Miss Clawful's Cross-Stitch Projects

[QueenBex]

Awesome! Really loving all of these! Keep up the great work!

[Lileya]

The metool one is really adorable, and so is the Hello Dolly one! I'm sure she will love your gift. Great work!

[Miss Clawful]

Thank you for the cool comments.

Got me another one. Its a very odd choice from a very strange game, Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom. Miss Eggplant struck me right away as one I just had to stitch. Would've been great for the Portrait Challenge if only I had played the game more than once to remember this character.

Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom - Miss Eggplant



PATTERN:
56x84 pixels = 4"x6"


MATERIAL:
Black Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
209 - Dark Lavender
906 - Medium Parrot Green
White

total colors: 3

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: April 19th 2013

Finished stitching: April 22nd 2013
640 minutes = 10 hours 40 minutes

STITCHES:
1393

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

4/19/2013
8:30pm-8:50pm
9:35pm-9:45pm
9:55pm-11:40pm - got Miss Eggplant's face done

4/20/2013
1:40am-2:05am
1:25pm-2:05pm
3:20pm-4:20pm - got Miss Eggplant's hair done

4/21/2013
8:50pm-10:10pm - got her left arm (the one with her hand to her chin) done

4/22/2013
10:50am-11:55am
1:25pm-1:35pm
4:30pm-5:40pm - got Miss Eggplant completely done, as well as the glass resting to the side of her
6:15pm-8:50pm - done!

NOTES:

Spoiler

I started another cross-stitch, something small since I had rinsed off and ironed all my large pieces of black aida and had to wait for them to dry. This one is Miss Eggplant from the Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom game, just her, not the background. I thought she was pretty, would've been a nice portrait for the Sprite Stitch challenge a couple months ago if I had known about her. I like her because she sitting there elbows leaning against the counter, drink off to the side as if she were waiting for someone (perhaps a guy), kinda sad, lonely looking, either that or simply bored being the truth is that she's at work in the game, a cashier at the Juice Shop on Main Street in the Kingdom of Saladoria. She actually looks kinda sad to me, what is really shine on the cheeks of her eggplant skin looks almost like tears streaming down her face.

Actually am missing a pixel along the edge of her chin, but being that its the same as the background, shelving behind her, I may continue to omit it.

[RMDC]

~130 stitches per hour, or about 0.36 BMH - not bad, not bad at all.

I love how her expression seems reversed when viewed from the back. She seems wistful but hopeful on the front, but the flipside has her fuming and mopey.

[Miss Clawful]

Not yet ready to start my next cross-stitch as I'm still unsure of what I want to do next (I got me so many different things lined up, just a matter of what next), so decided to try something new, satin stitching. Now this was only going to be a test to see how it'd work out and look, as well as how much effort it'd take, so picking a cross-stitch piece I already finished--Birdo--and leaving in the original X stitches, I proceeded to satin stitch over them, so it'd be a padded satin stitching. Well, its certainly very soft, smooth feeling, and while it could probably look good if I had finished it, its not quite the look I care for (at least not for this piece), or I'm simply not ready for it. Perhaps if the whole thing were stitched the same way. Guess I don't like the mixed results, some satin, the rest crosses, makes me feel that the piece is unfinished, that it should all be satiny. Probably could've, but the amount of work for this type of stitch far exceeds cross-stitching, and trying to make new holes in the aida so as to get the stitches as close together as possible, trying to puncture it with my needles is a pain. I'm sure I'll find a use for this type of stitch at some point, but at least now I have an idea of how it'd look, the results could be beautiful if applied with the right project.

[starrley]

If you want to do satin stitches, and yours look great, by the way, why not jump into embroidery? Use a piece of cotton fabric instead of Aida cloth. You wouldn't have to worry about trying to make new holes in Aida. If you still wanted crosses, you could use waste canvas first to cross stitch, and then remove it and embroider wherever you wanted to. Just a thought.

[Miss Clawful]

It has certainly been a thought of mine. Occasionally when my mom has gone to the baby clothing section of a store I used to not follow her in, afterall she's in there looking for clothes for her reborn dolls and there's nothing of interest for me there. But, what does take my interest are the cute designs stitched into many of them, a little dinosaur, a truck, flowers, a mermaid or fairy or other such things and I try to figure out how they are made and what made of, finding use of felt, back-stitching, and satin stitches abound, and think, hey, maybe I could make something like that! Only for me it'd be something NES related, and certainly not for baby stuff. Also thought to make toys for me dog, she loves receiving blankets (steals them from my mom's dolls) and plush toys, and squeaky toys, so maybe someday I'll make an attempt to branch out from cross-stitching to try something totally new.

[RMDC]

I have to say, that portion of Birdo's bow is beautiful. I can see how this would be a pain on Aida, but I'd love to see a full piece like this sometime.

[Miss Clawful]

Got started kinda late last night, but I finally made up my mind as to what to stitch. So sometime after 8pm I finally decide now is the time to start a really big piece that will take me quite some time to complete. This one being an ending shot from Star Tropics, Mike Jones battling Octo the Huge! I was originally going to do this one back in December last year (along with the one with him battling Maxie the ghost) but being as I knew how long it'd take I decided to hold off and do other ones instead. And this one is grand! Much more stitches that my current largest which is Shatterhand which was my very first large cross-stitch project. That Shatterhand one had 7830 stitches, took me close to 70 hours to complete, and well, get this, Octo the Huge will be 12397 stitches (okay, so some may laugh, ha, you call that a lot!, but for me it is)! Won't take up as much space but will be a lot more filling. This one could take me over 100 hours to finish. I may just have to do another along side it just to cut down on monotony, perhaps the Maxie battle as well, do them at the same time. Tonight I got as far as getting Mike's arm and yo-yo done, that took just a few short of 2 hours.

4/23/2013
8:20pm-8:40pm
8:50pm-10:25pm - got Mike's arm and yo-yo done



Worked more on my Octo the Huge cross-stitch, got Mike's shirt done this afternoon, and later in the evening his hair and elbow. I had also started on his jeans, but unsure of what color to use, originally medium blue was going to be my choice but it looked too dull and off, so going through my colors again I opted for dark wedgewood. Got half of one leg done then kept seeing that I made a mistake, bad choice afterall, this color has too much green in it, it is not going to work. Well, just going to have to remove it and start anew with the original choice, it worked and looked fine for my Megaman helmet, so it should be okay. But not tonight, will have to pick up again tomorrow.

4/24/2013
1:40pm-4:00pm - got Mike's shirt done
6:15pm-6:45pm
7:10pm-7:30pm - got Mike's hair and elbow done



More progress - got Mike's jeans done. Had intended to also stitch in his shoes as well same day but some other events slowed me down, eh, will just have to do 'em tomorrow.

So, while out walking my dog she discovered just 6-7 feet away from the parking lot curb a baby deer. And being my mom, as she was going to be walking with us, she had to stop and worry about it. I told her to let it be, can't help or take in every stray you see. She's like what if something happens to it, what if it goes into the road and someone don't see it, it'll get run over. I'm like *sigh*. Okay, you stay with the deer, Snickers and I are going to take our walk. We come back around 10-15 minutes later, mom is walking back to meet us as she must've followed behind several minutes later, and was all excited about a huge group of deer that just ran across the street. I know, we walked past them. I asked her, would you like to save the baby bird over there *I point back from where we just came from* that is about to be killed by a cat? Yeah, Snickers and I passed by a cat, saw something hopping, stumbling away from it and the cat was creeping behind it. What do we do about the deer, I don't want nothing to happen to it? Oh geez mom. We'll come back later and check on it, afterall there was an adult female nearby, most likely the mother, even though ignoring the baby. I didn't know enough about deer (yet) to say why.

Well we went home, watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, then being my mom, she had called up the young lady that also works with her, Whitney, telling her about the baby deer. She came shortly after, and before they went down to the deer, my mom showed her around our apartment since she hadn't seen it all yet, also wanting her to see my cross-stitches, so I pulled them out, showing off each (she likes Felix the Cat, uh-hmm, been wondering who I could give this one to, perhaps I'll surprise her with it someday soon, and she screeched the instant she saw the Little Mermaid one, oh boy, I got me an admirer ), a few minutes later mom and her walked down the hill to the deer. I followed a few minutes later with Snickers, and they were trying to figure out what to do. Whitney's cell phone was almost dead so she went over to a nearby neighbor and asked if she could borrow their phone to make a call. She was on the phone for a while, but the animal place she had called said that deer normally stay away from their young leaving them to themselves much of the day, only coming around to feed them, and that the babies don't have a scent to them to protect them from discovery from predators, that only if we feel the location it is in may be a danger to it, then we can move it to a safer spot not too far from where it was. I still didn't think it a good idea to mess with it. My whole thing, don't get involved, leave nature be, unless it is directly endangered by something we humans do. Well, my mom picked the baby up into her arms, holding it close to her and as she was walking towards the woods nearby she was balling her eyes out, tears of immense overwhelming joy of holding such a dear little creature. Oh, mom. . Anyway, she set the baby down gently where she felt it'd be safer, Whitney took a picture before her phone completely died. Okay, feel better? I asked my mom. You sure you don't want to take it home with you, give Snickers a play pal? The burden of worry was off her shoulders. We went back home, watched Star Trek III: The Search for Spock into the early hours of the morning.

I did look up info on deer last night--probably should've done this prior to its business being meddled with--and read to my mom what it said about them and how people, even though thinking they are doing the right thing, actually many times because of their lack of understand and knowledge end up doing harm. Its bad enough that people around here feed the deer (we got so many of them) and the deer actually do seem to come around looking, waiting to be fed, this is not good as over time they will become reliant on us, unable to fend for themselves. As it was a couple days ago my next door neighbor, an older lady, she fills up buckets of water, leaves them in the woods for the deer to have something to drink, this is nice and all, really, but well she came knocking and asked me if I'd like to come with her so she could show me where the other buckets are so that after she moves out I could take over. Ugh, no. You don't want to do this? I give her a no again. Didn't want to tell her as to why, but again, while a nice gesture, with nature its best just to stay out of it, they were doing fine before you jumped in to care for them, they'll continue to live and thrive without your help.

Took Snickers out late morning next day, checked the location of where the deer was left, it was gone. Good. Out of sight, out of mind. I still think it'd been better to leave it alone, but at least it don't look like anything tore it apart and ran off with remains (and groundspeople already mowed yesterday morning so it wasn't in danger of being chopped to shreds), so figure the mother came back for it and in turn moved it somewhere else (that is unless someone else like my mom happened along and brought it somewhere). As it was I told my mom that she may've done more harm than good, touching it as well as moving it, that what if it were safe where it was and you moving it put it right in harms way? There was that chance, reality sucks and nature can be cruel. Still, she wanted to think she did the right thing, and with it not being there the next day she can feel that it is safe with its momma somewhere else, her conscience at ease. Thank goodness.

Anyway, on to the details of my progress:

4/25/2013
2:10pm-3:20pm
5:00pm-6:35pm - got Mike's jeans done



So, not as much progress today. My mom and I spent quite some hours watching Star Trek, and realizing that I hadn't done any stitching today and with it getting so late I had to do something. So, with the next movie beginning, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country I went to it. I may've not stitched much but at least with getting Mike's shoes done he is now complete. What next? Octo, starting with the tentacles about Mike, or elsewhere, perhaps the splashing water near his leg? Hmm...will think about tomorrow. Actually mind may be made up already, since I'm all out of very light plum guess I'll be stitching in the water first, besides I think it better to get it out of the way now, that way the most interesting thing, the giant octopus is saved for last.

4/26/2013
10:25pm-11:15pm - got Mike's shoes done (he's all done now)

460minutes thus far = 7 hours 40 minutes



Three days later, got me some water done, but some doesn't amount to much more than a drop to how much I still have left to do. I was initially thinking 7-8 days to get all of the water filled in but at the rate that I'm going could be as long as two weeks. Looks like I'm be doing on average around 8 columns each day. But at this point I may go my usual routine of doing one color at a time, get all of the light blue done, then go back for the other two colors. I think doing all three alternately is slowing my progress. Background stuff has never been my favorite thing to do, I'm more into characters, even though the water is very characteristically detailed. Still, can't wait to get it done and get on to the octopus.

4/27/2013
1:35pm-4:25pm - got started on the water, first with light blue at splash near Mike's leg, then followed up with dark blue near that, and then very dark royal blue, covering over 8 full vertical rows of water filled in so as to see how these colors would look together, and I can say I'm very pleased, these should work nicely for the colors of the water

4/28/2013
9:05am-11:00am
2:55pm-4:10pm
5:30pm-6:05pm
7:20pm-9:15pm

4/29/2013
10:20am-12:20pm - 33 vertical rows of water filled in now, still a very long way to go



Okay, 3 more days of work, and now it actually looks like I'm getting somewhere. Funny how when you look at a cross-stitch, whether in progress or completed it don't look like much. I can see why those unfamiliar with cross-stitching can think it to be something easy and quick to put together. But count 'em up, that is a LOT of X's! And, it takes a long time to stitch them in (at least for me). Yeah, I'm making some decent progress on this but still far from finished. I figure 4 more days to get to the end of the water up to the right corner, then gotta head back to the left towards the deep end, thankfully that'll be pretty much entirely one color, though will still take me a couple day or few. Sometimes when working on some of these bigger cross-stitches I think, "what the hell did I get myself into?", but what else do I got to do with my time, and at least I enjoy it enough to keep at making them and I feel a sense of accomplishment, something sorely lacking elsewhere in my life.

4/30/2013
5:00pm-7:30pm

5/1/2013
1:00am-2:00am
11:20am-11:40am
7:00pm-9:00pm

5/2/2013
6:00pm-7:10pm
10:30pm-12:00am - got water from where I had started near Mike's leg up to the end of the yo-yo string done

[Miss Clawful]

Okay, short break from Startropics.

Got a frame today for the Hello Dolly cross-stitch. Originally I was looking to frame it with a pink mat, but while Michael's did have a pink one, it was too bright so didn't match the colors in this piece. But found a pink frame that matched almost perfectly with the medium plum colored floss. Okay, what color for the mat then? Got one that was a double mat, primarily white but with chocolate color behind that. Got home, unwrapped it all, put mat and cross-stitch inside of frame, went to put back on, hmm, don't fit, mat is too thick, frame backing won't fit in the grooves. Okay, lets try something else, forget the white mat, I can save that for another. Put in with just the chocolate mat, backing goes in, but bends a little, had a hard time getting the clip to lock but after a struggle got it. Well now, isn't that pretty! Hmm, but now, being me, now it feels like something is missing from the picture. Will keep it framed for now but in the meantime see what more I can do with the spritework, but don't want to hold off too long in giving this to Laura, as is by me posting all this on the internet she has chance of seeing it before she even gets it.

Spoiler