SAL

I started a SAL (Stitch A Long) with my friend Angella. We both like the White Willow Stitching chart called Tribal Moon. And it just screams "stitch me in glow-in-the-dark!" So that's what we're going to do. Here's what it will look like (from the WWS site):





So Angella found a gorgeous piece of opalescent fabric which is blues and aquas all swirled together. I chose to use a piece of 20 ct black lugana. I have a lot of this due to the fact I went on a search for that so I would have it to use for QS Rose Fairy as well as Healers Touch.

I would not be surprised if I finish mine much farther behind Angella, she's quite the speedy stitcher. lol

So we were going to start the SAL on Monday the 24th of September. Buuuuut we were both antsy to start. I was like it's tomorrow somewhere in Europe (it was about 6:30 pm eastern) and we decided to start NAOW! lol

This is what I got done through last night. I took the pic this morning so it would be better, tho it's not a great pic due to the whole I took it with my cell phone. But you can still see what I've gotten done:



I'll continue to work on it, it's my goal to get it done by October. I like stitching this by each piece, it's like I'm gonna work on the heart or star or weird squigly mark. And one of them almost looks like the TK-421 symbol, so that's cool.

Same Twine Time, Same Twine Channel

Why yes, yes it is Sunday again! It seems like it routinely happens, like once a week or something.

So . . . how shall I try to confound you this week? Afterall, I do need another four clues before the big reveal, which of course will be before the drawing of the chart in honor of my friend's birthday.

So . . . what's this week?

It is . . . a picture clue! Yes, a snippit of a portion of the picture is this week's clue!!!

Of course I will not make it an easy clue, can't have it guessed too soon! lol

Note: I know that some people know what it is now since I didn't think about the name when I had originally put up the clue . . . so if you got the answer yay for you being clever enough to figure out how to do that . . . but wait until the final clue and then post your answer? (That's why I deleted the two comments)

Good luck on your guesses!



Oh and by the way . . . I know that it was actually yesterday (I just didn't get on to do a blog) but Happy (belated) Hobbit Day!

Pictures!

I fiiiiiinally found my camera (no I haven't taken the French knot pics yet but I have not forgotten!) . . . so I was finally able to take some finished pics I've been meaning to take for a while now.

The first one is a baby bib I started quite a few years ago. I had done all but most of the head, the right side of the carrots and some of the backstitching. And I still don't know why I put it down. But I came across it when I was sorting through a few things in a box (along with a picture I started of a unicorn gong up a path to a yellow castle . . . much less finished). And I put on the miniseries of Dune and finished it. It took me 4-ish hours to finish.



This next one has been finished since 1992. However, my granny had had it with her stuff to wash/press/frame. And she had never gotten around to it. I had been hoping the cornucopia/veggie pic was still there as well as the pegasus. Dunno where those went to, but hey, I'm still happy this was found. There was also a beautiful needlepoint I'd done of three carosel horses, but stupid moths had gotten to it. It'll cost me a fortune, ok maybe $20, to get matching yarns to fix. Boo.

And I can fiiiiinnally post a picture of Dragon of the Summer Sky. Not that I was waiting to surprise anyone or I hadn't finished it. No . . . the problem was I sometimes get lazy and forgetful. And of course . . . when I do remember, I'm nowhere near either camera or finished stitching. Bother.

But here it is!





And finally . . . after two starts, some fading, a whole lot of whinging over the background . . . I launch the Space Tiger (aka No other home by Dimensions)





I will post another one later of my wip pics, but finished pics are fun! Wooo I found the camera!

Twine Time!

It's 4 in the morning, but it's 4 in the morning on Sunday! That means . . . Twine Time!



So far . . . my clues have been vague, and purposely so. For if I make it too easy, it won't last until mid-October. And the event for October is RAK-tober, where we RAK someone. September was HAED Appreciation month, which had some nice numbers put up - nearly 700 I think. (more on that later)

Oooookay . . . I hope you've been paying attention to the previous clues. This one is going to narrow down the field of choices considerably! I mean the last one did also, but there were still plenty to try to pick from, what with nearly 8,000 charts it could possibly be. I know it's 7900+ but that's close enough to 8,000 . . . and I diiid say "nearly". lol

so . . .

ready for it?

can I draw this out any more? no? "Get on with it!" you say? Ok . . .

This chart is a QS that does not have a corresponding BAP.

I know, I know, big build up for a short - but significant - sentence.

Have at it, time to guess more guesses! lol







I know, I'm still looking for my camera . . . not just for French knots part 2 (I'm thinking of seeing if I can get together with my friend Jen, who is a pretty awesome photographer, plus, it's hard to take pics of oneself actually stitching French knots.

But I also need to find the camera, I have what 4 or 5 pieces to photograph? Ah well. I suppose the Borrowers or Underpants Gnomes will return it one day. Or I'll win the lottery or something and get a fancy new one.

Oh yes . . . I clicked "publish" and then remembered oops I meant to finish my thought after "more later". Ah well. Ok so my thought was about the HAED Appreciation Day. We had a good turn out, but at the same time, if all the sales are in one week, that's not so good. The copyright infringement was definitely not helping matters, but when sales are also down, that definitely cannot help. I think I would have counted it as more of a success if it'd been double what the numbers had been. It used to be close to 150 a day and that's what we (yes I participated as well yay babysitting money)were doing this week. It had gotten to about 20 a day. So yes, more than double the 20, but again, not what it had been. And I know it's not just copyright infringement, though that is definitely hurting. It's also the hideous economy . . . blech.

Again another reason for me to win the lottery.

More twine!

Today's clue . . .

It is NOT a BAP (big ass project).

That being said, if there is a smaller version, that doesn't mean that couldn't be it. For example: if say it was The Key, it could still be that little purple dragon, just not in the full-size version. It's not, since that's a dragon and the mystery chart is not a dragon, I'm just using it as an example. So . . . it might be a QS, a SK, a mini, a FoF, or any of the other various sections that is not a full-size/BAP chart.

I know, still a bit vague . . . which is definitely purposely done. Mostly to see what people guess it might be :) But there are plenty of more clues to come - October is still a ways away!

Good luck guessing!!!









No I haven't forgotten French Knots part 2 . . . I can't find my camera, stupid missing camera grrrr.

Bonus Ball of Twine!!

A what?

Oh a bonus clue . . . why?

For the holiday! It's Labor Day.

Ok what is it?

Bonus clue: It is not a dragon.

New clue!

Well . . . it is Sunday, afterall . . . so clue time!

And no it's not a big ball of twine. lol

lol that was just a reference to the fact that originally, a clue meant a ball/skein/etc of twine, as in what Theseus took into the laborynth to defeat the minotaur and find his way out again. lol yes, mythology humor/reference, I am a nerd.

So anyway . . .

Your next clue!

It is not a black-and-white.

Just a reminder, this is for a specific chart I am going to RAK in honor of a friend's birthday midish-October. This is the same friend I completed my first finished HAED for when she went over to England to get her master's degree. Figure out the clues, and get an extra chance to win this little gem I happened across when looking for charts to show her so she could pick which one I should RAK/giveaway. :)

Good luck on the guessing! Another clue will be forthcoming!

Say it ain't so!

HAED Closing? Oh no say it ain't so!

Well, it's not. Well not yet anyway. We're not out of the woods yet. Why? What's happened? I hear you say. What, the place where you get those super detailed charts that make drool-worthy art might close?

Unfortunately, it might close. It's NOT closing yet. And I stress the "yet". Why do I stress the "yet"? Because they're struggling. Why? I thought they were popular? I hear you say. It's because they are so good at what they do and so popular, the copyright infringers and people who want their charts for free are sharing HAED out of business. Michelle had come onto one of the FB groups and finally let us know how bad it's been getting. There had been an incident, months ago, where a long-time, loyal (or so she thought) customer had uploaded thousands of HAED charts to a site where they were being shared. Like over $16,000 worth of charts. :( I suggested that the logo be charted to go to a legal fund to fight this, which it was. lol I recently discovered there are fairies on the logo . . . i are so obsurfent . . . I think if I were to get this chart (which I still want to) and stitch it, I'd use glow-in-the-dark thread. Ah but that's neither here nor there. That incident is not what prompted this particular "oh no is HAED closing?" - well for lack of a better word - crisis. Basically, the short version is is that the lovely people who run HAED are getting further and further behind. Not necessarily due to low sales, tho that probably doesn't help, but more due to copyright infringement. Which will eventually screw us all over, not just HAED, but the other companies I love, White Willow, Shinysun, Mirabilia, Joan Elliott, and the rest. So if we want to continue to have new designs, be sure where your charts come from.

What prompted this? Oh gee, just someone who stitched QS Martyrs and didn't actually stitch a real HAED. She eventually told the group that it was purchased off of eBay and she wasn't sure if it really was a HAED. (Note, this was before the nasty incident I was involved in, but not much before.) People were saying, no it's not, and others were saying, well she didn't know. The woman also very negative/down/poor me/etc and complained about confetti on pieces - some she didn't have (got told to stop) and on the one actual HAED she did - QS Ice Wind II. (I eventually want to get this one as it will look like Piper, Tannith's little sister/adopted daughter.) No wonder she bitched so much about confetti, she'd never actually done a HAED. And anyone who's ever done a HAED knows there will be confetti, it just depends on how much confetti hell there will be. Granted, Snow is rather confetti-tastic, tho I didn't realize there was as much until I switched to Logan for a break with bright colors, since he had more blocks of color. Someone had posted the pic off of the HAED site and the fake one side by side and Michele came on and told us, yes, this IS a fake HAED. (Which I think I'm not the only one who went "duh", at least to a small degree.) And then it came out that yes, they are struggling.

Ok . . . so as stitchers, we don't wanna lose our shiny-shinies, as Girdlekrep would say. *see also pretties or "my precious" So of course, we asked, what can we do? Michele told us, if sales were up, that would make a tremendous difference. (Sadly, the earlier incident, which prompted the logo charting would have been about the same amount as if each person in the HAED group bought one regular priced chart, had they been legit sales.) Of course, it doesn't take terribly much to convince people who are HAEDaholics that yes, there needs to be stash enhancement. Even when money is tight, getting a shiny new chart is a relatively cheap luxury. I mean hello, I could - provided in store shopping didn't make me want to crawl out of my own skin after 20 minutes, like it actually does - go get some outfit or a video game or something like that only has a finite number of times which it will bring me pleasure for $25 or more (depending on the case, a lot more), ooooorrrrr . . . I could buy a chart, which once it is pimp-my-ride-outed with floss and fabric, will last a lot longer and will be a finished piece of art on the wall for people to enjoy for generations to come. How many pairs of shoes can say that. I mean I spend $9 for a storykeep and saaaay $20 in fabric and floss, and a year later, it's ready to be a piece of art? I'm in. The problem is resisting starting them all. But I digress.

So . . . back to Michele's solution - buy more stash! There were other suggestions given as well, but people were like, hey let's buy some charts! Which of course, we collectors of charts are definitely not against. Soooo . . . I, being always aware of birthdays, asked when HAED's birthday is . . . and got back September 14th. So I promptly asked, could we all try to buy charts on that day, call it HAED Appreciation Day? And then people were like let's have a week!



So! The week of September 10 - 17th (I think) is now officially HAED Appreciatin Week!!! If you can afford to do so, buy a chart that week, you'll be glad that you did. Not only will you have a shiny new chart, you'll be sure at least for a while, there will be more shiny new charts to come. Plus there are at least 2 charts of the flower fairies, which will not be available until September 15th - they were previewed, but not available until then. One of them is simply darling and which I think I shall get requested as a mini, even if she is mostly pink and I really don't like pink. SK Fragile is an exception to this.

I might also get QS Bubbles & QS Paddys Luck during this time, or maybe wait until I get Logan & Snow done. I found out that in addition to the freebies and SAL pieces, both RAKs rec'd and rewards charts are not eligible to be turned in as part of the rewards program. Boooo! Especially since it's not like my friend will try to turn in Snow as part of any rewards program (the $200 one which has ended). Since she doesn't cross stithc, it was just part of her paying for the materials for SK Courange and SK Strength. Oh well, I will just have to suck it up and buy their "rewards charts". I'll probably wait until each one has been done. Granted, I was told Friday that the lady who used to do my job - who had left because she saw greener pastures - is coming back since those greener pastures were only that way because of a lot of manure . . . and that I and the other lady would be loosing our jobs. So I'm not entirely sure how many charts I can (or rather should) afford right now, but the temp lady did start looking for me again. I'd emailed her and she said she'd start looking Tuesday after the holiday. Then she emailed me again and told me about another temp position at the big bank I'd worked at last year, which is starting Sept. 24th, and is a bit more per hour than this one. So I've no idea what it is, but hey, sign me up, I need to pay bills and enhance my stash! lol

In other news, I got an idea to take one of the tribals from White Willow and use a dark background and stitch it in glow-in-the-dark floss. I have picked Tribal Mouse, yay $7 chart, and I'm going back & forth between a very dark/mottled purple and a black.

I also finished a project I started back in - I think - 1992. It's a baby bib of a mama bunny with a baby bunny eating a carrot. I had put it down and the mama bunny hadn't any ears for the longest time. I came across it Thursday and looked for the pattern. I found it (in a folder with a map of Germany when it was still 2 countries, I might just stitch that one day) and finished it up while watching Dune. Yay!

Speaking of finished project . . . .drum roll . . . the space tiger is done!!! Woooo! I restarted it on Feb 4, 2006, put it down in the backseat so it faded, and then picked it back up a couple of weeks ago. Now it's done! I finished it Wednesday, horrible background and all. Yay!