March YOTA!

Here is my update for the YOTA SAL - Still 'Flower of the East'.

As she was:

I didn't get a lot done, but enough to make me happy :D  I did up the flowers in her hair, the silver at the edge of her collar, the missing bits of her face, and then back stitched her face.  Some of the flowers look like they are not done because they are white and pale silver, but they are there!

A close up:

She has a bit of a pout-y expression, I think.  Next month my goal on her is to get the branch and the flowers on it done - perhaps the small missing bits of the parasol, too.  Since her face is finished, I'm going to start filling in from the top down.

Anyone know a good place to order Japan Braid from?  I still haven't found any.

YOTA Post!

Yay, I didn't forget - LOL!!!

YOTA stands for 'Year of the Acronym' and is a SAL (Stitch ALong) to work on a UFO (Unfinished Object).  It is hosted HERE.

My YOTA project is 'Flower of the East'.  This is a project that was given to me by a lady I never met before and who hasn't answered my emails since.  She posted it on a giveaway page on Facebook and no one else asked for it.  It was the partially stitched fabric and the chart only, no floss or metallics.

I bought the floss but haven't bought the Japan Braid that it requires yet.  It looked like this:

I have found some unexpected issues with finishing a project started by someone else - the first thing I checked was did we cross our stitches in the same direction, and luckily yes, we did.  That was good.

When I put her in my Q-snaps to get started, I discovered that my two strands of floss were coming out much thinner-looking than her two strands of floss.  I kept checking to make sure she hadn't used three strands but no, two strands it was.

I changed to a bigger needle than the first one and it helped a very, very little.  I didn't know what to do, then noticed her stitching was a lot looser than mine and had a bit of an epiphany.  It looked like my stitches used to when I stitched in hand instead of using a frame.  So I tried that and bingo, I was in business!  Our stitches matched!

As I started stitching along, I decided that the reason she didn't want to finish her must have been the fabric.  It's terrible, loosely woven and floppy and uneven.  Pull the stitches the least bit too tight and it leaves gaping holes.  I wasn't about to give in though - I adjusted my tension and settled in to a rhythm and it finally started flowing easier.

So now my Flower looks like this:

I have finished her hair and the flesh tones of her face.  She needs her eyes, mouth, and the flowers in her hair next.  She's very pretty, though, isn't she?  Even with her slightly scary current face!  Next time I hope you will see her with her hair and face finished and her parasol and fan done, as well.

YOTA! I forgot YOTA!!!

I forgot about YOTA - It fell on the same day as the Turtle Trot this year XD

This will be my YOTA project - click the link to find out more about the SAL - I haven't started working on her yet because my ordered floss hasn't come in.  'Flower of the East', an adopted project that a very nice lady had given up on stitching because she didn't 'speak' to her anymore.  I love her and she's over 2/3rds done, so bonus!  She came as seen, no floss or sparklies.

Hopefully I'll get my missing colors in time to update her next month!

A Face for YOTA!

I should have found one of those little sound things and put a drum roll on my blog!

Because -

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Wufei's face is done!  YAY!

I think this may bring him up to 1/3 done - perhaps even beyond it, I don't know.  I see some math in my future to figure it out!

YOTA Time Again!

First Saturday of the month means YOTA!!!

Wufei is my YOTA project, and this month my update is really, really sad because I barely touched him.  Just a few more shades of blue worked around his collar - I think I used three different floss shades this month.



Hopefully, next month will be better!  Maybe I'll tempt myself with that other eye again :D

E is for Erestor (and YOTA! Totally for YOTA, too!)

I really had to think about this one!  I couldn't find anything at first, and I started to go with E is for Eagle, and show one finish - but then the Turtle Trot list came through for me again!

In the Lord of the Rings books - not the movies, sadly - there is a very small part about an elf called Erestor.

You should read it - Erestor is the Chief Adviser to Elrond, and if you can sort out some of the old-style speech, he is snarky and awesome!

He's not really in the movie, they just called one of the background elves Erestor.  This is a pic you'll get if you search for movie-Erestor (sadly small, but all there is!):



And this is a pattern I made - with the artist's permission! - of a drawing of Erestor.  I made it in PCStitch, and this is the exported pic.  I started him on that same Crazy January Challenge that I completely failed at.




This was the tiny start I made:



He won't be like this for long, though - Fred has about a quarter of his finish-up bits done, and as soon as he has all of them, Erestor is taking Frederick's place in my main rotation.  He's actually going to be a pretty easy stitch - lots of blank white space and only about six or seven shades of grey.

Also, today is YOTA!  My YOTA project is Wufei, and this is his before pic:



And his after pic:



The reason I am so late posting today is because after I worked a partial day (five hours) I went to JoAnn's!
If you're a new follower (and hi! by the way) a trip to JoAnn's is a very big deal because it's almost a two hour drive.  I'm very tired.  But happy!  I kitted up two HAEDs and added a few kits to my collection, including one to go with yesterday's post:



I'll show more stash later!  Have a nice night!

I Forgot About YOTA!

I completely forgot about a stitch-a-long I joined called YOTA - you can see the details here.

I went back to my little notebook and saw I had marked Wufei down for it before I joined the Turtle Trot - but I decided to just leave it and use Wufei anyway, since I'd like to get a lot done on him this year.  There's a spot on my wall calling for him to be done and framed :P

These are the newest pics I could find of my progress - it's been quite a while since I worked on him!





Chang Wufei (sometimes it's capitalized WuFei) is Pilot #5 from the anime Gundam Wing.  I made the pattern with an old version of PCStitch.  I'd like to do all five Pilots someday, although not all this big, but Wufei is my favorite.

Anyway, this time next month I hope to have some real progress to show!  He's got a lot of easy big blocks and some intricate bits in the other half of his face, so he'll keep me amused.  His hair was the hardest part, and that's long done.