Scary Stuff. Oh, and it's Halloween too!

Don't worry, there won't be really scary suff in here, I was just going for the joke...well, kinda, the week was pretty crazy again, but I'm getting used to it. After the weekend at Felix' parents (which was busy and great and left us pretty tired, who would have expected otherwise) we were planning on a nice quiet week to get further ahead in our work and setteling into the apartmaent, allas, it wasn't meant to be - apart from more furniture arriving on Tuesday (that much was planned) and having a bit of trouble putting everything together (that wasn't planned), we're having a bit of trouble with the craftsmen (that should have been done before we moved in, so...more then two weeks ago), my granddad is having health issues, work isn't going as plannend and and and...so much for nice and quiet!

So to not further stretch my timetable, let me just give you a quick update here...Stitching has happend, not a whole lot, but at least rather steadyly; in fact, it feels much more effective since we have a couch and I have a stitchy corner on it with a daylight lamp! AoFs cloak was finished, as was her bag, so from here on, it's all tree and snow. Doesn't look like much, I might be able to finish that before next week, but after that comes the border, and the backstitching, and the beads...so I will be busy for a few more weeks at least. And all the while, she's just standing there, smiling and teasing!

I've also done some more knitting - only five more spikes on my shawl! I bought some more yarn for a new sweater, but I'm going to have to order another needle (or a shoter cable, to be exact) before I can really start on that. Some gaming has happend, mostly on my Vita, were I finished Mahjong Gold - I used to love those Mahjong Solitaire games, but got a serious over dose a few years back so I couldn't stand them anymore. Now that feeling has vanished, and I'm finally able to enjoy those games again ^_^

As for watching, some more Supernatural was the course of action, S2 E10-13, to be precise, and then yesterday we finished Season 2 of The Nanny, which which only had episodes 23 and 24 left. I hope we will be able to do some more over the weekend, but I think I'm giving up on making plans...

Weekly Stuff + October SFS

Another week has passed, and we have settled a bit more into our new place - we now have a washing mashine and a dryer, a dining table, a bed, and I also got a desk that is almost set up already! Next week, we will get our wardrobes, couch and living room furniture, and once everything is built there will only be small stuff missing, maybe a few shelves and stuff.

With all that going on, I'm a bit proud to be only a day late with my posting - actually, we drove up to Felix' parents yesterday, which is the primary reason for this post being late at all! And despite als the chaos and stress I actually manged some stitching on AoF:

I worked more on her cloak (and finished all the reds, which is great, but also kinda sad because I loved stitching those) and on the tree on the right. Next week I hope to finish her cloak and also her bag so the tree-part will be all that i left - getting so very close now! It looks like so little is missing, but I know it's still two weeks at least, more likely three with my current speed *sighs*

Now on to this week's other topic, which is Stitch from Stash - not a zero month for me, but I stayed inside the limits. Right after the last post, I went to the Tilton Crafts homepage and treated myself to Master, a Star Wars pattern that is the companion piece to Dark Force which I got a while back as a price for the Stitching Pirates Puppy Love contest - they were having a sale at 30% off all patterns, bringing Master to $11.20 and since I really want to stich both of them I just went ahead and bought it. Turns out it was a good thing to do, since both charts have since disapeared from the site. Both are artworks drawn by the incredible Tsuneo Sanda, check out his homepage if you are into Star Wars at all.

I also got a message from Jody (one of the girls running Unconventional X Stitch) that the Cherry Blossom pattern was avaiable again from her second Etsy store, Simply Flora Cross Stitch was avaiable again - I really liked it when she first posted it, but then it kinda disapeared from my wishlists and I asked her if I could still buy it, so obviously, I had to now, and it's a really great pattern for only $5.

That brings my monthly total to $16.20, which is not to bad for to amazing patterns! There also was a special exemption this month, concerning Nene Thomas' patterns on HEAD, since she was canceling her license agreement or something, and her charts were only avaiable for a few more days at that time - I have to admit that after talking to Felix and both of us getting to the exact smae two patterns we liked most, I splurged a bit and bought two of those - Fire Moon and Wings in Repose. I still have some plans what I want to get for the rest of the year, and there's also a $50 holiday bonus, so let's see what will happen for the last two months of 2014.

Felix was even more busy then I was, his Master thesis isn't going to well, or at least not as swiftly as he would like it to - so not much has happend on the watching-front, only a bit of Supenatural - E4-9 of S2, to be more precisly. Still pretty awesome, but I wish we could watch more.

A bit of gaming did happen once my PS3 was set up again, and I managed to finish CSI: Fatal Conspiracy, one of the games base on the CSI TV show, this one in Las Vegas. Yes, it sounds a bit like what gamers call 'license crap', and it's definatly not stallar on the game play part, but it was still fun, the story was kinda interesting, and it only cost me about 3€, and so I think it was worth getting it.

I didn't get much reading in due to the move, but yesterday I kinda made up for that while Felix and his family were at band practice and finished the last ~200 pages of Amazonia by James Rollins. Felix' brother Max gave it to me the last time I was here, because it's his favourite book, and I was a bit recultant at first - the cover text sounds a bit clichée, an expedition in the rain forest that vanishes and starts to discoer amazing stuff that had been hidden there, but I did him the favour and read, and I was suprised. True, it is a bit clichée, but it's very well written as well and super intese in the end, I couldn't put it down until well after 1am tonight.

Now I guess I should continue working on my thesis, or find something to eat, whichever proves more pressing...but with a cat sitting on (and warming) my feet, I think it's going to be work for now :D

Moved!

We moved on Wednesday, and despie being very chaotic and lacking lots of things yet, I can already say that I'm totally in love with this place! It's light and quiet (perfect conditions for nerding and stitching and such), I get a little corner for myself, and so far life with Felix is pretty good; we managed more than 24 hours without arguing about anything and then it was only light quarels. Success! Now, before I head back into the crazyness that is out move (and going to a concert tonight for which we have tickets since May...didn't even think about moving at this time back then), let me just drop a real quick weekls + Pre-IHSW post:

I continued to work on Angel of Frost whenever I could, and I'm now well into the next page...as you can see, I worked both on her cloak and on the back fore ground in the lower right corner. I can't see yet how much stitching will hapen for the next couple days, but I got a little stiching corner set up (matress to sit on, TV to watch, light to stitch by), so I'll try to make it some.

On Halloween town, I finished the second (actually first) clue by finishing the tree and adding an owl, and I'm afraid that's where it will have to stay for a while - there are now longer nightly talks with my grandparents where I can't take Angel of Frost with me (not that I don't get

to see them anymore, but we mostly visit by daytime, and without stitching), so this project will have to wait until AoF is finished.

For watching, we did finish Vikings S2 before the move (only the last episode remained), and it was a good end - epic and without a cliff hanger, I like & I want a season 3! We then started Supernatural S2 by watching the first three episodes, and it continues to be as awesome as it started of, I hope to get some more in before the weekend is over. 

The first night at out new apartment, we didn't have internet access, so without amazon prime we finally got to watch The Lego Movie, which I had bought on BlueRay a while back - everything was awesome!

And now I will head bacl to a weekend full of shopping and building furniture and doing other stuff and, hopefully, a bit of stiching. Happy IHSW everyone, hermit a bit for me as well!

October WIPocalypse

So, one day late for my usual post, or three days for WIPocalypse itself, I'm finally here and typing what needs to be typed :D

I've been away for a few days again this week, so stiching has been a bit slow once more, but I still managed to make a good bit of progress - in fact, the reason for me cheating by one day was an impending page finish; check it out:

The remainder of the cloak was done really fast, and to my suprise, so where the trees - I don't really know what makes them stitch up so fast, but they did, and I could selebrate my third page finish yesterday. The fourth and last page is covered in stitches almost completely, but most of it doesn't look too difficult (more cloak, more trees), so let's see how fast this will go from now on - usually I'd say three or four weeks tops, but I have my move coming up on Wednesday, so I really don't know how much stitching time I will have left after that, with moving stuff in and around an buying furniture and everything.

I also made some teeny-tiny progress on Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Haloween Town, so there is now Frankenstein's Monster and also a bit of the tree next to him - I still enjoy stitching this, despite the lack of time, and I'm looking forward to getting it finished for next year's Halloween.

Which brings me to this month's WIPocalpyse question: Are you a Halloween or Christmas stitcher? I think my current cast of WIPs already shows that I do both, but neither is something I identify with: In fact, those are the first Halloween/Christmas themed designs I've ever sone. I'm sure I will do more in the future; there are really pretty, awesome and/or cute designs for either occasion, but I still love my non-seasonal designs as well.

So, what happend appart from stitching...as I already mentioned, we're still busy preparing our move, but most pressing issues are dealt with now so we can relax a little and actually look forward to it. And as usual, relaxing for us means a lot of watching stuff - this week, we watched Catching Fire as soon as is showed up on amazon prime (I loved the books and I love Jennifer Lawrence, plus the movies are really well made, so lots of stars for this one), then we saw Guardian of the Galaxy at the cinema (which was great, and funny, and GROOT!, can't decide if I like this one or the Avengers more). We also finished Season 2 of Breaking Bad (E12+13). and I'm starting to like it more again, I think, even though that is quite tough stuff happening there - same goes for Vikings which we finally continued, S2, E3-7, this is really taking up pace and getting awesome by the minute. There also was another episode of The Nanny in there, and yesterday Felix decided I had to watch The Truman Show as I'd never seen it before, and I liked it, it's both funny and makes one think about some things in our society...

I even got some gaming done, finished Crazy Market, one of those silly little time management games, on my PS Vita, and then also Arcania; which is a full grow RPG and the official fourth part of my beloved Gothic-series, but it's not made by the same guys and it really shows. I played it for the second time, this time together with the AddOn that I didn't know yet, and while there are still some nostalgia-moments, it's not a great game on it's own, so I'm not sad it's over. I shall play Risen sometime soon, which is made by the guys rom Gothic, and, while it doesn't continue the story, it continues the spirit ^_^

Okay, that's enough for one post I guess, I'm off to work and stitch and stuff again; see you!

2014 D.E.S.I.G.N. SAL

So I'm back from my latest trip, almost back into my normal schedule - in fact, I'm feeling really energetic and motivated today - and only a little bit behind on my blogging routine - I know I should be posting WIPocalypse now, which was due a few days ago, together with my weekly progress, but I'm cheating a bit because I want to get something finished before I do that, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. I do have some other exciting news to share though, and here it goes:

My good stitching friends - Carla, Krystal and Nancy - and I have been putting together a google site called NCCIH (Nerd Central Command International Headquarters) as a home for all those SALs, resources and other crafty stuff we love, participate in and/or want to share. It has only gone live today, and we're still working on filling in blanks and adding stuff, but I still recommend checking it out - soon, our friend Ashley and possibly also Magical will join the cast, and that will add even more awesome and cool content! Click here to get to the nerdness.

While working on this (or even a bit before, I'm not sure) I also had an idea for a stitch along that I wanted to host next year - I told my friends, and as usual they where totally up for some crazyness, so we developed the idea together and now I have the pleasure to proudly announce D.E.S.I.G.N., the first ever event to be hosted at NCCIH!

D.E.S.I.G.N. (which stands for Designer Everony Should Instantly Get to Notice) of the month is a monthly Stichalong/Blog Challenge for cross stitchers (or other crafters) where each month, you work on a project by a different designer (acutally it's enough to work on it at sometime during the year), then talk a bit about the designer, the particular design and such. There will also be an opportunity for designers to promote their work, and possibly give-aways along the way. No need to participate each month either.

You can find the complete descriptions and rules here, so please check it out and check in if you want - you still have time to decide, I just wanted to tell everyone extra-early in case anyone needs time to plan that many designs (I know that I do...). I hope you will like it, but I'm still open for suggestionss as well!

So that's it for today, regular (stichy-pictures) blog will hopefully be up tomorrow :)

Weekly progress, part who-even-counts-these

Last week was somewhat quiet, and still somewhat busy - I got to stay at home, mostly, so no extended trips, but I had to spend quite some time at university for a workshop, and Felix and I did some more preparations concerning our move, so while some stitching has happend, it is (once again) not as much as I would have liked.

I did, however, make the progress I predicted on Angel of Frost: Stitched everything on her head, including the over-one area of the face, which proved to be challenging, but much less difficult than I had feared it would be.  I also stitched some more on her cloak (which I'm still severely in love with) and even though next week will be much more busy again, I hope that I shall be able to finish the cloak-part on this page and move on to the trees - let's hope that those fill in quite as fast as those on the left did!

On a sad note, I realized that I had to decide between finishing Halloween Town in time and even having a shot at finishing Angel of Frost before Christmas, I just couldn't do both - and as the latter is a gift, my choice was easy; and I'm only stitching on Halloween town now when I don't have any possibility to work on AoF. So I only got a little bit done this week and stitched Frankenstein's bride; hopefully, he will join her next week.





I also got a bit of knitting done during my workshop, but it all looks kind of the same, so I'm not going to bore you with more pictures of it for a while. On the other frots, not to much happend as well - we did watch the last episode of season 1 of Supernatural, and while we really want to know what happens next, we decided to finish some other stuff before we start on season 2, so we also saw E10+11 of Breaking Bad (which we still enjoy, only not in larger doses) and S2 E21 of The Nanny.

I also got some reading done, tonight I finished reading Labyrinth of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers. It was great, although it wasn't really a novel per se but more of the interlude to the next one - that is, it ends just when stuff is about to happen, but that's okay, the next one is actually coming in a few days and I just need to stalk the library for it :D

For now, I'm looking forward to a hopefully quiet long weekend (today is our national holiday...not that it would really matter to me, my thesis is not going to write itself), and next week I'll be away for a bit again, but hopefully, that trip will be as much fun as it is work. See you soon, my faitful readers!