I just finished this!

A Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past cross stitch towel! Yea!

I got back into cross stitch a week ago. Lauren found one of my old cross stitch kits that I misplaced over two years ago. I'm currently very into video game themed crafts. In fact, my next project is a line of head shots of Saint Seiya characters! It'll look quite nice when I finish it someday.

I finished the butterfly!

Woo-hoo!

New Additions to the Family

We gained two new additions to the family over the weekend; Joey's bike and a new mattress set. I don't have a picture of the mattress, but here's a picture of Joey and the bike.



We originally agreed not to get a bike until he turned forty, but that promise obviously did not hold. I feel better about it now. The idea of the huge trucks and SUV's that litter the streets worried me more than any potential irresponsibility. I can't wait until gas prices become so lucrative that more people will be forced to ride bikes and scooters. But that's another lost cause since gas prices are dropping.

I just finished grading over eighty freshmen exams this past week. Most of them were decent and showed some sort of attentive behavior in class. There were some, however, that made me worry a little. Did they really believe the stuff they were writing? Or were they just making up stuff to fill a page? I'm hoping for the latter, because if it were the former, then they must have spent the past eighteen years of their lives in a well.

So it's that time of the year again! No, not just hectic Christmas present making time, but also paper proposals and research! Even though I'm taking three classes this semester, I only have to do formal papers for two; the Nuclear Age class and Thought and Philosophy in Early China. I have a preliminary bibliography and a sketchy proposal for both. Once I research more, I will put up my proposal.

For projects, I haven't finished anything yet. I am so close to finishing up the Oriental Butterfly.



It's so close to being done, but I just can't bring myself to finish it. December might be my finishing up month then.

I have a suspicious feeling that I won't achieve all my grand plans for handmade crafts this year, but at least I tried. I'm too fickle in my craft making process, and that leads to a lot of happiness with not a lot of results. So that means I'll just have to start now for next year.

Some updates

I crafted quite vigorously for the past week and am almost finished with one project!



This is for my friend Ladydurer. It's coming along very nicely, much faster than I expected. Hopefully I will get it done by the end of this year and frame it for her.



This is the second of the red sock I'm making. With the second one, I have a lot mistakes due to practice and memorization of the pattern.



Finally this is for the baby of mutual friends. It's made with Bernat baby cotton and very nice to knit with. I think because of the needle size (8), the tension is quite lose and almost stretchy, something not too common with cotton thread. But for now it's bouncy and soft.

A Belated Update

Let me get the pictures out of the way first!

Socks made with the most wonderful yarn I found. It's Panda Soy and it loves me!


Shawl for Jeff's mom. I'm not as disheartened as before, it's actually getting substantially larger!


And finally, my precious baby that I would easily trade Joey for on a desperate day.


The three I have been working on diligently without too many breaks in between. I am determined to finish something by the end of the year.

Onto more serious things!

I passed my language proficiency recently. I figured I would, but I didn't know how those mistakes were going to count against me. However, the test only grades according to "pass" or "fail", and I definitely did not do bad enough to fail.

My class of zealous interest right now is the Creative Nonfiction class. There are writing exercises every week, and our topics are usually self-centered due to the nature of the course. It's like an extensive class in academic blogging but without spams in my comment section. The final at the end of the semester is quite unorthodox. Instead of a large paper, we are to send one of our papers in for publication and show the evidence to the professor. This is an exercise to "get us used to rejection." I suspect there will be lots of sniveling at home after I receive my letter.

This class has inspired me to blog more, though I have yet to act on it. Perhaps I'll start posting short essays in order to strengthen my writing for class. Perhaps.

Lalala!

So it feels pretty nice to not have homework for the past week... nice... but also a little weird. I'm so used to feeling guilty crafting near a deadline that I can't really handle all this carefree feeling! But it's OK, I'm going to take my language proficiency for my Master's soon, so that'll weigh nice and heavy on my mind.

Joey and I have started watching Deadwood. We're kind of behind on all that TV stuff ... oh well! It's pretty typical of HBO; saucy, apathetic, and gratuitous boobies and violence. It was a little hard to get into at first, especially since we just watched OZ, another HBO show, but we're starting to get into it! Now that Al the Gem Saloon owner finally have some formidable competition, I can rest a little easier.

Now... onto the updates!

For finished stuff, I have this lovely green doily I made for my sister-in-law. It wasn't a pleasant journey though, I messed up a number of times during the process. But I did have a lot of fun blocking it. That's definitely a new experience! I thought I could just get away with putting around twenty pins at the most, but every time I think I'm done, I look and find another spot that needs "rounding." Maomao roosted on it for quite a while on Saturday, though unfortunately no baby doilies hatched.



This next one I am still working on diligently, my darling precious. I had to start working on the castle lest everything over there unravels. I did the fold and fold to find the center, but still managed to get everything shifted to the right. Oh well!

The nice thing about SNES screen shots is that pixel art is done in repeating motifs. It's not all fancy shmancy like the CG stuff, just repetitious motifs! This comes in handy because I don't have to consult the chart too often.



I am still laboring over the "Between Meals Centerpiece." I finally finished half of it, at least according to the number of rows. I've been warned though that the real challenge comes in the last quarter. I used a smaller hook than asked for, and it's still going to turn out huge! I'm not quite sure what to do with it when it's done. Unless someone can find a good home for it, I'll keep it for myself. Actually! I have a classmate getting married in early June, and she said her colors were dusty rose and all those Victorian colors. Maybe... just maybe if I can finish it, I'll give it to her.

The picture looks a bit bad, but I keep on forgetting to take it home from work to get a real picture. But I believe that it's significantly bigger than last time!



This final one is one of many solutions to my biggest problem: leftover size 10 thread.



None of my doilies use up a skein neatly, not even close! I hate to just throw it away when I can do something with it... I flipped through my patterns trying to find something useful as I don't want too many doilies. I found these potholder patterns I've been holding onto! Since the size 10 are really too thin for dishcloths, I'll go for the next best thing. Decorative pot holders!

I lied!

So I said I would be good and do homework without playing or crafting, but in reality, I've been doing both! Extensively! Though of course I still spent quite a bit of time on research and papers.

anyways! Onto stuff that's more fun!

I've started three new major projects... things... Perler Bead art, a crochet doily, and a cross stitch!



These are those little plastic beads that you iron together to form awesomeness. I've been having lots of fun with them until Joey decided to "help." Big clumsy fingers and small beads do not mix! In fact, he just destroyed the one-up mushroom by helping. So now the kit is safely tucked away where he can't find them anymore until I get the time to do it again.

I'm planning to make them into magnets, though after a search on Etsy for other perler bead art, I've had more inspiration. People have made key chains, pen holders, and general awesomeness with them.



This is for Mom! After the completion of the other two huge doilies, I went through a long funk, thinking... I'll never make another doily again! Well, after finding out that I still have much to learn about knitting, I came back to crochet! Nothing better in life than avoiding a challenge (har har)

A lot of people on Ravelry have made this, and so has Ladydurer! So I'm totally up for the challenge.



And last and definitely the best! This is my darling precious for the year. The image is from the title screen of "The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past." The third installment of the Zelda series, though this time for the Snes! This resulted from aimless wandering around on the internet a while back, and I stumbled upon this site:

Sprite Stitch

There's so many indescribably neat things on there! It's been so long since I've been gaming Snes games. There's still a bit of shame attached that I traded my Snes for a Playstation, but I'm getting over it.

This is getting to be a lot of fun! Though I've calculated that.. if I were to manage at least 100 stitches per day, I will be able to finish it in a year and a third..... eh....