I finished my Pokemon square! :)

I stitched this 96x96 square (9,216 total stitches) for the charity Child's Play. Over at spritestitch.com, we're going to make many of these squares from different video games into quilts that we will sell. All the proceeds will go to Child's Play. This was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it!

May challenge entry

The challenge on Sprite Stitch for May was "A Black Mage Holiday." This had two meanings: blackmageheart got to go on a challenge break, and we were going to craft where Black Mage would go on vacation! Here is the description, “We are going to take the month of May to honour not only one of the most iconic images in classic gaming, but also our own favourite lady, the Black Mage! This is going to be a really fun challenge, and maybe just a little bit silly too. Where would Black Mage go on vacation? Let’s take the Mage sprite, and put it in any conceivable scenario. It can be in a video game, or in real life.” I decided to have Black Mage visit Alis in Camineet, from Phantasy Star, since blackmageheart loves it.

2013 Sampler

This is my finished sampler for the April Sprite Stitch event. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. The first three bands were voted for and then randomly picked out of blackmageheart's hat: Mario Kart, DDR, and Journey. The last one was player's choice, and I went with my Pokemon starters. For some reason when I made that, I thought the dimensions were shorter than they were, so to make it work I had to add a few Pokeballs. I actually like it better that way. Everyone's samplers came out differently, and all awesome in their own way. Here's the link to check them out.

Sampler Bands

The  current challenge at Sprite Stitch has been renamed an "event," because there's not going to  be a winner. We are all submitting patterns for bands of a sampler. It's still not completely decided how the bands will be chosen, but when they are we'll have an awesome gaming sampler to stitch together at the same time- a stitch-a-long. I've never done one before, but I think it will be great fun. I have submitted two bands so far, both Pokemon. I'm not that pleased with them because they're not very creative. I want to come up with some exciting ideas. I'm a huge fan of blackwork, but I can't figure out how to translate that into a band yet. Or how to make a pattern of it, besides tediously adding line by line in KG Chart. Here are my two bands:

Anyone is welcome to use these, by the way. 

I'm also working hard to make items to sell on Etsy. A shop in my town has opened up that sells things from local Etsy members. I'm not completely sure that it's worth it, as they buy on wholesale, but either way I want to fill up my Etsy store with new items.

This isn't an "Etsy-worthy" photo, but here is a set of strawberry hairpins that I made:

I need to come up with some cute cards to put them on. I need some branding. I guess I even need a business name. All of the serious crafters that I met at a show last weekend had business cards and tags and seemed very professional. Fortunately, I am married to a graphic designer. I just need to get him to make me stuff! By the way, it's our anniversary this weekend. We will have been married for 5 years. It's also my birthday, and I'll be turning 32. 30 was fine, but it's all these numbers after 30 that I don't like.

So that's all my (mostly) crafting news for now. Thanks for reading. 

I'm a bit behind on my posts, so let's catch up!

Firstly, thank you to everyone who reads my blog. Secondly, I'm sorry that it's been so long since I posted. I  submitted two entries into the Portrait challenge. All the entries in that challenge were amazing; you should go check them out.  Here are my two submissions:

I was very surprised, but I won the contest with Snorlax, and Weedle tied for second place along with two other entries. I really love these two portraits together- tiny Weedle and huge Snorlax. I made up a little story in my head that these two are friends and always together, and on the rare occasions that Snorlax moves, Weedle rides on his shoulder. It's silly but it made me happy. :)
As far as the quilt square for Child's Play goes, blackmageheart helped me find a better and clearer screenshot and she even made the pattern for me. This is the screenshot:

Here it is, zoomed in a bit:

So far I have the characters and the big blue rug stitched. The blues look so pretty together. I'm ready to start tackling the hardwood floor. Here is a WIP shot:

I'll keep the blog updated with WIPs. There is also a new challenge, or "event" at Sprite Stitch, but I'll save that for the next post. I've also been hard at work making things to sell on Etsy, like hairpins and coin purses. Again, I'll leave that for another post.
So, that's what's been going on. Thank you for reading! :)

Stitching in 2013

Here we are, in a new year... though it's really just a number that doesn't mean much. I think that people think that years are longer than they actually are. For instance, "20 years" sounds like such a long time, but in reality it's not that long. It goes by so quickly.
Enough of all that. On to the stitching. I appreciate all of the support I've had on Deviant Art. I now have 102 watchers and 4,000 page views. Woo hoo!
One of the things I'll be stitching this year is a charity square (or two) for the Child's Play charity quilt over at Sprite Stitch. I'll be stitching a scene from Pokemon Heartgold, when you talk to Jasmine in the Olivine Gym.

I'm also participating in the Sprite Stitch challenge for Jan/Feb: Portraits. Here is the description: "As the topic title suggests, this challenge is about portraits. I'm sure most people know what a portrait is, but just in case this is what we want: a crafted picture of a character's face/head (you can include neck and shoulders if you wish). Many games already have character portraits in them, which would be totally fine to submit. As would any cropped image of a character." I don't know who I'm stitching, but I do know that I want to do a ridiculously ornate frame around them.

Right now I'm finishing up a Transformers t-shirt for my son. I told him I would stitch anything he wanted, and he picked Bumblebee. It's his head from the original TV show.
I want to work on more necklaces too. I think the next one I do may be Jigglypuff.
I've also been made an official blogger on Sprite Stitch, so occasionally you may see a post from me. I have the task of "Sunday Roundup" on the second Sunday of each month, where I do an update of what's going on in the forums, including who won the challenge for the previous month.
Okay, so that's what I've got going on. Thanks for reading!