Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 034

I don't often take pictures of my cross stitching work while I'm outdoors, but WIP 034 is an exception. I actually took it with me to an Alice Cooper/Motley Crue concert and had forgotten to take pictures the last time that I had finished working for the day, so here we are! Pretty grass in the background for all to see.

I took a week off from Yoshi to work on other projects, or I'd probably have a lot more done. In that time I finished my Navi in a Bottle ornament and went to three separate events on the 24th, 25th, and 27th and I also started teaching Frie how to cross stitch. (I am super excited that she might start working on some projects of her own soon!)

You know, it's funny because I've been cross stitching and doing a lot of cross stitch related things recently, but it bothers me when it doesn't reflect in Yoshi.I wish I had the eyes and diligence to work on this project for an entire eight or nine hours one day, but being legally blind without my glasses or contacts, I tend to get eye strain pretty easily. Really, though, I need to get my butt in gear. I started this prokect last December! Imagine how long it'll take for me to get something like a Servotron Epic Pokemon pattern done!

Total Time Through July 29, 2014: 1 Day 18 Hours 56 Minutes

Total Stitches Through July 29, 2014: 5,371/21,600 (24.87%)

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 033

I always feel like I'm a day late and a dollar short with these Home Sweet Home Yoshi updates and while this is nearly my last post to pay catch up from previous months, I'm feeling a little bit frustrated with myself for getting so far behind on these things.

WIP 033 is through July 21th. I'm hoping to get all of the color blocking done on this piece by the end of the week, but we'll see. As for now, I'm just happy to have some more progress craved out for this piece.

Total Stitches Through July 21, 2014: 5,067/21,600 (23.46%)

Total Time Through July 21, 2014: 1 Day 17 Hours 3 Minutes

August Goal #1 Complete!

Well, after almost eight months of procrastination, Charmander is finally done! After I set my month's goals on the first, I decided that I was just going to finish my "Complete a Pokemon Ornament" as soon as possible. I didn't touch any of my other projects until Charmander was done, even though I was incredibly tempted by Home Sweet Home Yoshi and some undisclosed patterns that I'll be working on over the course of the next year for the Sprite Stitch Charity Quilt. (I should have those two projects announced by October at the very latest. I just don't want to spoil the surprise until I officially have the games I want by my name on the annual spreadsheet.)

But back to Charmander! I worked on him furiously over the first weekend of this month and I was completely done by early Sunday morning, so I decided to just to dive head in head first and printed off a Ditto pattern to work on, as well. Turns out that by the end of August 3rd I had TWO pokemon ornaments to show for this month! SO is really happy and I have to admit that I am, too. I'm not on track to finish my goal of 20 ornaments for the year, but in total I have 5 done so far. If I'm smart and I choose easy-to-sew patterns, I can definitely get the last fifteen done by the end of 2014, but that's only if all 18 units of classes this semester, plus dog sitting, plus work don't take all of my time up first.

Yarn Destashing Project: Potholders & Bags

I was all ready and excited to write about this great market bag I'd made over the course of the last few days in July, but last night I decided to rip the entire bag apart and start again because I was really unhappy with how it ended up turning out. Here's what my desk looked like last night after all of the carnage. I didn't even bother rewinding all the yarn back onto the spool. There was just a pile of yarn barf all over my desk.

  

As for the double-thick potholder I made that weekend, too. It's gone missing. I think it must be packed away in my dog sitting gear still, but I've been too lazy to look for it since it's been too hot for me to make soup anyway. (It's been >80F and 50-85% humidity for the last week here.) When I find it, you have my word I'll post it along with an image of my famous Zuppa Toscana.

(Man, I'm hungry now...)

HEY LISTEN!

As promised in my post from last Friday, today's post is all about Christmas ornaments. The last few days of July were really busy again. I was dog sitting, but somehow managed to schedule three nearly back to back evenings of concert outings with SO. On July 24th, 25th, and 27th we were supposed to see Video Games Live, Danny Elfman's The Music of Tim Burton, and Othello respectively. The shows on the 24th and 25th were San Diego Comic-Con specials performed by the San Diego Symphony. Because of the traffic during SDCC, we decided to ride the trolley both days. The first night was fantastic, but SO had a bad cold, so he didn't make it to the next night's show. Instead, I took Frie and she had a blast. SO was feeling well enough after a day's rest to attend Othello.

I must say, taking the trolley  to and from these shows was wonderful for my cross stitching projects. I got an entire Christmas ornament done between the four hours of travel to and from Downtown. I found a really cute pattern for a Navi in a Bottle on dA a while back and decided that it would be a good one to take along with my dog sitting since it was a simple pattern with just a few colors and a big block of white to fill in. Like I mentioned before, it was a quick one to finish and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Finished dimensions are approximately 2 inches by 3 inches.

July Recap & August Goals

Well, it's hard to believe, but happy August 2014! I have no idea where summer has gone, but as of Monday it's officially ended for me. I start my new position at work come Monday, but no University until the end of the month, so summer may be winding down, but luckily it isn't over yet.

Last month I set out four goals for myself:

1. Use up remaining cotton yarn.
2. Add 2,000 stitches to HSHY.
3. Finish one Pokemon ornament.
4. Add 20 rounds to Ian's blanket. (Sort of.)

I blew my goals for Yoshi out of the water and added at least 2,000 stitches, if not closer to 3,000. I also managed to use up almost all of my remaining cotton yarn from my stash--pictures to come Wednesday. And even though I technically didn't finish my 4th goal of adding 20 rounds to Ian's blanket, I did finish up another blanket very similar to his and it's all wrapped up waiting for me to give to a good friend once I see her at work again come late August. The only goal that I didn't complete was #3. I did not work on Pokemon ornaments at all, but I did manage to get sidetracked and finish two other cross stitch ornaments for our future video game Christmas tree. I should have them posted on Monday, but I'm really happy with how they've turned out so far.

As for August goals, I'm not really sure how things with my new job are going to work out, so I'm setting the bar pretty low for this month.

1. Add 1,000 stitches to HSHY.
2. Finish one Pokemon ornament (Charmander).

Anything else that gets done next month is extra credit, in my opinion. There is going to be a lot that goes on in the next month just in terms of work and school, but SO's dad might be going back in for some elective surgery within the year, so I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm just going to play it close to the chest for now and whatever gets done gets done. As I always try to remind myself...

Home Sweet Home Yoshi WIP 032

The magic of blogging is that my posts (typically) come out on a regular Monday/Wednesday/Friday basis and it looks like I've just been zooming along on Yoshi. The truth of the matter, however, is that I took an almost two week break on this baby to work on other pursuits between July 8th and July 20th, so I'm nearly caught up to my current WIPs for this piece.

There was a lot going on going on this month. I ran a half marathon (Remember the Batman tutu?); SO had to go to the hand surgeon; and I had to have some dentistry work done, so things were a bit hectic, but luckily HSHY is a personal pursuit and not a commission, so I can take all the time I want to on it. Unluckily, I really want to get started on some other large projects before I turn 800 years old. (And trust me, I have projects lined up...)

Here's WIP 032, though! The work is through July 20, 2014. I was able to add in just over 275 stitches over the course of the day, so I'm pretty happy. And you can actually see the work that I got done today. That's one of the huge perks of outlining. You can really see the progress that is made over the course of a day. Yoshi has officially made his appearance and so has a second tree trunk. If you ask me, that's pretty spectacular.

Total Time: 1 day 15 hours 41 minutes

Total Stitches: 4,821/21,600 (22.32%)