The Fantastic Flamingo, Part One

When my boss transitioned out of her presidential position last semester, I made it my goal to create a special gift for her. Unfortunately, I did not manage to finish it before she left and the incoming ASP took her position.

Over summer, I have barely done any crafting. This poor 5x7, adorable flamingo has been sitting in in the trunk of my car along with my cross stitch supplies for months. My world has been changing so much that this poor little guy has just been ignored, and that's not right.

 My goal is to complete this flamingo and present it to my old boss on Boss Day which is on October 16th. That way, I can frame Little Flamingo, wrap him up, and hide him in my old boss's mailbox for her to find.  I have no clue if I'll get it done in time, but fingers crossed!

Pattern by Birdie Stitching.

Home Sweet Yoshi WIP 055 & 056

It seems like my posts for Home Sweet Home Yoshi are finally catching up to my actual progress. It seems somewhat impossible since I've been playing catch up for so long, but here are WIPs 055 and 056 in all their glory. My goal is to finish posting older WIP pictures for this project and then begin working on this project again, finishing it before the end of the year.

As of September 18, 2014, this project is OFFICIALLY over halfway done with the addition of over 600 stitches added between September 17th and 18th.

WIP 055

WIP 056

Total Stitches as of September 18, 2014: 10,854/21,600
Total Time as of September 18, 2014: 3 Days 10 Hours 54 Minutes

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 054

Happy Monday, everyone! I give you Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 054 for the day. Unfortunately, we're still all the way back on September 16, 2014, but progress is progress! A total of 165 stitches and 76 minutes were added to the grand total.

Total Completion: 45.59%

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 053

It's hard to believe that WIP 053 is from all the way back on September , but the progress from this day is pretty remarkable in comparison to WIP 051 and earlier. I got a little bit more of the second tree trunk filled in and even though there's a bit of a mistake at the top, I think I've done a really good job in hiding it.

Stitches Added on September 15, 2014: 14

Time Added on September 15, 2014: 5 minutes

Total Stitches Since December 18, 2013: 9,663/21,600 (44.74%)
Total Time Since December 18, 2013: 3 Days 2 Hours 33 Minutes

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 052

As part of an effort to get BCCD back on it's regularly scheduled Monday/Wednesday/Friday post schedule, I bring you HSHY Work in Progress Post 052! While WIP 052 is from all the way back from September 14, 2014.

According to my calendar, we actually went to the theater on September 14th, so I must have been over at SO's house working on Yoshi while we were getting ready for date night. It has not been uncommon in our relationship for me to take projects along with us, either, so I would not be shocked if some of the day's stitches occurred in the car or while we were at Balboa Park waiting for the doors to open for Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Stitches Added on September 14, 2014: 222
Time Added on September 14, 2014: 2 hours 8 minutes

Total Stitches Since December 18, 2013: 9,649/21,600 (44.67%)
Total Time Since December 18, 2013: 3 Days 2 Hours 19 Minutes

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 051

Sometimes I wonder if my issues with my eyes (I'm legally blind without my glasses in case you didn't know) are the reason that my Work In Progress images end up so blurry sometimes...or maybe I'm drunk when I take them. I don't know, but I'm sorry that today's WIP image is so blurry. This is the best one out of the three that I took. The rest we just disasters.

This is my progress through September 11, 2014. I managed to get the entire right-side tree trunk done! And as I begin to fill up the entire bottom section of this piece I think that it will really start to take on some character. For now, I'm just happy to have gotten some progress done!

Day's Stitches: 105
Day's Time: 45 minutes

Total Stitches: 9,427/21,600 (43.64%)
Total Time: 3 days 0 hours 11 minutes

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 050

Looking back at my notes and WIP 049, I got a lot done on September 6th. I mean, I managed to get the YOSHI sign lined in and I was even able to start filling in one of the tree trunks that had previously been just outlined in black. Yoshi is still a little sickly looking, but I'm sure that he'll get some color in the future. Hope everyone is well!

Day's Stitches: 311
Day's Time: 2 hours 16 minutes

Total Stitches to Date: 9,322/21,600 (43.16%)
Total Time To Date: 2 days 23 hours 26 minutes

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 049

As you can tell from last my last post on December 10th, last year was not a good year for my family to say the least. I cannot even begin to articulate in words how grateful I am to be in 2015 with all of my family members alive and well and I managed to pass all of my classes with flying colors.

Currently, SO is playing Civilization V theme songs in the background while I write this post and it seems like everything is back to normal. Well... almost normal. He's no longer a student and he's officially teaching two classes at his Alma mater. I've got sixteen weeks' worth of classes before I graduate with my baccalaureate, but SO is making it really hard to focus. He has so much time on his hands now!

Onto Yoshi, though! It's been months since this poor project made an appearance on this blog.Work In Progess #049 is actually from September 5th. (Yeah, I know that's almost five months ago. Shame on me...)

So, yeah... The entire right side of it is done at this point. I'm super excited. I managed to get the last bits of the background done and even filled in the M and E of HOME. It isn't the most work that I've ever completed in a day, but because this section is entirely done now, it feels like a huge chunk of HSHY is done now.

Day' Stitches: 361
Day's Time: 2 hours 31 minutes

Total Time: 2 days 21 hours 10 minutes
Total Stitches: 9,011/21,600 (41.72%)

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!

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

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 047

Slowly but surely, Yoshi is chugging along. I get more work done on some days than I do others, but despite life and school taking up the majority of my time, I'm really pleased with the work I've been able to get done.

WIP 047 is through Thursday, September 4th. Between the time I got off work and when my class started at university, I was able to stitch for almost a total of sixty-eight minutes, an untold luxury for me during the week. The progress doesn't look too excepting since I've mostly been working on Yoshi's background, but I was able to add over one hundred stitches, not something to be bummed about.

Total Time through September 4, 2014: 2 days 16 hours 13 minutes
Total Stitches through September 4, 2014: 8,186 / 21,600 (37.90%)

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 046

Sorry for the missing post on Friday. I came down with a nasty virus and was pretty much down for the count until Sunday afternoon.

As I sit here nursing my tea, looking at the transformation Yoshi has gone through over the last few months, I can't help but wonder what inspired me to take on such a big starting project for my cross stitching. Don't get me wrong, I love this piece and it's become a very integral part of my crafting identity, but I think I must be nuts to have taken on a 21,600 stitch project like it was nothing. August 23rd marked the eight-month mark for Yoshi and while he still hasn't hit the half way point through September 1st, I think there's potential for him to be finished by the end of this year. That is, I'll most likely get it done if I don't spend all of my free time at Disneyland...

All kidding aside, though, if I wasn't using my Annual Passport at Disney so much I'd probably have a lot more of this piece done. Disney doesn't allow me to bring my snips or my needles into the park, though, so until the Halloween season comes to a close, Yoshi will probably be taking the hit. I've always said that I can handle three things at a time, no more. Right now, those three things are school, work, and trips to Disneyland or cross stitch depending on the week. The last two have been alternating quite a bit, but I'm pretty sure that Disney is winning out...

I'm very happy with Yoshi, though. I just wish I had more time to dedicate to it on a day-to-day basis. If I can get to the fifty percent mark by the end of September, I'll be really happy, but if I don't, such is life. I'm just excited that all three tree trunks finally exist and the background spaces are coming along so quickly. The eaves of the tree, however, are another story. That's A LOT of green little x's to sew in! Wish me luck. I think the main tree color will be the last thing I get finished up before everything is all said and done, but who knows. (It certainly isn't me!)

Total Time through September 1, 2014: 2 days 15 hours 5 minutes

Total Stitches through Septembet 1, 2014: 8,058/21,600 (37.31%)

September Goals and...Where did August go?

I've decided that August is the fastest month of the year. All of a sudden, it's August, it's autumn, and then you turn around and 'Poof!' August is gone and it's September already. Now, that all being said, August was a really fun and busy month. I started my new job; SO and I went to see Into the Woods; we took a weekend trip up to La Mirada to visit some of SO's family; SO and I both headed back to University (it's his last semester as a student!); and this past weekend I did some animal sitting in my hometown to wrap it all up. It was a great way to bring summer to a close, but I think I'm in the same mindset as most individuals when I say that I wish it could have lasted just a little bit longer.

Individuals who have followed my crafting misadventures through summer already know that I blew my goals for August out of the water. My original goals were to finish one Pokemon ornament and sew 1,000 stitches into Home Sweet Home Yoshi. I ended up finishing two Pokemon ornaments, Charmander and Ditto, and sewed over 2,400 stitches--over 10% total progress--into Yoshi. If the saying "blown out of the water" doesn't apply here, then I don't know what does. August was a great month and I was able to get an extraordinary amount done on my current projects. I'd still like to complete Yoshi by the end of the year, but that's yet to be seen. I'll still be happy if I can work enough on it to have all of the black outline work done by December 31st.

As for this month, September 2014, I'd like to do the following:

1. Keep this blog updated for the entire month.
2. Add another 1,000 stitches to HSHY.
3. [BONUS] Finish another Pokemon ornament and post a tutorial on the entire process.

The good news is that I've already added ~200 stitches to Yoshi, and I've been bringing it to class with me during the week, so there's hope for me to work on it, but as for Pokemon, that's yet to be seen. Stay tuned because this much you know as much about my month as I do, but until something happens, all is well and headed in the right direction.