January IHSW recap

This past weekend was IHSW, and although I didn't make it to the video hangout with my girls (Felix was sick, which caused a bit of chaos with my plans), this was the first time since....I don't even know how long that I feel like I actually did acomplish the whole hermit-and-stitch-thing. But before I go into length about what I did and didn't do this weekend, I have to start of by posting this picture of my progress on Dark Force, since I've been teasing said girls with it all week:

Here's ten blocks in, so if I want to make my year-goal of one block a day, I still need to catch up eight blocks (already managed one more today). But here's the details: I spent most of last monday preparing my fabric and putting this grid in (I need to get this finishing line stuff...I used normal sewing thread for this page, and I think I will have to cut it out in the end because it keeps mingling with my stitching). I started stitching the next day, and did one block each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, I managed a whooping four blocks (either I had a massive run or those were somehow easier than the others, I'm not sure yet). On Saturday morning, I got up early and finished one block before poor sick Felix was even up. Then I took a break (as I had just finished the first column, there were no loose parking-threads anymore, and I could take DF out of the snap) to stitch the third week of Stacy's Mystery Band Sampler - one row of modified sheaf stitch in pale yellow. The color doesn't show too well in the photo, but it's lovely in real life!

We then went to have lunch at my grandparents, and when we came home a pleasant suprise was awaiting me: My missing floss had finally arrived! So I spent the rest of the afternoon bobbinating (with Felix' help) and preparing my brand new needle organizer. I think I will have to buy another one soon, and maybe a second 8" Q Snap, so I don't have to take DF out all the time. After that, I put in the missing stitches on DF...there were only a few I had to leave out due to missing colors, but it made a world of a difference! I think this was when I finally fell in love with this project.

On Sunday, I stitched another block on DF, and a second one after a break for an other project: My friend Magical has started an 'Ornament of the month' SAL with little ornaments she designed based on birthstone colors. The first one is just brilliant, and I just had to make them! Thanksfully, I had all the colors needed in my stash (three shares of garnet), and I also had a piece of white 18ct aida that Carla sent me last year that just happend to be big enough. So I measured it, and cut it into twelve pieces of an appropriate size - I'll be doing those in hand, since I would have to put my q snap too close to the border of the fabric to comfortably work on it, and using small bits the fabric keeps more stiff than when I use the whole thing in hand, which is also quite unhandy. I finished the innter part of the design - Magical offers different ideas for how to finish the ornaments, and also four variations of an additional border to make them a bit bigger. I thought I wanted to do one of those, but than I liked the inner part so much I decided to keep it this way. I don't know how to finish them anyway (I love her idea of making them into a garland, but then I just saw this awesome twelve sided biscornu...), and I can still add the border later should I need it. So, this is my first finish of the year - and isn't it gorgeous? I love the blackwork like backstitching!

As for watching, we actually sat down to watch Hangover 3 on friday evening, sooner than expected - I liked it, the story was actually quite different from the others, and I got the feeling this was really meant to be a trilogy. Poor giraffe, though! :(

Then we did something we meant to do for a long time, since neither of us really watched it before, and we wanted to give it a go: We started Star Trek: The Original Series. Only one episode so far - the show has aged quite a bit, and Felix can't handle great doses of old stuff very well, but I can see where the whole fandom is coming from I think, I liked it and hope we'll watch more soon.

Then there was more NCIS, of course - S11, E10-19. There's a new character now to replace the one that disappeared, and I think I might really like her.

I also watched a bit more Castle when I was left to myself (Felix had some work to do) - S1, E3-6. I like the dynamic that is developing between Castle and Beckett, I'm looking forward how that will keep going through the seasons!

We didn't watch it this weekend, but I realzed I forgot to mention last time that we also saw Groundhog Day - Felix is slowly making me catch up on all the classics I missed, but this one, I picked myself. It was hilarious, but I'm kind of missing an explanation for the whole thing... (The title of this one is much more funny in German, by the way - it's something along the line of 'And everyday, the groundhog salutes' :D)

So that's it for the weekend, I'll keep working on DF until I caught up with the date, than slowly try and add other stitching stuff to my diet again - I really need to get cracking on CTC I guess...