skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

[blackmageheart]

Yeah, I kind of see the QR code now that you mention it! but that's often the way with cross stitch when you do a bunch of random dark stitches ahahaha!
But your update pic shows you've got quite a lot done, it's really taking shape now

[skater43]

Thank you. Not fair to compare the work done in the first pic to the second since the second had essentially an extra week's worth of work done, doing 90 minutes a day rather than 60. But because of that, yeah, we have gotten a lot done. Still a lot of little gaps and spots, but I also see a lot that has filled in. I think because I haven't moved the hoop yet, I'm psyching myself out and I really have done more than I think, but we'll see later this week/next week once we move the hoop up and get the top border identified/stitched. Once I do that, I think I'll have a much better idea of how far along I've come, and how much I still have to do. End of this week would be 5 weeks working on this, or the halfway point, so theoretically, I ought to be about halfway done then. The left side of the O in "go" is our halfway point horizontally and the top of King Zora's legs/base of his body is about the halfway point vertically, so we can see that much of that has been stitched. Whether I fill all that in by the end of the week remains to be seen, but I have done work outside that square, so total number of stitches is near/over halfway already. At this point, unless I start feeling burned out or not enjoying things anymore, I'll keep to 90 minutes a day until we finish and if we wrap up early, so much the better to give The Artery a few extra days to get it framed. But we'll see what the next few weeks bring.

[skater43]

Pic a day early since I imagine most/all of you are going to be busy tomorrow with Easter plans. We are now up to 56 hours, including today's work. And 6 weeks in. Are we 60% of the way done? No, can't say we are. However, the first two weeks, we were stitching less per day than the last four, so maybe we would be if we'd been doing the same pace the whole time. We are at least halfway done. Halfway going horizontally is about the middle of King Zora and while there's a lot on the left of him still to do, we've done a fair amount to his right, especially below him. And as we can see from last time, we have moved the hoop up and defined our upper left corner as well as the top of the picture. Have done significant work on King Zora himself, as well. And we've outlined most of our first "mweep" in the upper left. Lot to fill in still, but a good chunk of the space below the text is just two or three colors. Goal for the next week+ is to work our way from the left to the right, filling in everything so that we can move the hoop to the right, much like we did the past two weeks to move the hoop up. Think if we do everything to the left of King Zora, we can move the hoop right and figure out our right edge of the picture. Time is becoming a bigger concern and I'm considering kicking things up to two hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my usual days off. Prolly
do that for a couple of weeks, see how much of a difference that makes, then we can adjust from there the latter half of April. Obviously done quite a bit, but there's a lot left to do still. Enjoying the challenge and the pressure, but definitely looking forward to our next project which will be much simpler (did get the colors for it and actually, it's only four colors. So real simple on that front and the design is very simple and easy as well).

[Firehawke]

you have been making fantastic progress!

[skater43]

Thank you. It's been a lot of work and while I may not have bitten off more than I can chew, we got ourselves a rather large mouthful. Yesterday wasn't my best day as I found one mistake that meant undoing/redoing about 20 stitches and then another smaller mistake undoing (haven't redone yet) about 5. So those cost me some time. However, I have moved the hoop, I've gotten the top row completely done except for a couple of stitches and found/stitched part of my right edge. With the hoop in its current location, I'll be able to do a great majority of the rest of the work. Won't be able to get the lowest 10 rows or so, and maybe not the bottom 15-20 on the edge. So by the time we move the hoop again, we'll be 90ish% done? The amount of white I'm seeing now is a bit intimidating, but one positive of yesterday was following a color from the right edge down and connected up with what I'd stitched weeks earlier. So we still have a huge patch of white in the middle, but it's less intimidating. Off today, but already had a meeting that killed a couple of hours and have stuff this afternoon, so doubt I'll get to stitch as much as I'd like, but we'll see what we can do. Finishing by the end of this month seems dubious at our current rate, but we'll see how far behind we are as the month progresses.

[skater43]

Progress is being made. Will we finish on time? We shall see. Put it 24 hours these past two weeks, so we are up to 80 hours now (haven't worked on it yet today). Which means we're easily going to eclipse 100 hours for the project, which will make it our most expensive prize as far as labor is concerned. We moved the hoop Thursday? Friday? last week and as I said, it was pretty intimidating to see all that white again. However, we can see quite a bit has filled in. Still a lot to go, but we're getting there. Edges are clearly defined so we see how far we're going and such. Had that mistake last week that cost us some time, but yesterday was one of the rare days where I only stitched one color, so that saved time not having to swap threads. For now, we're sticking with an hour and a half daily, picking up an extra half hour+ on Tuesdays and Thursdays as long as I'm off work. I doubt we'll be done in two weeks for what would be the next WIP picture, but we'll see where we are. More than likely, Ill try to work on the upper rows this week and the end of this week or so, move the hoop down to where we can finish the rest. And then we stitch like mad to try to get it down as close to the end of April as we can (without going mad). And we'll see how close we are to finishing in two weeks and whether I take another update picture, or just make you guys wait to see it finished.

[skater43]

And so, 108 hours later, King Zora on his throne slowly mweeping along is complete. February 18 to April 28, we made it in our 10 week frame and finished by the end of April. Of course, as noted, it took a lot more hours than expected and we averaged almost 11 hours a week compared to our usual 7. Taking out the first two weeks when we did just stitch an hour a day, our average jumps to about 12 a week, which I believe. Pushing things a bit here at the end, we did 28 hours in 15 days, including about 3 hours today. But I was close to finishing and wanted to just push through and get it complete. And while The Artery is open today, the framer wasn't there, so I wasn't able to drop it off. So, that'll have to wait until Tuesday. But that's fine. It's done, we don't have to worry about it any more. Because I was pushing this one a bit, I was planning on taking a couple of days off this week anyway. This just gives us a chance at more of a breather, or more options when to start the next project.

Meanwhile, we can look back at all we've done with this one. Overall, pleased with how it came out. N64 graphics don't translate to stitching as well as NES ones, but we have King Zora, have his throne room. And I think speedrunners, especially those of Ocarina of Time, will get it. Pen there for scale and it amazed me taking the picture how small it is. We packed a lot into it 99x71 stitches. I think not stitching the text was the good call and I like how it almost stands out more because it isn't stitched. There was some white (couple different shades, actually) in King Zora's face, but we did stitch those to keep the texture and all the same. I tried signing in white over the top of the picture, but that wasn't working/looking good, so I took it out (which was a little tricky, trying not to undone the picture) and just signed it below the picture. Have to go back and see what I did for Twilight Princess since that was also all completely stitched.

As alluded to above, with one project done, we set our eyes to the next (see attached). Slightly modified screenshot from Flipull, a Japanese only puzzle game for the NES. You can see the sequence of the ending at https://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/fli.htm including the shot I'm doing (didn't change much, other than tightening everything up to decrease the overall size of the picture). Not sure if our blob hero is trying to rescue his blob girlfriend, or impress her by solving all the puzzles, but either way, the two of them get to live happily ever after. It's a cute ending and has some good (bad?) Engrish, so perfect candidate for AGDQ 2025. Much smaller picture than King Zora, only 4 colors and much less to stitch, so expect this to take all of 2 or 3 weeks. And pressure is off because the marathon isn't until January.

And then, middle/end of May, we jump back to Minish Cap to finish that up this Summer. Know we're getting towards the end of that, but still have a couple of months to go. But it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that come August, we'll be jumping into our next Zelda project (Spirit Tracks, unless a super awesome Phantom Hourglass pattern comes into my possession near future)

[blackmageheart]

Oh it turned out really well! <3

EDIT: and Spirit Tracks is about 95% done, so you should be able to put that on your upcoming project list!

[skater43]

Thank you. And thank you for your help putting it together. I admit it looks better zoomed out/looking at the whole thing rather than my narrow view while stitching it. I was afraid the colors would be too mottled together and shapes/designs other than King Zora himself wouldn't come out. But, looking at the whole thing, I can see the tapestries below him and the grating to his sides. I really knew my stuff/how to edit with KG-chart (I guess you can? create a pattern with it or edit one rather than just import a picture and turn it loose), I maybe could have figured out what colors made what and defined things a little better, but it works (I did alter three or four stitches from what KG gave me. 3 or 4 stitches of the text were tagged a color other than white, but those were obvious). Got it dropped off at The Artery this morning, so it's up to them now. SGDQ starts June 30, so The Artery is going to try to have it done by the end of May. Of course, little delays and such happen, which is why I wanted to give them a couple of extra weeks. Don't regret tackling this project and did working on it through the end, but it was a bit exhausting trying to get it done on time. But we did. And Flipull is going to be so much easier, so that'll be a nice break and ease us back into Minish Cap.

And then we get Spirit Tracks after that, which I'm excited about. Really like the design you came up with. Not real experienced with backstitching, but we got to do some for Link's Awakening. Never done partial stitches, so that'll be fun to learn something new and expand our stitching horizons.

[blackmageheart]

You're very welcome!
It's so often the case that it looks a lot better zoomed out than up close, but usually once you see where and what everything is you can't unsee it