Titular Title

Hey there friends!

It's been a few weeks, and I have things to share!

Last we spoke, I was well on my way to finishing the Final Fantasy IX title on my cross stitch, and I'm pleased to say that I crossed that finish line a few days ago!

 

There's not an enormous amount of new information or things to say about it. I got started on the first character on the right, Freya Crescent:

This one has a few things to mention.  The pattern maker seemed to mistranslate one of the colors.  It was a free pattern maker, so I'm not too fussed, but I did have an issue to work out. One of the symbols, which was a major component of the cloak and hat, is meant to be an orangey coral, and for whatever reason, the pattern maker made it a bright orange.  We're talking fluorescent. It was bad.

I started off with that symbol in the hat just doing the orange as written, because as a friend said to me "simultaneous contrast is a thing"  Which I had to look up, but it was on my mind as well-- that just because a color looks one way on its own doesn't mean it'll translate that way when placed next to other colors.  There can be muting or brightening or other neat optical illusions that happen when you put colors next to colors.

Well, that didn't really happen with the orange. It stuck out like a sore thumb.  So, I continued the hat stitching by just replacing it with a shade of coral and going over some of the exes that were already done with coral, to get some mixing.  I didn't want the color to be too flat. I worked really hard to make the colors give dimension to the character.  There's no outlining yet, and you can already see where the collar is folded over the beginning of the sleeve, and all the lovely shaping of the hat, and that's all from shading.

Finally, in the cloak I worked on yesterday, I decided to grab a strand each of the coral and the bright orange and that did the trick!  I also went over any coral or orange (of that particularly troublesome symbol) in the hat with a single strand of the opposite color to blend it fully.

Et voila! Freya is looking very nice.  It's so gratifying to see my pixel art creation come to life in thread!

And let me tell you! After months of working on the title, it is such a relief to be doing something other than words and background!  I have a feeling that the characters are going to fly!

Speaking of coral. Last time I talked about my newly acquired stash and the subsequent t-shirt I cast on for Hazel.

Well, I finished it just a few days ago!

I'm fairly happy with it.  I... don't think Hazel likes it too much though.  The first thing she said was, "Where are the sleeves?" and.. well, to be fair to her, I did say t-shirt. XD

I'm not going in and adding sleeves, by the way. This thing is done.  Blocked and everything.

Also, when worn, the sides of the armholes are supposed to hang over the shoulders in a sleeve-like manner.  I'll let her know that, maybe it'll turn her around.

One mindless knitting project down, I naturally picked up my socks from before.

This is the second sock.  The first one, if you recall, goes from yellow to red to dark gray, and were done toe-up.  This one is cuff down, and I started from light gray.  I think the toe here will be red. You can't tell, but there's already a lot of red in the black in the last inch or so of the sock.

There's not an enormous amount to talk about with this sock, it's my usual, although it is handspun, which makes it special.

At this point of the year, we're staring down the barrel of a weekend of the highest highs in temperature so far, so I am anxiously looking forward to the great cooling so I can wear these.

And that, my friends, is pretty much all there is going on right now.  I did start a new wheel spin, but I haven't gotten very far since cross stitch has been taking over my entire waking life.  I did not spin very much at all in the last two weeks.  I am thinking about my next pair of socks.  I'm debating between doing the other skein of must stash I bought a few months ago, or grabbing something from the new stash I got last month.  For example, Halloween is coming up pretty soon, and I know at least one of the skeins is Halloweeny.

But that's all there is to say, really.  I hope you are well. I hope you are staying healthy and cool and hydrated.

Cheers!