Wednesday, November 30, 2011

oh dear...

Have you seen the new Octopus Treasure Cave from Chatelaine?  I know I said I was only going to do ONE of Martina's designs because they're so large and expensive (if you get all the goodies) but... this one has an octopus!  AN OCTOPUS!


I really wanted Deep Blue Sea, but I like this one even more!  Surely this would be reasonable in DMC and with the beads/crystals I already have in my jewelry-making stash.  Right?  RIGHT?!? :p

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

exchange with Rachel!

I came home yesterday and found a sad, smooshed box waiting on my doorstep!  Fortunately, everything inside was safe, the box just got a bit squashed in the mail because it wasn't very full.

Inside was my ornament exchange and giveaway prize from Rachel!  The black and white snowflake ornament is from the giveaway, and the larger pillow (a Teresa Wentzler design, I'll have you know! :p) is the ornament exchange.  There's also a lovely spool of HDF thread (my first one ever!), a pretty Elizabeth's Designs winter chart, and a little silk gauze chartpack.  Just reading the instructions for the silk gauze pattern kind of scared me, but I'm going to have to give it a try. :)

Now, pics!

The two lovely ornaments!
I wish you could see the finishing on these.  But they're mine, so you can't. :p

Everything together:

And finally, I can reveal the exchange goodies I sent to Rachel!  This white ornament was my very first piece to have cut threads on it, and I was really worried that it would come out wrong.  But it was no problem at all, to my relief!

I also included a card, a scissor fob, and three small Christmas/winter themed charts. :)


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to put my new treasures back on my ornament tree. :)

PS:  I won NaNoWriMo this morning!  Now I can stitch again. XD

Sunday, November 27, 2011

IHSW... finally!

Hopefully I can cheat a bit and say that Tuesday through Friday was my IHSW, since I wasn't able to participate on the actual weekend due to NaNo and packing for a trip to visit family.  I took my wisteria project with me and actually spent the entire flight over working on it.  Only two hours, but it went by fast because my hands were busy!

I put in a few more hours on Wednesday and Friday too (spent Thursday eating lots of Thanksgiving noms!) and ended up making quite a bit of progress!


I'd say this is about 20% complete so far.  Definitely do-able by Christmas, since NaNo is done at the end of November and I can devote time to stitching again. :D

I started another knitting project, but again, there's nothing to see yet so... no pics!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

exchange from Shannon!

Ahhh, now that I'm finally back home, I can share pictures of the lovely exchange I received from Shannon!  I received the package at least a week ago (sorry, can't remember the exact date) so these pictures are very late!

Check out this pretty design!  It's finished as a very fluffy pillow that has a lot of squish.  It's fun to squeeze. :)  Be sure to look at the bigger image so you can see the over-one stitching!


And this is the full package of goodies!  There's some nice backing fabrics that I'll be using for more ornaments, a cute pad of sticky notes, a skein of thread, beads, a pencil, and of course, a card. :)


Thank you Shannon!  I hope you enjoyed my exchange as much as I like yours!  Here's what I sent out to Shannon...


More exchanges to be posted when they arrive! :p

Sunday, November 20, 2011

planning for 2012!

It's never too early to plan ahead!  Never mind that it's IHSW and I haven't even picked up a needle yet this weekend.  I blame NaNo, Skyrim, and errands, in that order!

I've added a page with details of what I'll be stitching next year in Measi's WIPocalypse.  This is nothing special, just a list of projects I expect to carry over into 2012.  Too many. >.>

The interesting part is my list for the Crazy January Challenge, because it has PICTURES!  Oooooh! :p

List is subject to change at my whim, but I'm 99% sure this is final.  A lot of it is kitted up already, and I plan to order missing threads soon.  Like right now.  Time for shopping, gotta go! :)

I'll leave you with a pic of Hope by Brooke Nolan, one of my fifteen chosen designs, so this post isn't totally boring. :p

Friday, November 18, 2011

Wisteria... and stash!

Finally updating!  I finished my Loopy Beaded Scarf (knit project) but I don't have a picture as it hasn't been blocked yet... need to get more pins before that sucker can be stretched!

I caved and showed my GF what I'm making her for Christmas, because I just wasn't making ANY progress by trying to stitch during the day.  I've been all NaNo all the time during the days, and in the evenings I couldn't work on it because... GF is home. :p  There was no way I could finish on time that way, so I gave in and showed her...

Here's what it'll be when I finish!


And my progress!  Before I showed her, all I had was the green stem, the bottom two leaves, and the darker branch that runs diagonally from the stem toward the bottom right.  I've spent TWO NIGHTS on it since then, look how much has been completed!  Almost three times what I started with now!

And if this looks different from the model pic, it's because I changed the very dark brown in the leaves/flowers to a lighter brown so it wasn't so stark. :)


Okay, you say, that's nice, but where's the STASH?  Well, I found a message board post from someone who was selling some fabrics, including some Sugar Maple Fabrics.  I've never met a piece of SMF I didn't like, so I had to snag a few.  I used to wonder what the big deal was about SMF, but once I got my hands on my very first piece, they instantly became my favorites.  Just look at the amazing colors!


Sadly, I've never STITCHED on a piece of SMF yet (despite having about, er, ten pieces of the stuff...) but that's got to change.  My next start will be on SMF or else!

Okay, back to the NaNo dungeon... up to 31k words and I've hit a sweet spot where I have two VERY easy chapters going at once, both of which will end up being super long.  Finally, all that struggle earlier this month is paying off! <3

Friday, November 11, 2011

knitting update!

Well, it's not stitching but I do have a knitting finish!  Sorry for the terrible picture, I took it with my Playbook while it was still on the blocking wires (stretching out the lace pattern) so it's not the best...


This crocus dishcloth pattern is free from Kelley on Blogger. :)

My GF and I have started going to the knit-in Thursday nights at Yarntopia.  I'm almost finished with my loopy beaded scarf thanks to two three-hour sessions there.  Of course, I've already started a new project, but there's so little to show that it's not worth a picture.  It seriously looks like a line of yarn on a needle.  REAL exciting. :p

This month will probably be poo for stitching as NaNoWriMo has eaten my brain.  I'm trying hard to get ahead but after taking last weekend off (BAD idea) I'm scrambling to keep up.  I'm exactly 300 words behind as of this very moment, so I should be able to get ahead this weekend.  Surely I can crank out more than 2000 words on a Saturday!

Another off topic thought: if you haven't seen In Time yet, I highly recommend it!  I've been anticipating the movie for AGES (two words: Cillian! Murphy!) but fully expected it to be terrible since the script was so dang cheesy.  It wasn't exactly high art, but it was quite enjoyable.  And, y'know... Cillian. ^^b

HAHA I can't believe this is the first time my sad obsession has reared its ugly head here. :p

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

October/November goals!


A new month, a new set of goals. :D

October 2011:
- stitch Measi's exchange ornament - DONE!
- stitch Shannon's exchange ornament - DONE!
- finish the treetop on Tree of Hope - DONE!
- spend at least 10 hours on Cirque - only 6 hours in here :x
- NO NEW STARTS! - DONE!

Unplanned:
- stitched Ruth's exchange ornament
- stitched Rachel's exchange ornament
- finished all 4 exchange ornaments!

Because I'm mean, you can see the backs of the ornaments. :p



I think I need to accept that I'm not feeling Cirque right now, and that it's okay to put it away for a while.  If I keep forcing it, I'm gonna set it on fire or something. :/

So, November is gonna be tough since I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year (write 50k words in one month, basically!) and I'm determined to win this time!  Already got 2241 words for today and it's only 10am WOOT WOOT. \o/  Thanks in great part to Darren Hayes and his amazing, inspiring, flawless, etc voice!  ILU <3333

Anyway, that means stitchy goals will be a bit light this month.

November 2011:
- send all exchange packages by the 15th
- finish Amaryllis kit - didn't realize it came back from the RR almost done! (thanks Blu!)
- finish Butterfly Scroll kit - another near-finish from the RRs :)
- make visible progress on Tree of Hope
- WIN NANO (ahaha not stitchy but whateverrrrrr)