Keeping you posted

 As ever, I'm not entirely sure where to start.  I've been crafting a lot in the last few weeks.  I dedicated myself to working on Persephone cross stitch, but decided that the pull was simply too strong and started the Yoshis I was telling you about.  And I just steadily worked on socks in the meantime.

I'll start with Persephone:

 

 

I believe this was three days worth of pictures.  I finished the silk background stuff!  Very exciting!  I think I mentioned I was playing thread chicken, but I actually had plenty of thread to finish.  There isn't any background silk in the bottom half of the piece, so I am done with those colors!

Next, I finished her face and started working down her skirt.

Her face doesn't look complete for several reasons.  1) there's a lot of back-stitching that I'll do at the very end to outline things, and 2) there are a lot of beading that I'll do after the back-stitching.  The beaded stitches don't get floss until there's beads, so it looks a bit patchy.

Anyway, this is where I picked up the Yoshis!

This one I counted up from the middle in order to start at the top.  This cross stitch is probably one of the most difficult ones I've done, if only because I printed in black and white and there are So Many Colors.  It's a bit like those optical illusions where you can't see all the dots no matter how hard you try.  So, the first few days felt slow because I kept finding more of a symbol I thought I had completed.

I think it was this point where some helpful LSGer recommended an app for me to try, called Pattern Keeper.  This is a incredibly valuable tool.  You can upload the PDF to the program and it highlights the symbol you're working on. No more hoping I got everything and realizing a few colors later that I missed some.

I still use the paper pattern for larger areas of one color, cause unfortunately you can draw a line so you can keep track of where you are, but it is super helpful for getting all of one color done on the whole page.

I did use the paper pattern for the black though.  The black stitches are outline stitches, which is another odd choice for the design.  Usually patterns have back stitching.  I'm not really bothered by this way, I've just not seen anything like it.  (though, now that I think about it, the pokemon didn't have back stitching, but they weren't entirely outlined by black either)

This is how it looks today.

In the meantime, last weekend, I did a project with Hazel.  She wanted to sew a doll, based on a video game character she likes, Mutantheart Omori.

We learned a lot of skills, hand sewing most of the doll itself.  I did use the machine for the dress.  I had to take apart an old American Girl dress that I sewed a few years ago to get pattern pieces.  I had thrown the pattern out in the move.  But I remembered how to assemble the dress and most of the interesting bits.  No problemo.

It was really sort of exciting getting the call to craft from Hazel.  She's 14, and largely uninterested in the fiber world, textiles, sewing.  She likes to draw and is creative in other ways.  She wanted to make a doll?! Why yes, let's figure it out and do the thing.

And finally there's been a constant knitting of socks.

I finished Hazel's pair of knee socks:

I then started my own, not knee, but still stripey socks:

The first one is done, the second one is halfway through the cuff.

In the next few weeks/months, I have plans. I actually ordered some indie self-striping socks for my next few pairs.  It was not cheap, not like knit picks yarns, so I'll want to use every inch of the stuff.  I'll probably do a pair of regular length socks and some shorties. :)

And finally in the vein of cross-stitching again, I think I want to design my own.  Based on my favorite video game, final fantasy nine.  I looked through etsy and there are some designers who've done some of the characters, but I think I want to try to do most of them.  Somehow.  I've never designed cross stitch before.  But, they are video game characters, so pixelated?  I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to start with this, but I'll keep you posted.

House stuff: we went for the design meeting a few weekends ago and finalized the last of the design stuff.  It is officially no longer a hole in the ground, foundation should be pouring next week.  Would have been last week but we've been getting a lot of rain.

I realized last time that I meant to talk about slow crafting, "slow knitting day" but I didn't get around to it.  Mostly I think it just means I'm not going to worry about the finishing of larger items.  I think I've grazed this topic in the past.  But really it boils down to, I have plenty of sweaters and shawls and other things.  The storing of these things is almost as stressful as the storing of the yarn that these things get made out of, if you know what I mean.  So, that's one of the reasons I've been focusing on cross stitching a lot more, too.  cross stitching is slower, much slower, and I have a lot of new walls to fill when we move!