Still moving along

Not much new to report, still stitching along, although I did take a couple of days off stitching when I returned to work after vacation. As per usual, fate decided she was going to kick me in the teeth, and I literally have been knocked off my feet every single day since. Eventually though, I accepted it, and just started stitching again, shutting my brain down to it all, even though I'm not stitching as much as I was, some days, barely getting in a thousand stitches a day.

I left off on Alice and the B's here last week:

And, although I did get Cinderella's side finished up and started moving on to Alice's face, once I hit that Kreinik, I got stuck and spent almost all this weekend on nothing but. I do use Petit Treasure Braid instead, but all in all, it's the same stuff and it's a pain sometimes. I'm glad HAED doesn't really chart with it anymore, or at least not on the patterns I've bought in the last year or so. On some charts it looks good, but on this one, the coloring is so off anyway (I mean, look at their skin color, it's nothing like the original print, they look zombie green and you can't tell the difference between Cindy's shirt and her chest because it's all the same colors, it's NOT supposed to be according to the original artwork). The shiny thread is just an eyesore, but first, where I got to:

And, as hard as it is to photograph, especially with a phone, here is the Petit Treasure Braid, as best as I can show it:

There was more of it than just Alice's face, there was also some on Cindy, but not much more and not enough to single out. It was basically just that patch that took me all weekend, although along with the other stitching I did across the piece, it was still around 2000 stitches total for the weekend (which is about a third of my normal weekend stitching). I didn't count for the whole week, but it was way down, I'm sure of it.

On the coloring issue, I've talked about this in the past (probably ad nauseum), but I'm REALLY hoping it all works out in the end. HAED's are like that sometimes. Considering the size of this piece (it's the largest HAED I've done to date, although the bookshelf will outmatch it in spades once I start it, it's just hard to tell how big it is from these pictures), I won't say it will be a total waste of time and effort if they look like zombies (which, they aren't meant to), but I will be disappointed, especially after all these years of working on them.

I did have to stop watching FlossTube, because I ended up with more patterns, not all of which I'm going to show you (there are too many), but I got some more Vivsters patterns and seriously thought about starting this one as well, Quaker Tiles, Scotland (I may have shown this to you already, I got it in the first batch of Visters), but I would want to do it with silk thread, and the thread alone was yet another $100, and I'm just NOT going to do it!

And, when I was looking for something else entirely, I ran across this one by Modern Cross Stitch for A Discovery of Witches, another one of my favorite shows, which I had also read the book series (I actually read them first, a rare occurrence for me, normally a show gets me to reading nowadays). I do want to start this one as well, but I think I can wait for now...for now. So many easter eggs in this! Love it!

So, I just went back to watching A Discovery of Witches instead of YouTube this weekend (and easy weekend show because it's British, so short seasons, and only there is only three of them because three books, well, four books, but the fourth book is something else). I do think it slowed me down because I wanted to watch the show more than stitch, so there is that and that's something I need to consider going forward...because I do spend the majority of my time on YouTube anyway, but when I started stitching again, I found it easier to drop in Supernatural because I have seen that show so many times, it was easier to just have background noise that something I needed to pay attention to. Shows like Once or S.H.I.E.L.D., I'm gonna wanna pay attention to, even though I've seen them hundreds of times a piece. I guess I need an "OK to watch" pile and a "nope, distraction" pile. I can only deal with the family business of saving people and hunting things, taking the hobbits to Isengard, and telling Harry he's a wizard, so many times before I start to get burnt out. I can deal with people reacting to any of my shows or movies on YouTube pretty easily, but not that many people watch Once or S.H.I.E.L.D. and no one watches ADoW (must be a copyright thing), and the ones that do watch the other shows, only put out content once a week or so. I watch people react to GoT all the time as well, I've probably watched reactors dozens of times versus two times I've seen the show all the way through. I think I prefer it that way. Just anything to keep me away from FlossTube or I'm never gonna get out of debt! I do have other channels I watch, and I have to keep up with those, but it's mainly weekly content, so I really only have to drop in once a week for a day to stay caught up.

And I have also been watching the new Percy Jackson on Disney+, another book I've actually read (the first one at least, but after the first movie came out). But that's a weekly thing and only 30 minutes per episode, so not much of a distraction. The verdicts not fully out though yet because I'm not seeing the reason for the remake. I LOVE both movies, but I haven't read the second book, so its flack I don't get (other than the bad CGI, which I can ignore). I don't get remakes, unless there is an important reason for it, and so far, I'm not seeing those reasons (and that includes live action versions of animated movies). I get making books into movies or shows, some people just don't read anymore and it gets more media out there. I'm a reader, although I don't do much of it anymore (but I still buy way too many books for my liking). There are some rare cases where I like movies better than the books (A Walk To Remember comes to mind, love the movie, hate the book), typically I prefer the book to the movie, but usually, I can separate them and like them in different ways. In the case of PJ, it's like 8-30 minute episodes, basically a 4 hour movie, so again, why remake it? If they were hour episodes, I'd get it then. I know there was a lot of flack over the diversity casting, but what's new in today's world? Most of the new actors are better than the original cast (except Logan Lerman, he's still Percy to me). I have seen shows or movies fail simply because people went nuts over the casting. If the actors are bad, no matter their race, it isn't going to work anyway (don't get me started on the TV adaptation of Vampire Academy again). Sometimes story needs to be tweaked if you change the ethnicity of an actor, sometimes it doesn't. PJ does well without changes, VA made too many changes and was unrecognizable to the books (and the bad acting was a huge factor as well). Eventually though, if Percy fairs well, we will get to see all the books on the screen, so maybe it's a good thing, jury's still out. I'm still snagged on the sameness of it all as it's very similar to the movie version.

The upcoming Harry Potter series? Only time will tell and that's a fanbase that is rabid and extremely militant. Jo Rowlings is a whole other ball of wax I don't want to touch with a 10ft pole. No one can replace Alan Rickman, so whoever is cast as Snape is doomed, no matter who they are, inside or out. A couple more hours of information, if the episodes aren't long enough, is not going to change much story, except in Goblet, Prince, and the battle of Hogwarts at the end of Hallows 2, which the movies changes more of than they should have from the books. But I love both versions of all, they are just two separate things in my mind. As of now, I just don't see the purpose in remaking it. It's brilliant as is. I'm not really militant about much though (which, I probably am and just don't realize it, definitely Duran Duran, and Disney too, Disney is just in the naughty chair right now).

I'm not sure how I got off on that tangent, but enough gibber jabber! I'm all culturally referenced out...snap*...did all the bad people disappear yet? I don't think the world will be happy until we're living in the Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo episode of South Park (there, one more reference before I go).