You're Saying it Wrong!

I've been trying and trying, but I've decided that the best thing to do is take another hiatus. I really don't want to, but I'm going to have a crazy month, so any posting I would do would be spotty at best. I just think it will be better if I'm not worrying about trying to post along with everything else. I'll probably won't be back until after the holidays.

Let's face it. She totally would have said it!

Coming Right Up!

Guess what I finished last night?

Yeah. That's right.

All four. Done. So guess what I'm starting soon(ish)?

Yes, I did get out all five needles. I figured that since I separated all five, I would keep all five separate. And I'm going to get something to put the beads in. Because that seems like a better plan than trying to get them out of that thing.

Unfortunately, I probably won't have any time to do things this weekend. I have a lot of stuff to do! :O But take a look at this:

I agree. And by the way, I guess Dudley has hung out with a lot of dementors! :)

Have a great weekend!

Hiss!!!

That's what Mr. Snake is saying:

You know, now that he has a mouth. What I'm doing for the background is going back and forth and doing half of each stitch, then I'll go back up and do the other half. It'll work, I swear!

Today's picture is a quote from The Half-Blood Prince:

This always makes me laugh! I especially love how Michael Gambon does it in the movie.

Au revoir!

Sirius, Lupin, and Mad-Eye

Two posts! In two days! It's a miracle!

Now that that's out of the way, I have these two pictures for you:

This was taken this morning,

and this was taken about half an hour later. I went fast.

 
Anyway, I am chugging away, and feeling slightly more confident on a Friday finish. (Excuse me while I go check and make sure it didn't just catch fire.) It all depends on how tomorrow goes.........

And now, the obligatory HP picture:

It's true. Enough said. (I cry every time I watch Dumbledore die.)

Good-bye!

Best Course of Action

Greetings, Earthlings! How about we pretend that I have posted every day this month, and that this post is super long because I did a lot, and not because I'm catching up? OK, here goes:

1. First up, an update on the HP cross stitch. I  think I already mentioned that I picked up the last color I needed, and I'm now done with the Hufflepuff!

Yay! I had already started the Slytherin, to save time, and here's what I have so far:

I just started filling in the curly stuff in the border. I'm not sure about a Friday finish, but I'm going to keep pushing through it!

2. I've also started planning for the rest of the pictures. This afternoon, I compiled the list of all the remaining colors I'll need. In total, I need to pick up 92 more (and that's without the Snitch, because it won't load). That's getting close to $40, so I've decided that my best course of action is to glare at my list and see if it shrinks.

3. I know I said this would be a long post, but I'm sort of out of stuff. All I've really been doing is cross stitching and real life stuff. I'm hoping everything clears up in the next week or two, because I really want to start my Wristers. I'm going somewhere cold for the holidays, so I'm gong to need them!

4. One last thing. Funny picture time!!!!

To be honest, I never really thought about that before, but it is a good point!

5. I lied. I have one more thing. At some point, I realized that the Hogwarts crest is just the four house emblems put together with some other stuff, right?

Well, sort of. Anyway, I was all annoyed with myself, because I really should have looked up the placement before I started, right? It turns out, I have it all right except for one thing. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are switched! It's so frustrating! And it's not like I can just switch them, since they're both done.

Bye!

      

Keys and Teapots

Despite my utter lack of posting last week, I've gotten some more done on my cross stitching:

I'm chugging along with it, and I'm still hoping for a finish by next Friday. And I mean done done, because I went to Michaels yesterday! I picked up a few things, including the last color I need for the center, and these charms:

Can you figure out the theme for these? Maybe this will help:

Yeah. I managed to find five completely unrelated charms at Michaels, and connect them all to Harry Potter. It's a talent. 

(I feel like I should explain those: the owl, the crystal ball, and the dragon are pretty obvious, and the key and the teapot are just weird. The key reminded me of the flying keys from the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, and the teapot made me think of reading tea leaves. I know, I'm crazy.)

Have a great evening! :)

Huffle, huffle, achoo!

I made a lot of progress this weekend:

Yeah. I wasn't just saying that to look good. I actually did a lot of work on this one. Everything is done except for the 415 stuff and the backstitch that goes over it. Once I get that floss, I'll finish it up.

But wait, there's more!

Since the odds of me making it to Michaels and still finishing this by Thursday are really slim, I decided to start Slytherin:

That is enough to make up for what I missed, right? Anyway, I'll just keep working on this one, and hopefully I'll have gotten the floss I need before I finish it.

There was just one problem, though.

(And I remembered to take a picture of it! It's a miracle!)

One of those yellow stitches didn't get a second half. Inn my defense, they're kind of hard to see, but now I can feel it staring at me! I'm probably going to have to fix that.

Finally, I did a little bit of thinking (!) and I don't think I need to move any of the pictures around. The places where the crests stick up don't interfere with any of the other things, so it should be okay!

I am so doing this to my toilet!

PS

I'm not really sure what the title means, either. It just sounds cool.

What post?

OK, so I know I said I was going to have an awesome post yesterday, but I didn't. I had a few things that didn't go well, and by the time I would normally post, I made this guy:

look like the Class Optimist.

Anyway, I did actually cross stitch this weekend!

I think this was Saturday night.... maybe.

This is right now!!!!

My goal is to have this done by the 15th, and for the Slytherin one to be done by the 30th. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm definitely going to try! I did a lot of work on this while watching the election coverage, and other TV things. (I don't normally watch a ton of TV, but it very good for working on cross stitch!)

I am now going to show you how I am organizing my embroidery floss right now. I have six baggies:

that have bundles of thread in them. Each bundle has the label tied to it with the floss that has already been cut off. The bags are labeled by number:

and I just tole the numbers from the first website I clicked on. That's creativity, right there. As I get more thread, I may need to relabel them with smaller chunks, but this'll work just fine for now.

My other pastime for this weekend (well, not the only other one) was looking at funny Harry Potter icons. (If you're not a HP fan, you can stop reading now. Bye!) I'm going to put one at the bottom of my posts for a while, because they made me crack up laughing! Here's the first one:

I do actually like the Twilight Saga (cant wait for BD Part 2!) but I am loyal to HP! Have a great day!

Biscuits

The title really has nothing to do with what I'm posting about, I just like the word biscuits.

Anyways...... I'm just going to post this video for Harry Potter fans:




There's a lot of mechanics errors, but still kind of funny!

I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off, so you get an extra long post on Wednesday!

PS for Americans:
Don't forget to vote on Tuesday!

Free Versatile Scarf Tutorial

Hi guys! Today I have a really easy tutorial that can be used to make a few different kinds of scarves/belts/loopy accessories.

Materials:

-sewing machine/hand sewing equipment
-fabric: something with a lot of drape. You can use this tutorial with a long rectangle, or some small pieces sewn together, or really anything

Step 1: Get your fabric ready. All I had to do was sew two squares together, but this may be more complicated for you. Once you have a big rectangle, you may proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Fold the rectangle in half lengthwise, with right sides together, and sew up the long side.

Step 3a: If you want a regular scarf, then just stitch up the short ends (make sure you leave a hole to turn the scarf right side out).

Step 3b: If you want an infinity scarf, then stitch up one of the short ends, and flip the scarf right side out. Stuff the closed end into the open ends, make it pretty, and stitch it up.

From here, you can wear this scarf in pretty much every way imaginable. Have fun!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Do you know how to count? I'm pretty sure it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, blah blah blah. But apparently I wasn't so sure when I was marking out the stitches for the different pictures on my cross stitch project. I made the center square four stitches too short, and now I'm not totally sure what to do about it. I 'm seriously considering just ignoring it. Really. I will honestly just move everything up four stitches, and I'm totally okay with it.

If you're doing something special tonight, have a spooktacular night! I'm just going to relax an have fun tonight, so tomorrow's post is going to be an easy tutorial.

I know you're out there. Don't deny it. There is at least one person scouring the Internet today, looking for something quick to knit for Halloween. (That's today, if you didn't notice.) I have a link to that little thing. Simple Bats. 45 short rows. (I don't mean short rows like for shaping, I mean 45 rows that have less than 15 stitches!) Stop reading this post, and go make some. They're super cute! (And more importantly, small.)

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Eye'm Just Joking

Eye will be making lots of eyeball puns in this post. Because eye want to. (It really goes against the grain to make all these intentional grammar errors, though....) Anyway, I'm super happy with my progress on the Gryffindor crest:

Yay! All done, but that's mostly all I've been working on. I did do a little bit on the sequin skirt (yeah, I'm kind of epically failing on the 10-a-day thing) but that would be a really boring picture.

There was just a gust of wind that sounded like a train. Except it wasn't a tornado. It was just really loud wind.

Yesterday I made some butterbeer based off of number nine on this page. I was making it for two people, so I put two big scoops of vanilla ice cream and 1 1/2 cans of root beer in the blender. For the butterscotch sauce, I was originally going to melt down some butterscotch chips, but they did not want to melt, so I just put them in whole. Like that page says, it was like a butterscotch root beer float, and it was really good!

Eye can see you! (Get it? Because eyes see? Oh, never mind.) Anyway, go check out this Gruesome Knitted Eyeball Pattern by Mary Jane Mucklestone.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Pumpkins and Lions

I have two FOs for you today!!! (OK, so they're two of the same thing, but that still counts, right?)

I had a little bit of a dumb moment with the ribbon. When I was cutting it, I just held it around the pumpkin and guesstimated how long it needed to be. I figured I needed eight pieces of ribbon for each pumpkin, so when I did the math, I would have run out of ribbon. I really only needed four per pumpkin, because each piece covered two grooves. Whoops! I'm really happy with how these turned out, and I got them delivered on Saturday, with plenty of time to spare.

I also worked on the Harry Potter cross stitch:

I might be able to finish this one today. But no promises.

Come on. You know you want to . Go make a Hallowig. You can probably even do it by Wednesday. Go!

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things 

Tutzle Jr.

I made it! Even though I really had to push it, I managed to finish this little guy:

That is definitely not the right color.

That's better!

before I needed him this morning. My friend was thrilled, so, mission accomplished! His name is Tutzle Jr., after the original mascot I modeled him after. I might actually put up a pattern for him, because he is cuddly and I'm probably going to make one for myself anyway. (Tutzle III, of course.)

This weekend, I'll probably be able to actually work on things that I actually should be working on. (See the list.) That would make me sooooo happy. Seriously.

I'm just going to say it. This Jack O'Lantern is the cutest one I have ever seen in my entire life! (The ones I carve always look a little more on the grotesque side. I'm not super artistic like that.) But this one? Super cute. If I had orange wool, I would definitely make one. But I don't. So I probably won't.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Pink Pumpkins

Which shall be made with this stuff:

and some ribbon I already have. I'm sort of taking my inspiration from this, but I'm just going to go with it.

I'm also trying to throw together a little present for one of my friends. I've known him since sixth grade, and now he's moving across the world. I wanted to put together a little memory of middle school for him, so I'm recreating the class mascot I made in sixth grade. Yes, we're crazy. I need it tomorrow morning, so I'll have FO pictures tomorrow afternoon. (Hopefully. After that I may have a little trouble giving it to him.)

I love Ravelry. (And I'm not even on it!) Go check out this Spooky Shawl by Darlene Swaim. At first glance, you appear to be wearing a lovely, mature shawl. Then you look closer, and you see all the little pumpkin faces! So cute!

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Lameness Version 2.0

These Haunted House and Candy Corn Pillows are for people with a lot of patience. Just looking at the picture, I can tell that they are worked in a very fine gauge. (Then I checked the needle sizes and it's 6 and 8, and I started thinking that the camera is always a liar.) Still, if you have the patience for the fine, fine, gauge (ahem) of this project, they would be a neat addition to your house. Or mine. But mostly yours.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Thoughts About Creativity

I've been doing some thinking the last few days, and I wanted to share it with you. (Mostly it's a coverup, but don't let that dissuade you from reading this.)

What is creativity? According to this dictionary, it's ...... the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns,relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality,progressiveness, or imagination...... But what does all that really mean? I don't like breaking or bending rules, so does that mean I'm not creative? There are a lot of people that can't knit or crochet much without a pattern. Does that mean we aren't creative? I love creative writing (and I'm pretty good at it, I think), so does that automatically mean I'm creative? Do people that sit and daydream all day qualify as creative? (Because a lot of people would call them lazy.) Was Einstein's work creative? He came up with new ideas, so were his scientific discoveries creative?

What do you think? Am I putting too much thought into this? (There's always the possibility that I am stark raving mad. You know that might be it.)

Today, you all have to click on this link. It leads to pictures of very cute babies!!!! Oh, and a knitting pattern. But mostly the babies!! I'm not even going to put a picture, so you all have to go look. So there. (Seriously, though, go look at the pattern for HarVest and Pumpkin HarVest from Unfurled.)

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Glow-In-The-Dark Photoshoot

I'm going to start today's post with a little insight into how I get my photos. (Note: I don't normally put this much effort in. This project just didn't want to be photographed.)

Step 1: Take the picture with the lights on.

Mission accomplished. Now, let's show how cool it looks with the lights off!

Step 2: Turn the lights off, turn the tea light on, and take the picture again.

Ehh. That didn't go so well.

Step 3: Move the box near your open door, so a little light from the hallway will spill in.

Oops. Caught the laundry basket in that one.

Step 4: Zoom way in and flip the camera to cut out the laundry basket (rather then just cropping Step 3 later).

Argh! Never mind!

This one did like having its picture taken, though:

I like how you can see how shiny it is. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Just because I feel like telling you, the box has a tree on all four sides, and the opposite sides are the same color, either red or green. There's a white stripe in between each colored section, and the top is a mix of all three colors. I love it!

Since these are done, I have a very important announcement to make.

I have officially finished all of the projects I am making as Christmas gifts this year.

That'll be all.

I also made the circle scarf I was talking about.. um.. sometime last week? I might put up a little tutorial next week, because it didn't go exactly as planned, but I do like it.

This choker is a great way to show some spirit (get it? spirit? like a ghost?) without going all out, or you could make it the focal point of an entire costume.

Picture from Crocheting with Cannon 

cotton threads.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Lame-O Post

I love this Halloween Party Banner! I've actually never had a Halloween party, but if I did, I would definitely make this!

Picture from Red Heart.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• do the decoupage
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Tips for... yeah, I forgot.

Last night, while working on my decoupage projects, I found out a few more things that are good to know when you are doing this sort of project:

1. While glue is your friend, don't use it excessively. Try to only apply more glue once the entire area is totally dry, or the tissue paper will rip.
2. The tissue paper makes friends easily, so be sure you like the angle of it before you put it down. If you do need to take if off, you're probably going to have to scrape at it with your nail, and that's no fun!
3. (This one is probably obvious to everyone but me!) Don't try to put a light color (say, white) over darker colors (red and green) unless you're prepared to do some serious layering.
4. Try to avoid using big pieces. It looks a lot neater with little pieces, and it's definitely worth the extra time!
5. I forgot all the really intelligent things I thought of this morning. This is why I have to write stuff down right away.

I have been doing little bits and pieces of things, but nothing very substantial. I may have picture-worthy things tomorrow, but no promises. 

I'm going to spend the rest of tonight cross-stitching and trying to remember my other decoupage tips. It's not going to happen! :)

I really like this Boo Bunting because it's so versatile (wow! I used an adjective!) and can be made into bunting for lots of different holidays.

Picture from Prairie Yarn.

You could even make them green, hang them from the tips, and have Christmas trees. Seriously.

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• finish the decoupage
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

I Heart Glue. You Should Too.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to talk about decoupage today, so here you go:

For those of you that don't know, decoupage is "the technique of decorating a surface with cutouts, as with paper." At least, that's what the dictionary says. I think of it as dunking ripped up tissue paper in Modge Podge and slapping them on something, but that's a little less scientific. I've actually only done it once, but it's not exactly something that takes a lot of practice. You kind of just have to do it!

The one thing you really need to remember is this: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? Glue. That's what. The tissue paper ripped when you were putting it on? Wait a little while, then use glue and add more. The tissue paper won't stay flat on the object? Once it's dry, lightly spread some glue in the offending area. Glue is your new best friend! You must take it on walks in the park, and eat a romantic dinner while it watches! (OK, so maybe you're dating the glue?) Anyway, learn to love the glue.

I'm going to be making something a little bit like this, but I'm going to have a striped background, and I'm going to use a Christmas tree, not a Jack O'Lantern. I am about halfway done right now, and I'm waiting for it to dry so I can touch it up.

I'm running out of adjectives to describe the October things. So I'm giving up. Here is an Autumn Leaves Fridgie:

Picture from Crochet Memories.

Go make it. I like it. (There will be no more discussion on this topic.)

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• do the decoupage
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

An Illusion

I haven't actually worked on the Gryffindor crest since Sunday, but I have been doing some other administrative/planning type stuff.

First, I made a final judgement on a skirt I made a while ago. It started like this:

But it had a few problems:

'

So I decided to chop it up and make it shorter. That did not work out very well. Mostly because the hem wasn't straight to begin with, so cutting in a straight line just made it short and crooked, instead of long and crooked. Anyway, I took the elastic off last night, and after messing around with it, I decided to make an infinity scarf. Just one problem: it's a trapezoid. That can be easily fixed with some scissors, so once I make it rectangular, I can stitch this baby up and take it out of the time out bag once and for all! I'm hoping to cut and pin it sometime this week, so I have something mindless to do on Saturday afternoon. I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty braindead! :) (And no, I do not feel guilty for working on this. This was already in the timeout bag, and the only reason it wasn't on my list was because I wasn't sure what was going to happen to it. So there.)

Next up, I was looking for a good thing to do with this pretty green velvet I found in the box, and I kind of wanted to make a skirt for myself (because that always goes really well), but I thought it might be really ugly. Google to the rescue! I searched "green velvet skirt" and I found a lot of cute skirts, but I'm not sure that I'm going to do that yet. I also saw a few cute tops I think I might be able to replicate, so I'm on the fence a little with that.

While I had the green velvet out, I cut off a little strip that was sticking off the edge and bothering me. I'm gong to use it to make something like this. I'm not really going to follow that tutorial, and I already have the pieces ready. That might be a quickie sewing project for tonight, or I might save it for Saturday.

See that? I managed to make a little ripping and cutting into a coherent post that makes it look like I did so much. It's all an illusion!

Tomorrow I will explain what I'm doing for the decoupage projects, because I feel like I'm rambling. 

This little Witch Doll is very cute:

Picture from Crochet Sal.

as is the rest of the stuff on her site. Go check it out!

To Do To Start:

• the house emblems on my HP cross stitch
• handsew a zipper to the brown skirt
• do the decoupage
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Uncooperative

I hate it when the Internet throws a temper tantrum. (Mostly because I have no idea what to do when it does. Sometimes I consider sacrificing an SD card down by the river under a full moon. I'm that desperate.) Anyway..... Oh right! The whole point of that was the Internet was down on Friday, hence the lack of real posts. Here's the picture I was going to post:

I have successfully concluded my set of experiments, and determined that things get done when you work on them. My evidence?

Yeah. That's right. I worked on it a little. It got a little bit more done. Magic!

I also tried the etching, but it didn't really work, and I have a new plan that I'll tell you about tomorrow.

This Pumpkin Mini Quilt is absolutely adorable. What if you made a bunch, and made a whole quilt?

Picture from Phyllis Dobbs Art and Design.