Weekly Stitching - a bit on the late side

I was on "vacation" last week which, as we all know, means I still had to get up every single day and drag my sorry butt into work and do those lovely little tasks that only I can do as well as handle multiple phone calls and texts throughout the day. Yea me. Despite the put-in hours, I still managed to get horribly behind on my job and have struggled to get caught up, hence the late post. I did get quite a bit of stitching done on the Bride though. I left off here last time:

And finished Sunday night here:

Her face looks a bit freaky right now, but I'm excited to see a little Freddy head appearing! I've decided to go in two week rotations, so I'm continuing with her this week although, at least so far, I haven't been able to touch her because I've been getting home so late.

I finished up Agents of SHIELD, and lets just say, there is a reason why I don't watch active shows anymore...I HATE sucky cliffhangery season finales! At least I don't have to wait the well-over-a-year that every other watcher of the show has had to endure, but still! UGH! I now know why I continue to watch Once Upon A Time over and over again, I always know there is a happy ending at the end, even through a weird season 7, the loyal fans were rewarded with the best ending ever and I can always count on that!

But, even though I went back and finished up my current Once rotation, I managed not to start another round and got distracted with some other shows (at least for now). I watched the Jack Ryan series on Amazon, which typically wouldn't be my thing, but it wasn't half bad. I'm now watching Roswell. I'm trying hard not to dwell too much on the whole Supernatural-ending thing (although Roswell might not have been the best choice since Jensen Ackles was on that show for a while). Granted, it was probably time for Supernatural to end because, let's face it, the past couple of seasons haven't been that great other than an episode or two here and there, but still. I was just commenting to a co-worker on Friday afternoon, after bitching about Agents of SHIELD and that sucky season 5 ending (especially when they didn't know if they were gonna get renewed at the time), that at least I could always count on Supernatural to always be around because it would never get cancelled, not unless the actors pulled the plug and then WHAM! Four hours later, the Tweet went out that the plug had been pulled! So much for stability! And I seriously doubt Supernatural will get a Once Upon A Time-type happy ending. It would defy the very nature of the show. There will be a lot of death and tears I figure. Great...Infinity War all over again without the possibility of a reprieve with Endgame!

Weekly Stitching - finally a finish!

I piddled all week with Rapunzel...I should have had it finished in one night...instead, I spread it out over three days and barely got it finished at all in the week! I left off here last week:

Finished the row on Saturday:

And here it is in all its glory:

I wish I had a dime for everytime I kept knocking my stand over, which in turn would also knock over my cup of iced tea. I would check my fabric to make sure I never got tea on it, but apparently I missed a spot or two because, once I ironed off the grid lines, there were tea spots everywhere. Hopefully, washing it will clean it up. If not, I guess I will have to make sure the framing covers them. You can see them much better without all the grid lines:

And it's also amazing how quickly I finished Rapunzel (151.63 hrs), so maybe my speed is picking up. Oh, and just for the record, here is the size difference between Rapunzel and Snow and Charming, although I figure they will still frame up the same if I don't matt Rapunzel:

I guess it also shows how different cross stitch can be. No two projects could be so different! I do admit, I prefer full coverage with 1x1 and more realistic, but everyone is different.

I knew immediately that I wanted to go back to The Bride Dollmaker from GeckoRouge, so that's where I went back to Saturday night. Here's what she will look like when finished, for those who haven't seen here in a while (or not at all):

I left off at the first row finish back in January of 2018 when I was regular stitching:

And my attention level was pretty short both Saturday night and Sunday, so this is where I made it to (sad, I know):

I still haven't decided if I'm stitching in rotation for two weeks at a time, or a row at a time, but I'm just kind of going with the flow right now.

No spoilers, but I will say that Captain Marvel was good, but I'm still extremely worried about Endgame since it didn't really answer any of those questions. But it did answer a TON of questions for Agents of Shield, so I went back to watching that show again and, at least for now, my Once habit has been under control for a whole week! Let's see how long it lasts.

There is also really exciting news on the new house front. I've been working hard to pay down my debt, and it's going to take a while, I have a two-year plan, but I've got it down to two house plans and I'm pretty happy with either one. My brother-in-law and his partner has bought a chunk of land to start their own subdivision and I get to pick my own plot, so all should be good there too. I get a nice house in a much safer town (even if it's one I spent my entire childhood trying to get out of), built at cost (maybe less), and can finally have what I truly want, an adult house with a place for the Disney stuff that doesn't take over every square inch of space. I'll be able to give the puppies a yard to play in and to have a yard myself for a garden. Granted, I'll have to get up earlier because I will have a bit longer commute, I won't have as fast internet or access to all the amenities living in a bigger town offers, but I'm cool with that. I'll keep you guys updated as this story develops. As of now, it almost feels too good to be true and I don't want to spoil or ruin it.

Weekly stitching and sucky spoilers - update

Well, I didn't finish Rapunzel last week, despite my best efforts. I didn't have any headaches, just work-aches. I left off here last week:

And at least made it this far by last night:

I'm not going to jinx myself and say that I should finish this week, especially after last week, even though I have less than half the third page and the fourth page isn't even a full page and all the outlining is already done. As sure as I say I'll finish it, I'll have another horrible week and I certainly don't want to go through another last week!

I did try, yet again, to break my Once habit. I watched The Order on Netflix and it was OK, but I hope they get a second season because I didn't like the way it ended. I got caught up on all the Disney movies I was behind on (basically, everything out since Moana), so that's done. Other than Ralph Breaks The Internet, the rest weren't that great. Then I just went back to Avengers Infinity War on loop to desensitize myself for Avengers Endgame. It's still not working (I get choked up everytime), but I'm trying. Contracts are up, actors will be leaving, that's not a spoiler. Whether the characters depart alive or dead will be the question.

Because the internet is a crappy place, a co-worker and I are going to take a long lunch tomorrow and go see Captain Marvel because I literally can't look at ANYTHING on the web without seeing spoilers! I can't look at regular news, entertainment news, science news, tech news, or even Disney news! Seriously? Bloody hell people! Since when did the spoiler-verse get so bad? Remember when they used to at least start the titles of articles with "This article contains spoilers"? Now even the stupid titles have spoilers! I'm at a point now where it's hard for me to physically go anywhere at all except for work and home since I'm not in school anymore (probably worse than before I was in school), so going to the movies is NOT ideal for me right now, even with a friend (who, FYI, has already dropped a spoiler himself, the jerk!).

This couldn't come at a worse time, but I don't have a choice. I can't wait until Captain Marvel comes out on Blu-Ray because it is too close to Endgame for a BR release and, since Cap Marvel sets up Endgame, I'm stuck. How I managed to make it through Infinity War until the Blu-Ray was a bloody miracle, I won't get that lucky with Endgame. Every death will be plastered over every square inch of the web within minutes of opening night...ugh! If I'm going to lose Captain America, I need to see it for myself, not hear it spoiled, or else I'll be sitting there dreading every second instead of watching the movie. I'll deal with it if (or even when) the moment comes, although it might not (I'm still hopeful he'll get to just retire and someone else will die, at this point I don't care who, just not my Cap). No matter what happens in Endgame though, I know my 10 years of the Marvel-verse will be ending, so I'm not sure what that future will hold for me. It's hard enough for me to let things go (obviously), so it's going to be a rough "endgame" no matter how Endgame ends.

Maybe I need to find a good Avengers cross stitch project, something detailed with all the characters (while they are all still there). Hmmm...project! But I'll guess I'll have to wait until the posters come out for Endgame because there is no Hawkeye in Infinity War and I need Hawkeye!

UPDATE...well, that took all of five minutes, but I snuck over to Etsy and picked up a few patterns, Hawkeye or not:

A solo Cap, just coz...

And one I've have favorited for a while because it gave me a discount with the Infinity War one and I really love Vanellope!

My self control is about equal to my patience level...absolute zero!

Weekly Stitching and other things

Thanks guys (especially Linda) for the information about DoNa Stitches. I have all eleven, so I must be good. I probably will never get around to finishing them all anyway, but it's nice to know, even if she never comes back, I do have the complete set so far.

I also have to say R.I.P. to Luke Perry. 90210 wasn't my kind of thing (although I did watch it upon occasion), but I was a huge MOVIE Buffy fan (not the TV show...you guys knew I was weird, so I'm sure you're not shocked), so I've been a fan of his forever and I liked seeing him on Riverdale. I just hate it when the good die young and it makes me mad, especially when there are tons of horrible people running around out there suffering no consequences whatsoever. Fate is a horrible bitch. He shouldn't have been taken from us, but I am sorry for his family. He will be missed.

But anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program, I think I must have jinxed myself last week because, instead of ending up almost finished with Rapunzel like I planned, I instead ended up with a four-day migraine thanks to weather fluctuations from 70 degrees and heavy thunderstorms down to 15 last night and snow and ice on Sunday. Needless to say, I was lucky to get as far as I did, most of which was done Saturday and Sunday. I left off last week here, practically finished with row 2 and a job that should have taken less than a night:

But only finished the row this past Saturday night since I had three days with no stitching, one day with useless stitching, and when I could stitch again, it seemed like I was frogging everything I did stitch:

And here are the two together so far (and, ironically, it doesn't look like it, but this project is bigger than Snow and Charming):

I started row 3 and managed at least the first page and some of the second by Sunday night, but I'm ashamed to say that this is where I ended for the week, no where near finished:

I'd say the odds of me finishing this week are probably not good, but I'm going to give it the old college try (which, considering my college record, isn't setting the bar high). I apparently also was a row short when I gridded, so hopefully my count isn't off, but as of now, I can't really tell. It shouldn't be since I typically stitch from top to bottom, but the way this thing is going, I'm not counting my chickens in any direction!

Last weekend, in yet another effort to break my Once habit, I had an Avengers marathon. Last Sunday night got me through Civil War, but because of my headache, it took me the rest of the week to get through the other films that followed. Once I finished those, I finally decided to break down and watch Deadpool 2 (I've been putting it off), which lead to watching Logan (another put-off, but that ending had been spoiled by so many different sources, it didn't matter anyway) and then I decided to watch the X-Men films in order. Problem is, that series is a bear to find the right order to watch them in! I found website after website that listed numerous different ways to watch those films and none of them made sense, so I just watched them the way I wanted to. They definitely don't flow like the Avengers movies do, that's for sure.

Days of Future Past is still my favorite X-Men film and Wolverine: Origins is still my favorite stand-alone because of Gambit. I don't care what anyone says, Taylor Kitsch will ALWAYS be my Remy, no matter who ends up in a stand-alone Gambit film (if they ever make one...odds aren't looking good anymore). I'm really curious to see how the Fox/Disney merger affects the Avenger/X-Men merger as well and if timelines get straightened out better. Quantum Realms/alternate universes could explain X-Men continuity errors or the lack of mutants in the Avenger films altogether (although the Marvel shows don't seem to be shying away from mutants, even Agents of Shield, so I'm not sure what's going on there, but I'm several seasons behind on that one). Oh well, by Sunday night, I was back on Once anyway, so I guess it didn't matter in the end. Maybe, since Agents of Shield is on Netflix, I should start watching that. We'll see.

Weekly Stitching

Rapunzel is coming along nicely. I was a bit disappointed during the beginning of the week because I didn't think she was moving along as quickly as I thought she should, after all, when I started this project, I finished the first row in about a week along with the beginning of the second row (although I piddled a bit with it after that). But, upon further reflection, I realized the first row wasn't a full top-to-bottom row like the second is, so there is a lot more stitching involved in this row and, my speed still isn't back up yet, so I'm doing pretty good, all things considered. I left off here back in July of last year:

And stopped here last night:

You might notice I didn't leave the "gap" in Flynn's hair like in the pattern:

It was just a bit too "Dr. Strange" for my taste. I don't typically like to change patterns, but I just couldn't handle that space and I didn't really understand it, so I decided to go against my personal grain and stitch through it, giving "Eugene" a full head of solid hair. Yes, I AM a rebel!

I figure I should easily finish this row this week and, since the bottom row also isn't a full one, it should go faster like the first one. I probably won't finish this week, but should definitely be finished by next week, as long as there aren't any interruptions. Then, it's back to rotations, although I STILL haven't decided what to do about Hook or whether or not to do one week or two week rotations. I'm not sure when I became such a procrastinator, but apparently it's now one of my personality traits. I don't like it much, so I guess I need to work on that.

Snow and Charming got a "bath" and are drying. I will try to get them mounted sometime this week too. I don't want to get Rapunzel framed until I get all the DoNa's done. I'd like to get them framed together for continuity's sake (plus, I'm not sure what living situation will be at the time anyway). Speaking of DoNa...anyone know what is up with her shop? Her Etsy store has been closed since December for "upgrades", but hasn't come back up yet! I think I have all her princess patterns, but I'm not sure. I'd hate to think I missed one and she's never gonna open back up again. I think the last one was Alice in Wonderland (or at least that was the last one I bought).

TA-DA!!

Well, after yet again another bad stitch week, I somehow managed to finish Snow and Charming! I didn't get the extra outlining done that I talked about doing, but that's OK...I've never done it before and all has been well. It was just a thought anyway. I left off here last week:

Here is the last finished row...55,728 stitches completed for a total of 282.15 hrs (geez, I gotta work on my speed!):

And after unscrolling, ironing to get out gridlines, here they are! They look so big, but it is only barely 8 x 10

I still need to wash them, re-iron, mount and take them somewhere for framing, but that will get done. Looks like I need to watch my stretching too because they are a bit crooked (but it was the fabric). If I take it to Joann, I make also take in my Supernatural Exorcism stitch to get it framed too...I doubt Hobby Lobby would touch it with a ten-foot pole and I have yet to find the perfect frame for it. I have actually mounted it on foam core, but in a way that doesn't support a mat. With the right frame, I don't think it will need one (I just don't have a picture of it mounted):

Since I finished so late last night, I didn't get to switch to anything else, but I did decide the "smartest" thing to do was to at least clear down the queue a bit and finish Rapunzel. I could technically whip her out in as little as a month or less, so she's my best option and will give me the time I need to decide what to do about Hook. I left off on her here back in July:

I started to load up Maleficent first, since I only have two rows left of her, but I ran across Rapunzel digging through the WIPs and knew she was the quicker option, but Maleficent might come next. I haven't worked on her since last February, but even with two rows left, that's two HAED rows of full-on dithering...at least two or three months of work, depending on how full the final row is:

I really like the thought of cutting down my WIPs (or maybe starting some new ones...I'm not sure which).

Weekly Stitching

Snow and Charming are coming along nicely, despite the fact that I didn't really have a good stitch week. But still, if all goes according to plan and I do OK this week, I should have them finished by the end of this week. I left off here last week:

And, despite the pain that Flickr has now become since the change-over to their new management (but I have WAY too many photos in there to switch to anything else, so I'm kind of stuck), I FINALLY managed to find where the new ones I put this week ended up and here is where I stopped Sunday night:

I'm excited to finish it and scared at the same time. Plus, I think I might, if I finish early, go around the border a couple of times with the outside color, just to have a little extra "padding" for framing. I just wish I had another Once realistic project to go to next! I guess I could technically make one, but then there is the whole copyright issue and I'm not sure I want to tackle that. I have LOVED every second of this project and I am eternally grateful to the wonderful person who gifted it to me, but finishing it means I have to make some serious decisions about rotations and how to redo Hook, or even if I want to...still on the fence about that one. Logic (and you guys) tell me that it would be best to switch to white fabric, but then I think about the edges of the project and when to know what is the edge white and what is fill-in background white and that's a lot of thinking. My whole thing with cross stitching is that I don't want to think about what I'm actually physically doing, that's the time my mind goes "elsewhere". As it is now, just filling in the white means there wouldn't be any thinking involved, but my goodness, how boring it would be just stitching all that white! I guess I could always see if I could cut down the background a bit:

But it would be cutting it close down by his right arm area:

I swear Hook didn't look white at all, which is why I picked the fabric I did so it would make it easier to stitch the white on. I had such a hard time with Night Wish's moon on that first row because I was stitching white-on-white and I had to stitch a little moon and then switch to something else because I kept getting bored. This is SOOO much more white than that!

I guess I can only focus on finishing Snow and Charming now and THEN see where I stand. I'm still in such a massive Once Upon A Time mood, I'm not sure I can go into a normal rotation without going directly to Hook or another Once project in my stash.

But speaking of stash, I did actually buy a new chart this week. It's from UnconventionalX on Etsy, who I've followed for a long time, but never actually bought anything from. It's called "The Blue Marble is So Fragile" by Borda Danut Adrian and it's very moi!

There is so much detail in this picture, it's amazing! There are actually a few more of that artist's patterns in their shop, but none fit me as well (and I've got to stop buying every single chart by an artist just because I have one and I like style but maybe not necessarily the piece).

Oh, and I failed to mention it, but quite a while ago, I bought another chart from MandarinksDesigns, Rumplestiltskin's dagger. It's not the typical type of pattern I would buy because I HATE it when the outlines go over half the stitches, but I couldn't help it considering the pattern (and the fact that Once charts are EXTREMELY rare). They really have some great patterns, but it's that whole "outline over stitches" thing that gets me. Typically, I fix those as I stitch, but it's such a struggle because then you are creating half or quarter stitches, I just don't like to bother (thinking+stitching=annoying). Besides, I think HAED's have spoiled me to just full stitches and I can't seem to do anything else anymore. But anyhoo, here is the pattern and I love how Belle's rose comes out the top of it:

There are a lot of great artists in DeviantArt (if you can muddle through all the semi-porn or bad stuff) who have done some amazing Once artwork and, if I hadn't gotten such a dismissive response from the Hook artist about Charming, I probably would send a message to a few of them and ask them to license out their work to Tilton or HAED or someone because they would make excellent stitch projects, but now I'm too chicken. There is a great series of holding hand pics of the Once couples from Sarah Mac Illustration that would make great cross stitch projects...here's the Hook and Emma one from her RedBubble store and then another great one is Svenja Gosen, who sells her stuff on Etsy too as well as RedBubble...it's just easier to find their RedBubble stores than find them on Etsy or DeviantArt for some reason (these are watermarked, so I think it's OK to post them, but if not, please let me know...friggin copyright laws!). Then again, I guess I could just learn digital art and do one myself and then turn it into a cross stitch project, but that's SOOO much work! It's much easier for someone else to let their work be commissioned out, especially when it's probably better than anything I could ever do anyway!