Weekend of stitching partially derailed

I had someone who was trying to help me all day yesterday by taking up my stitching space.



Meet Bacchus Bratticus. He likes heping Mommy stitch, especially if he can pounce the string and shove the whole thing into her face. He's not really evil. It's just the way the camera's flash caught him.

I did get some stitching done however, both on Royalty and Beware of Zombies.


Before


After


Before


After.

I ended up carefully tearing out all the stitches I had done before because, as I was stitching wtih two threads, it was starting to push the fabric weave out of place and warping it. So I had to restart with one thread. *shrugs* You live and you learn.

Also, my new TULSA Jar!



I saw that in a Kroger's Marketplace and really really liked the look of it. As it was on sale, I bought it.

Now, on the Terry Pratchett front, I've finished Men At Arms and have picked up Mort to read next, but I'm really enjoying the Night Watch books. I'll probably read through all of them just to say I did and then really covet and collect the Night Watch books. *grins* Also, for this challenge, I'm also going to read Good Omens again since that was a Terry Pratchett book that he wrote with Neil Gaiman. A wonderful book IMO.

I'm sort of thinking about stitching Ishtar for my belly dance teacher because she sorta looks like that when she's dancing. All proud and majestic. Maybe when I get a bit of breathing space in my current projects 'cause I'd hate to start that and then never finish it. Right now the one I'm really itching to do is Midnight at the Oasis and listening to belly dance music while I'm stitcing is not helping that urge. *grins* Maybe I'll start on that one to break up the monotone of the other two pictures.

EDIT: It was Royalty that I had to frog completely. Sorry. It made sense in my head but didn't get translated to paper.

Another night of pain and fun

Had my first and second lesson with Zattana at the new place. She's now giving lessons at a Pilates studio and they have this small yoga room that's pretty good for dancing in even if it's a bit small, but it has wood floor, a mirror and a ballet bar running down one side of it. In the Begining technique class, we were doing hip slides, the Egyptian Walk Step, and getting a feel for the music becaudse she stated that dancers are the physical representation of the music. If there's a deaf person in the audience, they should be able to 'hear' the music by what the dancer is doing.

Then in the Choreography class, I got the last little bit of our Filii Nedhardi choreography in my dance journal so I can practice that at home. I am proud to say that my Dance Paws worked out quite well for dancing. There wasn't that many in the class tonight, and in the beginning technique, there was only four of us with two being from the various Pilates classes. To give a better idea, in the choreography class, there's normally about 10-12 dancers but tonight there was only 5. The weather and prior commitments had a lot to do with that, and I think a couple of the girls were sick.

Finished Equal Rites and I figured out what I didn't like about it. It was the little girl. Sure she's only 9, but I still wanted to spank her and stand her in a corner more than once. But now, I'm enjoying Men at Arms a great deal.

This weekend is the International Hermit and Stitch weekend, and I plan on doing a great deal on both "Beware" and "Royalty."

Terry Pratchett Challenge: Another one down!

Finished Guard! Guards last night and started on Equal Rites. One thing I'm finding out is that I really enjoy the Night Watch books. Rincewind is okay, but after a while, he does get a touch tedious in my oppinion. I'm still undecided on the Witches right now, having only read Carpe Jugulum when it first came out (it had vampires in it and was a present from my parents). I'm looking forward to Death's series, and of coure, there is the Industrial series.

I've already warned my husband that any books I go to read and aren't there via the checklist, I'm going to make a list and buy off of Amazon probably.

Terry Pratchett Challenge: Another one down!

Just finished "Light Fantastic" today and picked up "Guards! Guards!" to read. *grins* It was actually a choice between that one and "Equal Rites", but I'll work on the witches later.

Should have thought this through....

I decided to start a HAED pattern to break up the monotone of the "Beware of Zombies" pattern as it is in silver and white on black fabric. After paging through my HAED patterns, I decided to start with Royalty by Adele Lorienne Sessler. A truly beautiful piece with an elven lord doing up his hair for the Court.

Only, I had not thought about one little (okay large) detail about the picture in question.

Specifically, the large, solid monotone black border around said picture.

*grins* In other news, here's what I have done of it so far!



I have the pages in sheet protectors in a small 3-ring binder, and I'm using a dry erase marker to mark the stitches done. *smirks* When I get finished with the page, I can just take a tissue to it and wipe it clean for the next time.

Also, just in case I missed it, here's my TULSA jar:



it's a bit fuzzy because I was too close when I took the picture. Ah well. Here's hoping next month's will be better.

No belly dance tonight...

Because we have snow. The sort that I went into a store for 5 minutes and came out to a car covered in snow. So, no lessons tonight.

*grins* So instead I'm going to work on my cross stitch. Probably my Zombie one until I can't stand staring at monochrome and then I might change to a HAED. I'm just not sure which one to start yet. I have "Royalty" by Adele Sessler, "Midnight at the Oasis" by Joanne Schempp, "Ishtar" by Selina Fenech, and "Eternal Promise" by Matt Stewart. And those are the ones that I'm interested in right now *laughs*.

WIPockalypse check in

Well for my WIPockalypse check in, I'm proud to say that my January Fairy by Barbara Baatz is...



COMPLETE!!!

*grins* Next up is the "Beware of Zombies" one on the black fabric!

A reading challenge!

As it is one I'm already working on for a resolution, I thought it fun to post this reading challenge that I found by Gatchastitch's blog.



The rules can be found here.

So in this spirit, I must say that I've just finished "The Color of magic" and am currently working on "Light Fantastic". This is going to be a neat year of magic, adventure, and the Discworld!

Nearly finished January

It's amazing how some backstitching can add definition to a piece...



I've also figured out the camera my mom gave me so my pictures will be more crisp and clear instead of fuzzy. *laugh* she only uses her phone for a camera now (well, and talking to other people), so I got her old camera. It's still very good and I'd rather use the camera 'cause it's got a larger memory card in it than my phone.

Last nights dance lessons

Last night was my first night of begining belly dance, followed by my usual choreography class. The reason why last night was my first night of begining belly dancing is because when I started dancing back in October, the class I joined was a choreography class, and Zattana let me stay on as well as some others who joined the class later. So last night was Zattana's first begining lesson.

She was very thorough in explaining things even though she only taught four moves, but then we did an impromptu choreography where she called out the moves and we followed along. *grins* that was a lot of fun. My right arm and shoulder was giving me fits because I had spent a couple hours that afternoon scrubbing plastic bags of markers (I work at a craft store and the bags are what the bolts of cross stitch fabric go into so I was 'erasing' the old fabric counts as best as I could). So more than once, especially when we were learning snake arms, I had to stop and get my shoulder to loosen back up.

After that was the choreography class - which she has changed to invitation only. We've been doing this tribal fusion number that's a lot of fun even if the zills trip me up. Most of the time, I'm just wearing the zills instead of playing them 'cause I'm concentrating more on what my feet and body are doing instead of what my hands are. We ran over our time, but it was worth it and I'm thoroughly enjoying this dance.

Now if I can only lose the spare tire around my waist....

Some Projects WIP

Here are a few of the WIPocalypse pieces I'm going to be working on this year:


This is a present for a friend of mine....


another present.


Can't see it too well, but this is a dragonfly for my mom.

and these I made from Dork Stitch patterns. I redid the eyes a bit to make them more in cannon instead of just black eyes. And I played with the chocobos' color to make multiple different ones.







and here's what they look like finished!





so yeah it's a picture heavy post, but this will give me a chance to see how far I've come at the end of the year.

Happy New Year!!!

This is a new year, and I'm going to do what I can to make it interesting. WIth that, I'm going to start this blog that will be about my belly dancing, and most importantly, my string crafts which right now include: Cross stitch, crochet, a kumihimo disk, and I'm looking at temari balls. I will do my best to update at least once a week if not more, and to keep the journal going.

We'll see how long I last.....