In stitches

I’ve really been enjoying doing cross stitch of late (shock!). I’m not exactly patient so I am a bit surprised that I’m having fun with it.

Here’s the partially completed kit

It’s been put aside for now, still at least it’s likely to get finished. :s I admit, I have a cupboard of UFOs (unfinished objects).

cake =! lie;

Played around with the idea of giving Morshan (f. sGILLz) a small set of Portal themed cross stitches for Vday. It didn’t work for a number of reasons, the primary few being time, pattern trouble and time. ^^;   To the left should be a test run, I’m not overly happy with it (the text in particular) but it was fun to do.

The next one was made as a housewarming gift for friend. I’d had the frame floating around for a while and have been itching to do something with it or modify it.  So I jumped at the chance to do something fun with it.

I think he liked it (i hope he liked it. it looked like he liked it……)

The idea came from the AMAZING Mr X Stitch with his version (you can find it on his flikr feed) and Beefranks‘ Subversive Cross Stitch book. So an evening of stitching and it emerged in it’s glittery green glory. BTW metallic thread is still a pain to work with *shudder*

A while back i did some Temari ball making. They are basically a core of some kind, wrapped in layer after layer of wool and thread. This ball then gets stitched on with decorative threads. It can be rather a mind warp working on a sphere at first, but the stitches themselves aren’t such a difficulty. The main issue is accurately marking your pattern out!

I’ve done some minature  ones, which are both easier and harder. They tend to leap out of a persons hand when wrapping and then scurry across the floor under the couch or desk. They’re fiddly to stitch, but the blessing is they’re more forgiving in terms of stitch placement and you can just eyeball the markers rather than measuring them out. I’ve made about…4 or so medium ones and roughly 3 minis. I’ll get photos as I hunt the receivers down and ambushed them with the camera.  Sorry about the dodgy picture quality, as before still working out how the wretched thing works. I might edit and post better pics if/when i get the time. First pic has part of a 30cm (12 inch) ruler in frame for size reference. 

The stick insects have been slowly (or not so) swamping me with eggs. I have ~300 or so now in a separate little tank. The babies are due to hatch about early April onwards, we’ll see how it goes. The insect enclosure has been remade with sturdier cardboard and hotglue.  FYI masking tape works reasonably well, but tends to release when it gets too damp/wet and packaging tape….just don’t go there. The hotglue castle will be their new home for the next while until either the cardboard gives out or the wooden one is completed (which’ll probably take a fair while longer than expected due to the looming uni semester)

I’ll try to post every week. Hopefully I’ll keep to it!

EDIT! Subversive Cross Stitch is actually written by Julie Jackson. Thanks Beefrank for commenting on that!

First Steps

Here goes!

First I’d like you to meet one of the various pets about the place. The spiny stick insect aka Macleay’s Spectre.

Extatosoma tiaratum

She’s actually really nice to handle, and much more active than the other female (I have two).  They only spine you when they feel panicked or  very threatened, but when they do it does hurt! There was a male ( a very *ahem* active male in a very certain way) but he passed away naturally a few days back,  most likely due to old age. He is however mounted now on styrofoam and hopefully drying out nicely.

I’ve been borrowing my mums camera (cheers ma!) and can now provide some photos of a few of the cards I’ve made.

Simple thank you card.

This one is a basic left hand fold card (the kind you regularly see in shops and stuff) The paper medallion thing on the front actually has some metallic gold lining on it, but alas the camera refused to pick it up properly.

Flower flip-flop card

Open

You can find instructions on how to make the flip-flop cards at Splitcoast Stampers

They have a huge amount of resources, tutes on techniques, fancy moving cards and all sorts of projects.

I’ve been slowly working on a rather large cross stitch, a SEMCO kit pattern called Dragonfly Dinner. I’ll post pics as I complete more of it. >>; Which may take a while.

Changes!

Changes are going to (hopefully) be a happening, more of the art and craft stuff i’ve been up to will hopefully make an appearance. I’m hoping to start actually posting more, and actually posting baout stuff. We’ll see how things go.