Home Sweet Home Yoshi is DONE!

After almost three years of off and on work, I have successfully completed my goal of finishing our Home Sweet Home before we've moved in. And if I may say, for my first time finishing, lacing, matting, and framing something, I feel like Yoshi looks pretty amazing.

I stopped counting how much time I'd invested into the project, but I know that it's probably close to 200+ hours and there are a total of 21,600 stitches in the completed piece. It took my a while to figure out how best to handle all the framing work, but after about an hour of trial and error, I feel like the final product turned out very well.

I'm hoping to get a better picture of Yoshi as soon as he's in the new house, but for now the picture below will have to suffice. I can't believe that it's finally done, but I am so grateful and excited to have completed this project. It's really boosted my confidence as a cross stitcher and has helped motivate me to move onto bigger and better projects like Mario Through the Ages and Epic Pokemon Gen One.

Endless Fill Work

It's really blurry, but here's the latest progress picture for Yoshi. I'm feeling a bit under the weather right now, so it's given me a good chance to work on projects, but I have no clue how I'm going to get work done on this bad boy today. I've been running a fever off and on all day at work and despite repeated attempts by my boss to send me home, I refuse to give in and use up my sick leave.

If I can muster, my goal is to get the sky complete all the way to the S in SWEET this afternoon. I'll be over at the condo for a while to let the painter in, so I should be able to stitch there while it's quiet, but I think it might be in my best interest to crawl into bed instead. We'll see. For now, I'm just trying to get through the work day.

House Demo & Reflection

We got the keys to our condo on Thursday and ever since it's been nose-to-the-grindstone renovation work so that we can move in as soon as possible. Work on Yoshi has come to a complete standstill. And as much as I'd like to finish up this amazing project, my hands are just jacked right now.

On Friday, I took off all the switch plates, vent covers, etc. along with some prep work for the following day. All day Saturday, we dealt with baseboard. We tore it out; I nailed all the new stuff in; and then I caulked the entire master bedroom for the rest of the evening. Yesterday, I installed all of the remaining baseboard in the office area, tore out a door frame, and caulked everywhere in the house that needed it until I ran out of steam. I'm exhausted and my hands have taken a serious beating, too.

Renovations have pushed Yoshi back yet again, but the condo is really starting to feel like home. Aside from paint, we're almost completely done with renovations, though, and as soon as my hands can take it (and are clean enough to actually work on a cross stitch project), I really want to finish up Yoshi. In the mean time, here's a progress picture of where we're at.

Unproductively Moving Forward

As predicted, I've already started working on Yoshi again, but every stitch feels forced and frustrated right now. I feel like I got almost nothing done yesterday night (and ignoring the fact that more than half of my attention was focused on the Philadelphia City Finals of ANW.)

And while I didn't have the most productive day in the craft room, I did manage to find foam core, mat board, and a frame for this little guy after work yesterday. It's small, but it'll allow me to get Yoshi framed as soon as I'm done with him and that way I can have him move-in ready!

Speaking of which, the notary didn't deliver our paperwork back to our idiot escrow office on Friday, so our closing date has been pushed back again. I scheduled an appointment for the internet to be installed on Saturday, so things better get done quick, you know? Egh...

Anyway, more to come very soon. If I can get the tan area finished by tomorrow, I think I can have the whole thing done by Friday. Fingers crossed, as usual.

I Admit It, I'm Totally Behind

I have been up to so much since I last posted...and managed to procrastinate on so much more.

First and foremost, I gave up on trying to track how much time I've invested into Home Sweet Home Yoshi. It's been over five days, so I might as well, just admit that I've invested an enormous amount of time into it--and that's okay. My goal is to actually get it finished by the end of this month, if not sooner. I really don't have that much left and the vast majority of it is fill work, so the stitching is easy and I'm able to tune into other things like Netflix while I work. This is where I'm at as of yesterday night. Pretty cool, huh?

The fiance is ecstatic about it. We finally bought our first place--yes, bought--and he is really excited to have it hung up somewhere prominent. For him, I think that it's a milestone that we have our own space and we're able to decorate it with our own things that are based off of our own interests. As I've probably said before, we're pretty big on video games and video game culture, so for us, having a four foot by one foot pokemon cross stitch on the wall really isn't that weird. In fact, it's a medium-term goal that we'd both love to see come into fruition.

More to come, though! I really, really want to get this project done and then get moving on Christmas.

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%)

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 045

I've decided that I go through phases on this project. Some days I really enjoy outlining and some days I really enjoy stitching in color. Recently, I've really been enjoying outlining again and I'm very close to completing the outline of Yoshi's canopy that he sleeps under. (How he doesn't catch the eaves of the tree on fire with his fireplace, I don't know, but that's not my issue.)

Today was a huge day for Yoshi. SO is in the home stretch of his MA program and had a ton of jurnal articles to read over the weekend, so I nestled down next to him and worked on Yoshi for nearly five hours throughout the day. SO ended up leaving for home around 8pm and I was still animal sitting, so my world was pretty quiet, but it was nice until my parents' truck refused to start when they got back  to the San Diego airport from Boston. They ended up getting home a midnight, three hours later than originally planned, in a rental car because the truck's fuel housing ended up going bad while they were out of town for the weekend. Can you think of worse possible timing? I felt really bad for them.

Before all the car drama, though, I added 514 stitches to HSHY on August 31st and I'd guess that I'm less than 200 stitches away from having all of the black outling done for this entire project. (So close yet so far...) I only have the words HOME SWEET, the canopy, and the mailbox yet to add. The tree trunks are 100% done now in terms of outlining. If you look over on the right-hand side I was also able to fill in a considerable amount of the hill underneath the second HOME. I'd like to have that entire section done by the end of September along with the darker green of the tree leaves and the tree trunks. It's ambitious, but doable.

Total Time Through August 31, 2014: 2 days 14 hours 7 minutes
Total Stitches Through August 31, 2014: 7,889/21,600 (36.52%)

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 044

Having the house to myself over Labor Day weekend was an absolute godsend to my cross stitching work, especially when I'm accustomed to spending my weekends cooped up in my room to avoid the noise of the TV in the living room. SO came up early in the afternoon, so I wasn't able to get much cross stitch work done through Saturday August 30th, but we had a wonderful day together making sure that the animals were well before we went out on a date to our favorite restaurant. It was nice to unwind and spend some time together since school is back in session, but I regret not working on HSHY as much as I probably could have on this day.

Of the stitches I was able to add on this day, I can happily say that I got to do some more outlining on this piece. I hadn't done any in a few weeks, so doing something easy and familar while SO was grading some papers was very simple and relaxing on the mind. I only adde 75 stitches on the 30th, but it seems like the stitches were more impactfult that before. Maybe it's because the outlining lacks color and stands out because of it? I don't know, but stitching it in was fun regardless

My apologies for the incredible hoop mark on this picture. I had honestly pressed this piece on Friday evening, but between being stored and then worked on, there are wrinkles everywhere on my Aida fabric.

Total Time Through August 30, 2014: 2 days 9 hours 57 minutes

Total Stitches Through August 30, 2014: 7,375/21,600 (34.14%)

**Note: I have been having major issues uploading images to dA, so if blog posts and dA submissions aren't correlating correctly, please know that I am working on getting things corrected as much as possible. dA is having some major server issues that are out of my control.

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 043

As a dogsitter, it's extraordinarily common for me to work holiday weekends. Labor Day weekend was no exception expect for the fact that I got to stay at home and watch my own (parents') animals as a very uncommon assignment. With my parents out of town, I pretty much had the house to myself. It was wonderful. Aside from the small bits of classwork and animal care I had to complete, I was able to relax and focus on the things I wanted. Napping and cross stitching were very high on my to-do list. I also got my first paycheck from my new job deposited for the month of August on this day which quite a happy surprise.

After finishing most of my homework, I was only able to complete fifty-four minutes of stitching while I roosted in favorite living room recliner. That being said, I've become much faster with my stitching and pattern-reading over the last year. I used to stitch about 1 stitch per minute. These days, depending on what distractions I'm presented with, I can stitch three times faster than that (and it's wonderful!) I was able to add 157 stitches on the August 29th, adding more color to the tree as I went.

Total Time Through August 29, 2014: 2 days 9 hours 22 minutes
Total Stitches Through August 29, 2014:  7,300/21,600 (33.80%)

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 042

Its pretty much goes without saying that if I'm traveling, my projects go with me. Whether or not I actually work on them is a different matter, but when SO and I went up to visit family on 8/15 and 8/16, I really did manage to get quite a bit of work done on the road and at the house. This trip was really a chance for us to sit back and enjoy our last few days of summer before heading back to work on Monday.

Since my mind was mostly relaxed on Saturday, I decided to focus on an easy part of the pattern so I could focus more on visiting (and napping.) This is the result of my lazy vacation day:

I added 155 stitches to the tree that day and even though I didn't add a ton of stitches, it looks significant because of all the open Aida cloth around it. I'm still contemplating the easiest way to make sure that the fruits are placed in the correct spots, but I think those will be some of the last elements I complete last. We'll see, but until then, happy Wednesday. WIP 043 will be up on Friday.

Total Stitches through August 16, 2014: 7,143/21,600 (33.07%)
Total Time through August 16, 2014: 2 days 8 hours 28 minutes