BIG Update! News, Perler Beads, a Completion, and a WIP!

Sorry I was gone for so many months. Things happened and I neglected this place. But now I'm back, and I've got a lot in this post, so listen up! :)

• My ever-growing list of projects is not merciful. I can think of at least seven things I said I would do, but haven't started yet, as well as several other things that I'd like to start, but haven't promised to someone. I've added several new patterns to my library on my computer, and I'm just positive I'll never finish all of them. So, you know. C'est la vie, and all like that. But it's just kind of disheartening to know that I love collecting patterns, but probably can't do every single one of them.


• Next semester, in the fall, I'll be taking many classes:

1. Psychology Research Methods II
2. Cognitive Psychology (plus a lab)
3. Theories of Personality
4. Art of the Young Child
5. The Medieval and Renaissance World

These will be taking up a whole lot of my time, so we'll see how that goes in terms of this blog.



• The "A Cup of Month" project has been horribly delayed, and I'll make the rest of those whenever I feel like it, I guess. I didn't like how inconsistent they looked, but I'll keep making them, I suppose. It's bad form to give up in the middle of a project! You can expect to see more of those soon. Eventually.



• I made a Perler bead rainbow! I'll probably end up adding bead projects like this one to my Etsy shop (once I open it...).
Think it should be a magnet? Or should I just leave it be, and let the buyer do whatever he or she wants with it?

Ain't that cute? :P

• The Avantasia bookmark has been finished, it has been for a while. However, it's still not properly done, as there is no border, lace, or anything surrounding it.. Also, I loathe full background colour fills now.
Just one small problem, though -- I seem to have misplaced the project. I guess it'll be a while before I find it again. Oops!



• I've started a new project, as a gift for my boyfriend. The pattern can be found here.

The key is not yet in place...

• And finally, I have a new free pattern for you! It's Pusheen!

Only the cutest.

Sorry again for my absence, and happy stitching! I'll do my best to keep updating. Also, the solstice just passed, so happy official start of summer!

WIP Update: Avantasia Bookmark

I've been working on and off on that bookmark, sometimes going for a week or so without doing anything. Unfortunately, schoolwork is holding me down a bit more than I'd like. And on top of that, I must get to work on that Chinese stitch! But then there's another gift I'm planning for someone who's about to graduate, as well as another gift for someone far away, along with several other ideas bouncing around in my mind. So it's been pretty hectic, tying to keep up with everything all at once.

But on the upside (I think), I have only 43 more rows of white to go on the bookmark. I'll probably put it down for a while so I can get to work on those other projects which, quite frankly, are more important. This bookmark is basically a personal project, not a gift.

And then I have to try to finish it properly...

I don't know which project to tackle first, in terms of taking a break from this bookmark. Probably it'll end up being the most simple one, though. We'll see. (:

Pattern: A Cup of March

The third cup is a mug of beer, because why not? I made the mug from an actual image this time, instead of making pixel art from scratch, because it's late in the month and I'm lazy.

The border has adorable clovers, a classic March symbol. I was going to do kites, but decided against it.

The French and Italian/Spanish are a separate image this time. Sorry about that.

100x100 Grid.

Since Spanish and Italian had the same result.

"So, What's Your Favorite Font?"

The bookmark from a couple of posts earlier is about a third of the way done now, in terms of finishing the white background, so I decided to take a break on it for a bit. No pictures of its background progress until it's fully finished, I'm thinking.

But hey, taking a break doesn't have to mean a stitching hiatus! So I decided to stitch a little gift for one of my newer friends. It ended up being his name, since I wasn't sure of what other options I had. So questions were awkwardly asked and (very quickly) answered.
"What's your favorite colour?"
"Indigo."
"Aaaand... Are you crazy enough to have a favorite font?"
"Harrington!"
"Oh. Okay. You answered that rather quickly."
"Indeed."

And so it was.
A pattern was created and letters were stitched. I think it took around seven hours total, but I'm not sure.
I forgot to take a photo of its framed glory, though -- oops. The best I've got is this phone image with a horrifying attempt at lightening the edges of an obvious flashlight shine.

I swear it looks better than this.

Anyway, that's where I've been. Messing with the bookmark's background, and stitching this. And I still have more projects/gifty things to work on. Whee!
Just thought I'd update whoever's reading.~

Pattern: A Cup of February

Here's the second installment of monthly cups! The cup of February, of course, features hearts, and is a mug of hot chocolate. The border is far less complex this time, since the January one was ridiculously detailed.
Again, we have the French, Spanish, and Italian at the bottom.

The main frame is on a 110x110 grid. Again, it may be too large for your screen.

Happy stitching!

Latest Completions! And also a WIP.

I was at an art shop and noticed a bin filled with tiny, framable cross-stitch projects, priced at only a dollar apiece, so I figured I'd buy a couple of them and see how well they worked out.
As it turns out, they worked fairly well.
The kits came with a needle of their own, as well as a piece of cloth and a little plastic frame. There was more than enough floss for each one.

This first one here is probably going to be a gift to my botany professor.

Ain't it adorable?

The second one might go up for sale, if I can get a decent camera around here. A phone cam just won't cut it.

I can never find grape-related patterns for free, for some reason.

And of course, I've got a work in progress as well. Although, it's only a WIP in that the background isn't finished. But the background is supposed to be purely white, so it's just like doing busywork in grade school.
Anyway, this is a bookmark with the first line of one of my favorite songs -- Avantasia's "Another Angel Down" -- stitched onto it. Surprisingly, I used no alphabet reference here...

I'm watching from the highest tower.~

It's the first in a series of bookmarks inspired by Avantasia lyrics.
I suppose I ought to keep stitching that background. I should also be working on that gift stitch from earlier, though, especially since its border was way too small for framing and had to be restarted. In the meantime, though, I'll continue stitching the whiteness and then see about finishing this bookmark.

Pattern: A Cup of January

This year, I'll be putting together patterns to commemorate each month, all revolving around one theme. This year's theme will be cups for each month, so they all have little motifs that match the time of year they're in. A Cup of January has snowflakes to represent it being the middle of winter for the Northern hemisphere.
And in case it's for someone who speaks French, Spanish, or Italian, patterns for those month names are at the bottom for convenience.

It may be too large for your screen. Took 3.5 hours to make. The main frame is on a 100x100 grid.

I really need to get myself a job, because I'm too broke to go out and buy all the threads I need to stitch these patterns on here. Otherwise, I'd be devoting a ton of time to stitching the patterns I create for you all. A lot of the colours these patterns end up with are really specific and not in any starter pack, which makes things a tad difficult.
If anything, though, I really need to restart that gift stitch for my professor. If I'm going to frame it, it needs more of a border! I've wasted a whole skein of lapis blue on the first attempt by leaving a tiny border around the frame...

Anyway, happy stitching, and I apologize for the belated calendar pattern!

Pattern: Berry Punch (MLP)

DeviantArt user xXmegamuffinXx made several pixellated versions of many My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters, and I thought, "Why not make some patterns out of these?"

So here's one of them for you -- Berry Punch (sometimes called Berryshine)! She's probably my favorite background pony.

Since I had nothing else better to do and haven't posted in a while, I figured I should post something. So here it is, little Pixel Punch.

Sixteen colours make up this adorably drunken pony.

More patterns to come! I've just finished my first week of the spring semester, so I'll be even less active now, but it at least seems like it'll be a good selection of classes.

Three of them are psychology courses, one is an intro to botany course, one is about animation, and the other is a sociology course.

1. Fundamentals of Neuroscience: Intro to the study of the brain.
2. Abnormal Psychology: Disorders, their symptoms, treatments (historical and current), and discussions.
3. Research Methods I: How to research psychology and conduct your own studies.
4. Plants and Humans: The evolution of humans and of plants, how plants affect us, why they do what they do (the plant's perspective), and of course, identification of actual plants.
5. History of Animation: My only night class, and is exactly what it sounds like. We learn about the origin and development of animation, and we watch a particular movie that fits the lecture once notes are done. The first week's movie was "The Adventures of Prince Achmed," widely regarded as the first animated feature film ever.
6. Criminology: It could be fun... It's mostly about the screwed up American justice system, really.

I'm Officially Twenty!

Yup, today is my birthday, and I've lived for two decades. I guess I can't really call myself a kid anymore, huh?

I have no patterns today, but I do have a bunch of works in progress! One of them is almost done, and the others are only concepts at the moment.

The nearly-done one is a bookmark, inspired by one of my favorite songs.

The others are all planned gifts:

1. Winter is Coming bookmark for my mom who loves reading and loves Game of Thrones
2. Espeon and Vaporeon, for a friend whose favorite Pokémon is Espeon (and mine is Vaporeon)
3. A quote from The Santa Clause, for a friend who loves that movie
4. Someone's ponysona, of course for that particular someone

I might be in over my head, of course, but that's all right, I suppose. I don't know which one to give priority, though.