September Gifted Gorgeousness

This time I know that at least the Gifte Gorgeousness SAL is due for a checkin, so let's just do that :D Still having a very busy time, part good busy, part stress busy, but I'm hopping along, and somehow getting in a lot of crafting time at the edges, I suspect it's what's keeping me sane, well, mostly sane, these days ;)

So let's see...my main project these days is My Day Off, a gift for Felix' mum and therefor very much part of the GG SAL. I did make a lot of progress on this again, I moved the snap to work on the upper half and finished the lady's pillow and hair, the background up to the upper edge, and that green thing is a window shutter. Now I started on her upper body, and after that it's more background again.

Another gift project I'm working on, although not cross stitch, is Hitchhat. This is part two of four, so it's actually knitting up pretty fast. I only have one more week to finish this, but two days of workshop next week (which basically means lots of sitting and listening for me), so lot's of knitting time. I like how the shaping is working here, you might see that better when I'm all done with the knitting and get to sewing.

My third project doesn't qualify for GG, but nevertheless I want to share my progress with you: Here's the fourth block of our Halloween SAL by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I love this little pumpkin, and he's showing up way better on the orange fabric than I dared hope for :)

In other news, I played Magus this week. My friends kept telling me it's the worst game ever, and of course I had to see for myself - well, it's not stellar, but I did have a bit of fun for the four hours or so it lasted. It's pretty repetitive, but short enough to not get boring. They market it as an RPG, but actually it's more of a shooter, ou just press one button to do ypur magic, aim, and watch as everything perishes before you, instantly. The story is pretty cliché as well, but there are a few witty remarks I liked. I don't regret playing it, but that might be partly because I spent only 1.80€ as it was on sale.

I also finished volume 5 of the Case Closed/Detective Conan mange today. Felix and I also watched some more, more precisly E89-93. Then we started Elementary (might be because we were a bit on a Holmes trip thanks to Conan) and watched the first few episodes (1-8) of S1, and right now I'm getting into a few more episodes of Once Upon a Time (S1, E13-17). I'll probably go to bed after this one though, it's almost 2am here :)

September TUSAL - or something?

I have to admit, I'm not at all sure which SALs I'm late for this time - I know it's Tons of Time, but I didn't stitch any tinies lately, and I suppose it should be TSAL time again, so have a picture of m ORT jar, nicely filled with lots and lots of ORTS mostly from My Day Off :D

Because I did make a fair bit of progress on My Day Off: I filled in the flower pot you saw the outlines of last time. I think this might have been the area with the most colour changes in the whole design, and it was a nice change of pace from the usual big chunks! I did make a mistake somewhere in there, but I decided it wasn't worth counting and frogging and recounting, as it is small and probably not noticable in all the flowers there. Then, I filled in some background and the sea, so the lower half of the pattern is now finished and I can move the hoop up, up and...left. It's been a while since I've been that excited about this project!

Of course, I also worked on the Halloween SAL, and finished the third block - A as A-dorable Ghosties. 

I also started a new knitting project - Hitchhat, the hat rom the same series that had the Mostly Warmness wristwarmers and the Hitchhiker shawl. I now have a deadline on this, the whole set has to be finished by the 25th, but as I have some serious knitting time coming up this week, this shouln't be a problem :)

And one last thing I wanted to show you - while cleaning up my desk I found the paper for this little guy, and I just had to put him together! I used to do much more papercraft when I was younger, maybe I should get back into it, it's fun and there are so many great geeky designs now :)

Now what else happened...some gaming, as I finally finished Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (I only played the story recently, but I'd been busy with the Multiplayer for quite a while, and getting everything to 100% was a bit difficult now). I really like the series, but more for the historical parts than the overall-arc. Revelations is up next :)

Then I also got Felix to play and finish The Walking Dead Season 2 with me - I love Telltale games, and this one had some heartbreaking decisions, consequences and twists in it.

Of course, we finished S9 of Bones by watching the last episode, and then there was some more Detective Conan/Case Closed (E65 - E88) of which I also finished the third volume of the Manga, and I had one more episode of Once Upon a Time (S1, E12) :)

Summer postcard blog hop & more

Update time again - after another lazy weekend and not-to-busy week, I feel almost back to normal again. The summer seems to be officially over, it's getting colder outside, although the sun can still be quite warm and bright when she decides to come out after all.

My post today shall be started by my entry from the Summer Postcard blog hop that Jo was hosting this summer. The subject was pets, and here is the entry from Bea:

I'm a cat person, totally. I have two at the moment, a white domestic short

hair named Snowy and a black Scottish-fold named Yoda. I grew up with cats as

the family pets. My dad, who was a terrible tease, used to say to me when I

was being bratty "Remember your place in this family young lady - we had cats

before we had you". I can't imagine my life without them, in spite of the fact

that they regularly drive me crazy.

Now after that little cutie hopefully got your attention, let's move on to my own progress: I got a big chunk of Day Off done this week, finishing all the ground in the lower right corner. The shadow of the flower pot I so neatly outlined had a little overlap with the flowerpot itself as you can see, so me goal for this week is to fill in said pot and hopefully also the sea to the right of the bathtub, so I can move my qsnap upwards after that.

I also worked on the second block for the Halloween SAL. After securing the center I moved up to the upper left corner, so I can do my usually working-down-and-right' after this week. I also did the part of the border that surounds this block, so I won't have to do all of it in the end.

Last but not least, I have a knitting finish: After working on it on and off for a really long time, I finally cast off Hitchhiker yesterday. It has the exact 42 spikes that the original pattern calls for, so it is not too big, but will still keep your neck nice and warm. I will eave in the loose ends after washing and blocking, and that will happen once I have finished the hat as well, which I intend to cast on this weekend.

As for out watching, Felix and I worked our way through Season 9 of Bones (E6-23). Only one left to go, which we will hopefully watch today :) We also saw the second episode of Fear the Walking Dead, and a bit more of Case Closed/Detective Conan (E55-65).