Sew Dance

Part 3 of the Wonderland Wrap CAL took a lot longer than expected. I kept messing up which didn't help. The pattern wasn't that hard but I would on occasion forget a puff or forget to secure the second puff. Finished another block of 10 across all 6 pages. Was starting the next row of blocks and suddenly got hit with, 'I'm tired of seeing dark colors.' So back to the dice. Rolled 'organized/inventory bin 5. Which included the yarn for the sports pillows. I knew I had the pattern in a different bin so I finished up the basketball which I had started years ago. I got the kit in 2015. Made half, though it looked weird with the rippling, stopped. Apparently I never blogged about it. And stuffing a 14" round pillow form into something only 10" wide took care of the rippling. Hardest part was trying to get the backstitching straight on something that was made in the round. I tried, but still a little wonky. Someone posted about a mystery SAL...

The non-counted cross stitch wasn't too bad at first. Tried to follow the stitching via the backstitching. Figured I could fudge a bit here and there. Ribbons fine, forelock: decent. Main: ugh. I don't know if I need to fudge the main, start one stitch lower, bring up what I had already put on the blue ribbon. Anyway, this is back in my closet. Picked up The Accolade, but realized the PDF I was sent was a different version. Original 6 patterns from GK were pre-password. While waiting for the correct one I made my Mom a scarf for her birthday. I called it Sully because it reminded me of the character from Monsters Inc. And progress on The Accolade now that I have it working on Pattern Keeper. Arab Tent and Insanity have different symbols, but seem to match up pattern-wise. Easier to redo my floss cards than to try and mess with the files. Plus, I can put the blends in the same order as PK and make them easier to find. And on a different note, I got Clyde a new c...

So far I've met and exceeded the 8 hour goal on the July challenge pieces I've worked on. Did three more rows on The Accolade. Finished the back edge of her belt. Also started the border for the M.A.P. Will continue to work on this throughout the SAL. A close up of the corner so you can see the colors I chose. And finally started the Under the Sea SAL. After working on 40 ct, the 28 count fabric seemed so easy to see... A bit late but, my patriotic outfit for the Fourth of July while stuck at work.

I only got four rows done. I had planned to do 10, but I was getting tired of the dark colors. The pommel of the sword and the top of her belt appeared though... So I switched to a crochet project that's been in my closet for a while. And I (re)discovered ebay. These plus 2 not pictured, plus 3 more charts on the way of carousel horses.

I've completed the next row of pages on The Accolade. I stayed up really late to do it too. 131 rows are now complete. So, back to crochet for a while and my new tree skirt. Also got a new phone, so pictures are going to look a bit different again. and it's November, which means it's time for NaNoWriMo again. As you can see below, I'm a bit behind with this year. I had a busy weekend and my muse has been distracted. So I'm not as 'in' this story as with other years. I am however writing something each day. Once I get to a section I know better I should be able to catch up. I'm also posting on Tablo  should anyone feel like reading my very rough draft.

So I finished the peacock. Still have to finish sewing the body to the tail but it's done. And I pulled out a really old UFO. The Accolade. Something funny; after working on HAED's and Insanity, I could almost have done this like I normally do. I'm getting spoiled by the number of stitches of the same color next to each other. I am kicking myself for going across all six pages at once though. Makes it take a really long time for anything to appear as it takes me about 1.5 hours for each row. That being said, I have six rows until the end of the 2nd row of pages. So almost have 12 pages complete out of 42.

I somehow managed to work on The Accolade for a week. Barely. On Thursday I got tired of it and switched projects. But I did manage to get down to row 118. I tried to hold on to finish 120 but couldn't. 13 rows until the end of the 2nd row of pages. Say hello to TW's Celestial Dragon. Or rather at the moment a tiny hint of dragon and most of the upper left corner border. For only using 29 DMC colors only 8 of those are actually used as solid colors. Everything else is blends. Update on my dancing. Friday, as I may have mentioned was my first competition with my new partner. We placed 17/23 in silver latin. I thought we should've at least made it to the semi finals but we didn't. Back to the studio for practice. A bit of good news, my mom bought me a new dress for next time. Similar in style to the roses one I made but leopard and I didn't have to spend time making it. My mom took video and I will edit it soon.

I seem to be a bit all over the place this week. Let me walk you through it. Sunday, I have declared this day to be for 'insanity'. I shall try and keep this up. So Monday, I picked up a new cross-stitch, Mystical Wizard. More on that later but here are the colors. Wednesday, I decided to work on one of my sewing projects. A 17.5" stuffed Christmas tree. I was going to make the 12" one but I had enough fabric if I ignored the included cutting diagram and got away with 1/8" less. But come Thursday, I was tired of my cross stitch. There's only so much I could take of stitching blue on blue, and mainly two colors of blue. Of course the upper left is the least interesting part color-wise of this piece. So I switched to The Accolade. I'll include the last photo I took of it (with my old phone) because I didn't get that many rows finished. But not bad for only two days.   And as today is Sunday, I worked on Insanity again. And...

Well, maybe not new on the cross-stitch front. Still working on The Accolade. I finished 11 more rows this past week. The sleeve has a lot of color changes. I now have 109 rows completed out of 425 making me about 25% complete on this piece. Another 3289 stitches completed and an estimated 380 hours of work so far. I don't know how much longer I'll keep working on this piece. The dark background is starting to get to me but at least by going across all 6 pages it's kept my attention. There are way too many pure background pages with nothing interesting going on in them in this piece. I went dancing for four hours last Sunday. Ended up not being able to move well until Thursday when the muscles around my hips/butt stopped hurting. I realize they end up being sore when I'm not using proper technique or am dancing on bent knees for a while. I may end up going to this party while I'm going to school unless I can find a practice partner. Tuesday is the start of cl...

I pulled out The Accolade from GK this week. I managed to complete 10 rows this week. 2,990 stitches. And I didn't even work on it Friday. I've managed to nearly complete the cuff on her arm and another face over to the right. I'll be happy when I get rid of that dark background but that won't be for a while yet. I probably could have taken a better picture. A week from Tuesday I start classes for my masters degree so I'll have a bit less time for my crafts. I got my books Friday and then went to see Newsies on Broadway. It made me wish I was singing and dancing on the stage myself. I miss that.