Not Too Shabby

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

I've gotten so much done! It's a pity that it won't be enough to get the top row finished by my birthday as I had wanted... Sometimes that's just the way the ball bounces. I'm trying to keep stitching as if I might though. If nothing else, I will reach the far corner by then and that's not nothing.

The brownish reddishorangeish blob down below the lake is part of the Dwarven District. And I'm just about to get into a little bit of the castle. Really, this whole thing will be a little more fun to talk about when I can call more things out. They may still just look like blobs, but they'll be specific blobs.

You know... I know that my time is my own and doing what I enjoy is my business, but sometimes I think my beloved will come back and see what I've been up to and wonder why in the world I spend my time on such ridiculous things. Other times I'm pretty certain it's just going to add to his thinking that I'm the most amazing person on the face of the earth. Largely this is because that's what he tells me now. One would think me continuing to be me will be all that's necessary to keep that train going. Love is indisputably silly.

The stockings are finished!! And they were finished in time for their deadline. Victory! I am so very happy with how they turned out. My first pair of socks! How fantastic is that?

I went my own way with the decreases along the back. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not bad either and I learned a lot while doing it.

They are so crazy soft I don't want to take them off. I do want them to remain looking as nice as possible though so I'm only wearing them with slippers to keep the soles from getting dirty. I think probably my next pair should be in a color. That might help.

They don't like to stay up even with the ribbon. I want to try to put some elastic in at the cuff, but that is something I'm fine with putting on the back burner for now.

I've also been doing stitchings of the sewing and embroidery variety. These bags are for the Mickey-obsessed lady who is on Jean's Christmas list and are in lieu of the cross stitch banner we had started. There are five bags in total with three different Mickey poster patterns. Two of the patterns are of Mickey cartoons and the other is Disney movie posters.

The embroidery patterns were all purchased on Etsy. I think they added a nice touch.

Carrying the Banner

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

I got the banner stitched! Wheee! And you can actually read it! Mostly I have decided that all of the text that will be on this thing isn't really going to be perfectly legible, but that's okay because anybody who is really going to appreciate it already knows what it says. They know it's Stormwind and they know which section is the Dwarven District and which is the Mage Quarters, etc. By convincing myself that the entire project is a stitching of a drawing of a map and more artistic than functional, so to speak, I was able to get my pedantry to sit down and shut up. But, all the same, I am quite pleased that this part is actually legible. Sure, the r and m are a touch muddled, but all in all I think it's pretty good.

Which is great because up close things looked a little dubious on that score.

I made excellent progress on stocking 1 this weekend too. The six row repeat in this simple lace pattern is really easy to memorize and knitting it is has been very enjoyable. My hands get tired long before I do.

Stormwind Week 23

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

I'm saving the banner for when I start my next audiobook, which my beloved has been excited for me to check out for awhile. It's theme is very fitting to the project and so it felt right to leave it listen to it while stitching the great big Stormwind banner. I've just got to finish up the one I'm currently listening to first.

I scrapped my pink pop test socks. They had served their purpose insofar as learning is concerned and I realized I didn't particularly care about having a pair of socks like that right now. Maybe some day. So I dove into ones that I do want now.

Currently they are only cuffs, but someday they will grow up to be thigh-high lace stockings.

October Dramedies

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

I think that maybe it's a possibility I am keeping on target? It could happen. The world is full of possibilities. I'm not sure which target that would be though. Month? Year long? I'm not crunching any numbers right now. I'm just stitching along and trying to remain as zen as possible whilst doing it. I mean, part of its purpose is to be a target for my pent up emotions that are the result of the brutal estrangement from my beloved because he's been banished to the other side of the country to toil at a lost cause! Exiled in misery! Languishing in the depths of despair!* It really doesn't serve as a cathartic aid or do me a whole lot of good to get all worked up and pressure myself about my progress.

* Really mostly spending all of his time working, playing WoW when he isn't, and, you know, pining for me. As miseries go it really isn't the worst ever. Hyperbole is fun though. And while this whole situation is infinitely more complicated than what I present here, I try not to be too much of a baby about it.

Beloved's Throw has come a long way but it hasn't been an especially smooth ride. I've made a lot of mis-crosses. This doesn't surprise me given the sheer number of them, but it can get a little frustrating. I am compelled to fix them. There's no way I can leave them once I've found them. Usually this happens only a few rows away so laddering down isn't too big of a deal. But then I found one back on row 10 of the very first repeat while I was on row 19 of the second repeat. That meant laddering down more than 50 rows! And we're not talking just doing it to a few stitches.

I dutifully set about fixing.

Crappy phone pic is crappy.

After 9 rows I realized I hadn't actually gone down far enough to fix the problem. How I managed that I have no idea. I ripped it all out again plus two more rows.

Fifteen rows later things were going wonderfully.

Five rows after that I saw I'd made another mistake back in that "wonderful" section. Boo hiss.

Rip back. Redo. Rip back. Redo.

The entire process was a two steps forward and one step back situation.

It was totally worth it in the end. I would not have been satisfied if I'd left it. And honestly, it felt like a lot but given that I was only on the second repeat and I'm betting I'm going to wind up doing ten or eleven, it could have been worse. I have to be better about looking my work over more often. I don't expect that I won't make more mistakes, but it would be a lot happier to catch and fix them sooner rather than later!

The Best Laid Plans...

So do you know what happens when you go hiking and the clouds open up and unleash a torrent of rain and you are chilled to the bone and you totally get the flu and wind up miserable and fighting to get through each day for two whole weeks? You don't quite make your goals, that's what.

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

Page four was supposed to be completed in September. I guess now October is half of page four and all of page five? I mean, October's got one whole extra day in it so obviously that should work.

I've got a couple roadtrips planned for October. I have tickets to the ballet. I've signed up for a Tai Chi class with my sister. I'm also doing graphic design for a friend's jewelry business and helping her with parties. Add in the requisite time for emotional distress flailing because of prolonged separation and I've totally got this in the bag! Awesome.

So yeah. Probably this isn't going to happen...

It still doesn't worry me about my end-of-year goals. I don't know if I'm being hopelessly naive or just confident. I guess we'll see.

Stormwind Week 17

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

I think it's safe to say that I have passed the halfway mark across the top row! Annnd I'm over 16% done with the whole project! Which... isn't exactly a milestone percentage but I'm pretending. Because two things to celebrate is even better than one.

My Excel formula is predicting April 30th 2017 for the first row finish. Such little faith it has! I'd been shooting to hit that by Christmas or my birthday (New Year's Day). I'm choosing to believe that it is still going to happen because despite my formula it's really not unreasonable. It would only require sticking to my one page a month goal. And the last page is only a partial.

Socktacular

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map at the end of August:

Wah wah wah. Fail.

I was not at all impressed with my progress, but at the same time I can't beat myself  up about it either. August was just very much an incredibly busy month and sometimes you've got to roll with it. I made some memories that I wouldn't trade for anything.

But I got a fair bit of progress done over Labor Day Weekend.

Stormwind Map now:

I swear it looks like Stormwind has a baseball diamond...

I'm happy to be on the fourth page even if it there's still some left to do on page three. Page four has the start of the banner that says Stormwind and for some reason getting that stitched feels like a big deal to me.  In addition to that, the first column in page four marks the halfway point across the row.

Wanderer's Cove last time:

Wanderer's Cove now:

This is the last update Wanderer's Cove is going to get for awhile, I think. I am, once again, disenchanted with the whole thing. It's the same ol' same ol' with me. While I adore working on it, I'm annoyed by the fact that the design doesn't match the original art for intensity and vibrancy. Baaah. Why do I do this to myself?

Moving on to happier things...

Finding knitting time in the last month was a lot easier than cross stitching time. Nature of the beast, I guess; there's less to organize.

Beloved's Cable Throw is coming along nicely! I'm so very pleased with it.

I started it originally just as the pattern was written but after doing the ribbing I decided to frog it and start over with an extra repeat. I'm glad I did! I think the size will be much cozier now, though honestly I sort of wish I'd added two.

The color has been hard to capture. I haven't quite managed a picture that truly shows it yet. I'll work on that.

I also have a new start. I never ever never thought I'd be able to knit socks. The whole concept of the toe and turning the heel sounded like it would forever be beyond me because what is this special sock language that I do not speak (!?), but then I stumbled across the Turkish cast-on on youtube and the FLK heel on Ravelry and suddenly SOCKS!!!

Basic socks hardly seem worth the effort though. I'm all about the knee and thigh highs myself and always have been. But what makes it even better is that I know my beloved is particularly fond of thigh highs and, well, that's fun, right?

This first pair is going to be plain, no lace or cables or anything, because I want to learn the techniques before I go too crazy. So lesson plans are 1. toe  2. fit  3. heel  4. leg shaping. I knitted and reknitted the toe of this pair at least seven times and the foot a couple as well, but it was totally worth it as now I know exactly how to create a lovely toe custom fitted for my feetsies.

It is a thing of beauty.

I'm using Universal Yarns Bamboo Pop in the Bright Spot colorway on size 1.5 needles.

Sock yarns made without out wool are stupidly hard to find, but I have some HiKoo by CoBaSi and and Loops & Threads Woolike and I've ordered some Unikatwolle 4-fadig by 100Farbspiele. Oh, and I want to get some Knit One, Crochet Two Pediwick as well. So it's all very exciting and also... unfortunately moderately expensive.

August Excuses

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

This is the first time since I've started this blog that I didn't manage a post every week. Two weeks is still quite fine, I'm just a little sad I wasn't able to keep it up. I've been doing a lot of socializing and a lot of summer activities and something had to give.

My next update probably won't be for another two weeks again. I've got a lot of things planned but the big one and the one that will be robbing me of quite a bit of stitching time is that I'm heading out of state (500+ miles according to google maps) to go on vacation with my friend Kristina. We will be learning about communism (okay... 19th century Shakers) and hiking and doing much yoga and eating seed-to-table freshness*. I will feel so granola. I'll probably have to go see a really crude movie when I get home and eat some McDonald's to even it all out. :p

*This is really not so different from normal life. I cook a lot and much of my veg comes from the garden, but we're ignoring that fact for now.

Simply Charming

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

Note to self: Angled morning light is really bad for those ridges.

Stitching on poor Stormwind is touch and go. I'm really never especially keen to work on it when the weather gets all hot and humid and muggy. It forces me to abandon my pretty ugly chair and the fantastic light I have next to it and seek refuge in the air conditioned living room. I like stitching there from time to time (how else am I going to watch Marco Polo as I stitch, right?) but the lighting is awful and it really kills my eyes. I wear a headlamp and that's a huge help, but it starts to give me a headache after awhile.

The pretty in pretty ugly chair is not a synonym for very. The pretty ugly chair is so named because it is both pretty and ugly simultaneously.  I bought it for $5 at a yard sale.

Mixing mustard and tangerine with sea foam is probably a crime somewhere.

Moving on...
Before I could cast on my beloved's Threaded Cable Throw I had to sort out my yarn situation. I am a huge fan of both Willow Yarns Wash and Berroco Comfort. They're excellent examples of how far acrylic yarns have come, all cushy and soft and yummy.

So we've got Wash in Deep Pond and Wash in Sapphire on the bottom and then Comfort in Primary Blue on the top.

... Give me a minute, I'm still amused by "Wash in Deep Pond".

Amusingly enough (to me, anyway) the winner is Wash in Deep Pond! The Comfort in Primary Blue is where my heart is colorwise, it's just a bit darker and more saturated, but I got scared after reading reviews on Ravelry that say the Berroco Comfort pills and fuzzes after a lot of use. My experience with it has been pretty positive, but I've only used it for smaller objects like hats and arm warmers.

Whilst waiting for the yarn I thought I'd make myself some proper stitch markers. Closed and with lobster clasps because those I can use in crochet. Up to this point I usually made do with those itsy hair ties for little girls. They only work for knitting though and they like to roll under the stitches so they're not ideal.

I used these sort of pre-strung charms and just added to them. They're all kinds of wonky and need to be straightened out but perfectly functional even as is.

My mom got really excited when I showed them to her. She knits teeny, tiny little doll clothes with lace weight yarns. She asked if I could make her some smaller stitch markers.

So I spent a couple hours more whipping up four sets of six for her. Hers were constructed all of separate findings.

Stormwind Week 9

I'm off in my week count for Stormwind. According to what I've posted this would be week 10, but going by when I did actually start I'm only at week 9. My goal is 2000 stitches a week so I should be at 18000. I'm at 19900ish, so I'm happily ahead of where I intended to be.

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

Not much to say about Stormwind right now. The second building near the harbor is now coming into being... I don't know what that one is either.

My beloved's Harry Potter scarf is all knitted and the ends are woven in! YAY!

I will finish in July 2016 a present for a November birthday... that I can't actually give until 2017 even though it is still for this year. I have never been so ahead of things.

I need to attach the fringe yet, but I'm extremely motivated to get it done as quickly as possible because I promised myself I wouldn't start a new knitting project until I finished it (the occasional dishcloth or charity/baby blanket doesn't count) and I am dying to get going on my new project.

I learned how to do cables only a year and a half ago or so and ever since I've had my heart set on doing a big cabled project. I had a few patterns all ready to go, but they all went bust when my allergies flared up and tried to kill me and I had to get rid of all of my wool and wool blend yarns. (Beloved's HP scarf is wool, but I've found I can handle some contact with only minor issues when my immune system isn't on the fritz.) I was out hundreds of dollars and I shelved the whole idea because it upset me. Now I'm ready to jump back in and me and my acrylic are going to kick ass and make something beautiful!

My beloved is going to get his own lovely blue Threaded Cable Throw.

Just try and tell me that's not gorgeous.

The pattern calls for dk weight yarn but I have decided to go with a worsted instead. Using the dk it makes up to 47.75 inches wide. That's not quite big enough. I tossed around the idea of doing an extra repeat but decided to change the yarn instead. I have three different possibilities in mind. I've knitted up a swatch of the first but only got the second yarn in the mail last night. I hope to do that swatch tonight and then throw them both in the washer to see how they fare. The third is just a different colorway of the first yarn so it's okay that it hasn't arrived yet.

I have every intention of doing an afghan for myself as well. I've picked a seriously stunning pattern that will be a big test of my abilities (I think... the pattern hasn't actually arrived yet. It's a book, limited release from what I gather and a bit on the pricey side so far as I'm concerned, and I could only find it in Canada.) I think I'm going to work on them concurrently, but I want to stagger the starts quite a bit. I'm undecided on color for mine so that works out nicely enough. I'll post pictures when I've got it all sorted out.

So a Pirate and a Wizard Get in a Fight...

Stormwind Map last time:

Stormwind Map now:

The darker blue-ish parallelogram is a roof. I do not know what building it is meant to represent since it's post-Cata. In my mind it's a boat house since it's right on the harbor. I highly doubt it is, but doubt has not stopped me from pretending things before. Hardly seems to make sense to let it now.

HP scarf before:

HP scarf now:

Scarves love posing on patio swings. Well known fact.

I know it looks like those are holes in the middle bit there but really that's where my joins are. That will disappear once the ends are woven in.

I've also started a dishcloth.

Dishcloth or doll-sized afghan? You decide.

And... Harry lost his wand and had to borrow Obi-Wan's lightsaber. No, I don't know why. But it all makes for a more dynamic progress picture, no?

The pattern is from Bernat Kitchen Kolors Dishcloths booklet. I got it mainly because I wanted the crochet patterns, so of course I started with a knitted one. Of course. :p

In other news, the mockup for Forsaken was added to the HAED site! I was very happy about that. Check it out:

I'm super picky about how faithful the finished product is going to be compared to the original. This is still gorgeous and maybe if I'd never seen the original artwork it wouldn't bother me, but there is just so much black! It's mixed in with the greens and robbing them of vibrancy and the hair is almost entirely and there's so much in the cloak. In addition, I don't care for the way the greens blend off in the background. The lines are too distinct. So I've decided to stop working on it.

This is all the farther I ever got on it:

I had opted not to do the black border (or would have added it at the end) and I had started in the lower left hand corner.

I guess it's not a huge loss. I felt like I was a lot farther along that I was, I guess. But it still sucks. I have learned that I simply cannot buy a chart without there being a mockup. Nope. Not even gonna take the chance.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to repurpose this fabric or just tuck it away in case I look at it again years down the road and change my mind.