The weekly Lady, #5

Real quick update for this week as I don't really know what else to tell you now: This week has been a little shorter than usual, at least where Lady is concerend - I wasn't home last weekend, so instead of her usual 6-7 evenings of stitching, she only got 4. But still, I managed to make some progress on that tree, and a few tiny, stray bits of sky as well. I still hope I can finish that tree next week, it's not that much more to go:

June SFS

Sometimes, I just can't get into the flow with things this week...so much I should get finished or at least work on, and I just can't get myself onto it. Oh well, might at least write my SFS post in time, right? Let be begin by telling you that I did NOT have a good month (SFS wise speaking) again, but before I go into detail I want to show you a picture of the Jodyri design order I had last month - it has finally arrived, and boy, is that fabric pretty (the threads as well of course!):

The fabric is all sparkly, and I kinda wish I had ordered a bigger piece than just 13x9", but I'm sure I'll find an appropriate use and a reason to order more eventually :)

Now on to this month's spoils...first, there was Joan Elliott's Fairy Enchantment off ebay for 8.25€/$11.22. It has some beautiful designs, I really wanna do the one on the cover, but some of the others are very cute and/or pretty as well.
Then there were to small kits, also off ebay, for 6.50€ ($8.84) and 1€ ($1.36). Both are eventually going to be gifts for people, the kittens for my grandma's friend who has to cats just like those, and the lamb for our hairdresser who's also a friend of the family and loves sheep of all kinds; but I don't know when I'll actually get around to doing them.

And THEN, Mel announced that there was a $50 bonus this month on top of the regular $25 as long as you fully spent the latter, and that was just what I had waited for because I had been planing a Halloween project that wouldn't possibly fit into one month's budget - I have wanted to stitch something by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery ever since I first saw their designs some time in December/January, and when they announced their Mysterious Halloween Town Club, that was the perfect opportunity for me - so I got the pattern for $10.95 and a complete material kit off Etsy for 23.94€/$32.55. Maybe I should just have gotten the threads and a fabric somewhat close to the one recommended on sewandso and saved the horrendous price for shipping (which was another 12€) but I just wanted to do it right, if you understand. So, may total for this month is $64.92, with nothing to carry over to next month. Sadly, I already know pretty well were next month's budget will be going *sighs heavyly* - I still think I'm doing this wrong, I'm just building more and more stash instead of using up any!

June IHSW - bookmark finish, bookmark start

Last weekend was June's International Hermit & Stitching Weekend, and sadly, I couldn't make it to the hangout with my girls again because Felix and I were with his parents. However, being on the road and away for the weekend once again gave me a chance to work on my GoT bookmarks, because those are my officual away-from-home project. I got this little bag which is exactly the right size more my little floss box and some fabric on my smaller q snap, kind of inspired by Carla's Little Travel Case.

So as you can see, I worked on Arryn this time - when getting my stuff together, I realized I never showed you that I almost finished Tully the last time I was working on the bookmarks, but I did, it was only missing a few stitches of blue and then some twenty stitches of red. Unfortunatly, I was all out of the red, but then Angel of Frost came along and had just the red I needed, so I borrowed a bit and everything is fine now. So I finished Tully, started Arynn, and got quite a bit done both on the car ride and on movie night on saturday evening. I love this shade of blue, there's an aweful lot of it to stitch; but I still love it.

Movie night, by the way, was first The Hunger Games (I had read the books and loved them, but it was a first on the movie for me. Quite well done too, you don't get to see book-to-movie-translations that good often) and The Lone Ranger afterwards, which I really, really loved, and I really can't understand why the movie flopped. Apart from that, there was a lot of family and music stuff going on (Felix was home for a concert of the band he and his family are part of) and some mobile gaming on my PS Vita, but now I'm rather glad to be home again, so I can get to relax a little and prepare for other events that are coming up.

The weekly Lady, #4

So yet another week has passed and it's time for my little lady again. Although generaly, I wasn't as productive crafting-wise as I had hoped to be, I'm even a little ahead of my goal here this week; I finished the tree I was working on (light greens and tan) and started on the next one already (darker greens and rust colors). Also, I need the q snap for another project this weekend, so here's a picture of the whole; I think it should be about half a page now.

I'm predicting about two more weeks of trees until I get to the sky, which I'm really looking forward two because I love the colors of the sky on this one :)

I'll be with Felix at his parents' home this weekend, which also happens to be IHSW, so I'll try and stitch as much as possible there. I guess I'll take my GoT bookmarks with me, they haven't seen any love in a long time.

Owls!

After a long struggle with getting all those eyes properly done and sewed on and internal cursing about way too many loose ends, I finally got all cleaned up and crocheted together, which marks a huge progress on my owl tote. I'm rather pleased with how all those little guys turned out ^_^

I did most of this while watching Sherlock with Felix. That was kind of a blind flight - I knew the show was supposed to be great and somewhat roughly based on Arthur Conan Doyle, but I did NOT know it had been transfered to a modern setting, neither could I have known how awesome it really was. We watched the entire season one on a particulary lazy saturday, than season two spread over the following week. Now I can't wait to see how the will continue this, but season three is not on amazon prime yet, boo for that.

I also continued watching Doctor Who, episodes 8-13 of season one and then the first episode of season two. I'm havon some problems adjusting to the new face of the Doctor, which is strange really, because when I first started watching I had my problems with Eccleston as well, because you know, I had seen pictures of Doctor Who before and that was just not him. But then I grew kinda fond of him and now he's gone, but I guess the same thing will happen to the new one (the growing fond part, I already know that he will be gone eventually as well). I hope I can watch season two and possible three before they take it down form amazon prime, but I still firmly believe that they will renew the license eventually, even Haven has returned by now. 

I also finished season one of The Nanny, not much to say to that, oh, and Felix and I went to see X-Men - Days of Future Past in the cinema last wednesday. I love that movie, even the title, it's so great and as usual the German version just can't capture this depth (it's calles Future is Past or something like that, I didn't even bother remembering I guess). It was great, X-Men are my Marvel heroes favourite, and after that movie I'm really, really curious in what direction the franchise will be headed. I think they could safely end this iteration after that one, but it doesn't look like they will now.

Oh, almost forgot (well, not really, I got the pictures ready and everything, I just needed a good transition), I wanted to show you something else. Felix and I went to a kind of yard sale last week (relatives of my gradnmother's friend died and the daugter sold off everything noone of the family could use themselves) to try and get some things for our soon-to-be apartment. We found awesome stuff, like an entire set of silver plated cutlery for only 10€ (~$15), and I even managed to grab some crafting stuff - an great old basket for €2 to store crochet/knitting projects together with all the yarn, and some old frames, €5 for the lot of them - they look so nice and a little old, I can just imagine the kind of little projects to fit into them ^_^

The weekly Lady, #3, also: June WIPocalypse

Another week has passed (oh my), so it's time for another update on Lady & the Tramp. I finished the last window-section on the lower floor and did quite a bit of tree. Tree is also what I predict for the next few weeks, with a slight change in the shades of greens somewhere in between. Can't complain about my progress so far.

Also, a little bird told me it's WIPocalypse again...well, my progress this month is mostly on Lady, a secret project I can't show you yet, and Spring Bunnies - I already posted that one once, but now I got it all nice and framed and uploaded on my dA for the Puppy Love Contest, so I might as well post it here again as well:

Apart from that, this month's topic is Have you ever been to a stitch gathering such as a retreat or a festival? If so, tell us about it! and sadly, my answer to that has to be 'No, not really' - I did however take part in a few IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) with hangouts via Google+ with my dear friends, which I have come to greatly cherish. Basically we all sit in front of our webcams, stitch and talk, and from those hangouts, often the most creative ideas come forth. Sadly I'm usually not able to stay online for very long due to time differences; when my girls start the hangout in their morning it's already evening here...someday, I'll have to just sit down and stitch all night!

The weekly Lady, #2

Still keeping up my routine of spending one or two hours on Lady & the Tramp in the evenings, and still making good progress! Here is where I stand after one more week:

As you can see, I made a little progress on the tree and quite a lot on the first floor of the house. Next week, I hope to finish that particular house as far as it is on page one (which basically means one more window to go), then slowly work my way upwards along the next row of trees until I read the upper edge again. So lots of greens incoming now, kind of a relief after all the greys ^_^

Apart from that, not much going on here, I finally finished reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and now my reading slot is mostly occupied by gaming because I started a new (well, at least new to me) Harvest Moon game and it's difficult to put it down~

Owls & Trees

So, during the last week, I've been fighting with my owl tote-WIP...it's always the same with crocheting projects, the crochet part itself is fun, but I just don't like cleaning up and sewing stuff together. Despite that, I've been making some progress at least, weaving in lose ends and, since the buttons I needed finally have arrived, I started assembling the owls. So far only one is finished, but I hope the next days will see some more progress on that. (She looks a little silly as well, I think she might have hit a window or something...)

In terms of destraction (for I really don't like this stage of crocheting projects, did I already mention that?) I continued working on Angel of Frost and finished the inner edge of the border - but that's rather dull so I'm not going to bore you with it. I did, however, also start with the motif itself, with the tree in the left foreground, to be exact, and that's much more exciting! That tree uses about twelve shades of green alone, and about the same amount of whites for the frost on it, so it took my a while to find a good system - I tried doing two colors at once, than the next two, like Carla did with Nancy's Flowers, but it turns out I'm miserable at counting, so I finally settled for getting just shy of every needle in my house and threadng them with all the greens I needed. In the end it looked something like this (there are two more needles and a little more stitching now), and I think once I can really focus on this after finishing my deadlined presents (of which I'm just about to start two more...) I shall make good progress on this.

So, what else....stuff has been watched, of course: Ted (that hilarious movie with the speaking teddy bear), Salmon Fishing in the Jemen, a British movie that is basically about how one should not give up on one's dreams, even if the seem to be impossible (I really liked that one), The Proposal, a more or less typical Rom-Com with Sandra Bullock, National Treasure (much better than I expected - I don't believe much in conspirancies, but I like movies about them, although I've spend too much time on the internet to see Nicolas Cage without giggling) and Tombstone, a Western movie from 1993. Quite entertaining, although I lost count a little of who killed whom and why. Than we watched the German comedy 'Fack ju Göhte' about an ex-criminal who starts working as a teacher to get his booty which is buried under the gym when we visited a friend. And some shows as well, of course - NCIS S10 E21+22, only two more in the season, and I got some more into Dr Who, watching S1 E4-7 - they are now threatening to take this off of amazon Prime in four weeks, but I'll refuse to be rushed with a show like this, so far all the shows have come back after a while. Still trying to finish at least two or three seasons in that time. And that's it for now, see you soon :)