1+ photo because it's probably about 10 days of work overall and not 7. Not a big deal, though.

Right now I am working on finishing up all the water in this piece--and there's a lot of it. At the moment, I'm about half way through stitching all the water, which has me pretty pleased. The only thing is that I've almost worked my way through an entire skein of floss so far and I'm having a hard time locating another skein. I've never been through a whole skein on one project before, so it's a new experience for me and I'm sure that it'll continue to happen as I stitch my way through the hills and sky, too.

I plan on keeping track of how many skeins this entire project takes so that people who decide to follow this pattern in the future can more accurately plan what supplies they need to get everything done. I just hope that people will be able to find this post down the road and find any information that they need.

MTTA Day 1/Week 1

As of today, I can officially say that I have gridded aida for a project: Mario Through the Ages. It took me about an hour from start to finish, but I think that I could have had it done in as little as thirty minutes if I hadn't checked my work so much to see if I was making any mistakes. Regardless, I'm 100% sure that the investment was worth it.

For one, and most importantly, it'll help me make sure that I'm not making mistakes while I stitch. The other thing it'll help me do is track progress on MTTA as I work my way through it.

As of this picture, I've completed 32 stitches. My plan is to work bottom-left to top-right and hopefully be done with the entire project by June of next year.

Stay tuned each week for weekly progress pictures!