IHSW April :)

This was the first time I’d participated in the International Hermit and Stitch weekend, which is organised by the lovely Joyce of Random Ramblings. Basically, for one weekend a month, participants can stitch as much (or as little!) as they like! Then they blog about it the following Monday – hence this post!
I used the IHSW as motivation to finish a couple of things I had lying around, do some work on my gift for the current Sprite Stitch swap and I also dug out an old WIP to work on, too. Here’s what I’ve been doing!

Tyris Flare from Golden Axe, on 14ct plastic canvas. She’s now taped to my wall next to Axel, until I get around to doing that thing I was gonna do to them!

A bookmark, inspired by the beautiful indie game Journey. The character you play as in that has a wondeful scarf, that grows as you pick up symbols. It’s also an indicator of a sort of energy (used for jumping/flying/etc I believe). As the energy is used, the scarf loses its patterns – and I’ve tried to show that in my stitching! Took ages to get the pattern just right, had to draw it out in PCStitch by hand. (Getting better at that, though!)
Stitched on a 14ct burgundy Aida band.

This is the WIP I dug out of my basket. I started this last year (at the same time I was working on the Shiva square) and never got around to doing anymore to it. It’s the Dissidia 012 portrait of FFXI’s Prishe. I like the artwork from Dissidia and wanted to try one of the character portraits. I think I’m going to leave this where I can see it and do some more work on it later.

I also did a lot to my swap gift, but as usual I can’t show that until my partner receives it. It’s going to be great! I hope.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the IHSW, and will definitely be participating in the next one!

 

A little later than intended…

OK, a lot later. I didn’t mean to forget about posting, I’ve just been up to my neck in all kinds of projects! Very, very busy, as ever.
This post has quite a few images!

This was a commission for a lovely, lovely guy on deviantART called Greg aka “TheChairSlayer”. He does the perler beads but found he couldn’t match the colours for this piece and requested it as a stitching instead! It is a Tarot card from Ogre Battle on the SNES, a long time favourite of his.
It is stitched on 16 ct hand dyed aida in “Barely Lime” (although it seems impossible to capture it in ANY photo) and was 3346 stitches in 14 colours. A very fun piece to work on!

Ahh, this. The elusive Ecco II square for the Sprite Stitch 2012 quilt. I took WIPs of this and kept forgetting to upload them to places…when I finally decided to get around to it the piece was finished!
This piece gave me some real trouble, as the stitching programs couldn’t seem to accept that there were more blues in the sea than they claimed. So I had to hand-draw quite a lot of the pattern! But I think it turned out quite nice.
9216 stitches in 22 colours on 16ct aida.

This is Axel Stone, my favourite character from Streets of Rage. He’s currently taped to my wall above my desk to remind me that he needs to be finished! (Of course, I can’t take the hint – he’s been there since February ^^;)
He’s on 14ct plastic canvas, and needs cutting out and backing…because I have a plan for this dude. When I get around to doing that, I’ll post him here

This is a very small old-school style sprite of Prishe from FFXI. Nick showed me the sprite and told me to stitch it. He was joking, but I did it anyway, because I thought it was cute!
I don’t know who made the sprite, so I can’t give the appropriate credit, but if you are out there – thanks and good job!
277 stitches in 22 colours on 16ct aida.

A lovely sprite of Young Ryu and Nina from Breath of Fire III. I love that game and it’s probably my favourite in the BoF series. I was looking for something brightly coloured and quick to do (as a break from Ecco!) so decided on this.
1044 stitches in 51 colours on 14ct pale lemon (I know, you can’t tell, but trust me it is!) aida.

Finally, here is a bunch of stuff that I gave to my sister Dolly for her birthday on March 10th. There is:

• Lilac crocheted headband
• Skyrim Dark Brotherhood birthday card
• Can of “Old Fashioned Moustache Elixir”
• Cross stitched Silent Hill 2 “9 save points” coaster
• Cross stitched Faerie from Breath of Fire III
• Cross stitched badge of my 8 bit version of “Azura’s Star” from Skyrim

I also gave her a bottled Nirnroot that I bought from a wonderful Etsy shop, PortalandPortkey. Please check out her items!

Well, I must get back to the stitching – currently working on my gifts for the Sprite Stitch “big” swap. I won’t be able to post anything about that until my partner receives the stuff. But I have a few other things I’m working on as well that I will be able to share. And it won’t be so long until the next post!

Lots of stitching!

It’s been too long since I last posted something here. Life has been busy, personal stuff, stitching stuff, all kinds of stuff. But I have a whole bunch of stuff to share!

I got around to framing my Feena and Justin pieces, they are now up for sale in my Etsy shop.

Another Skyrim piece, also for Etsy (and to prevent loitering in general).

One more Shining Force III icon, a cute little thing called “Charm”!

A couple of gifts for people who (still) haven’t received their stuff in the mini-swap we at Sprite Stitch in September/October.

I’ve also completed a Streets of Rage piece, a retro-style FFXI piece and a Breath of Fire III piece, but don’t have good pictures of them yet (soon, I promise!)

And I’m working on more stuff for my shop, a piece for the Sprite Stitch 2012 quilt (I’ll be putting WIPs of that up in the next week) and a commission piece!
So I shall be incredibly busy stitching!

More stuff for other people!

Seems like most of the pieces I’ve done this year have been for other people! But that’s ok, I love to give gifts and it’s nice to make other people happy!
This time, birthday presents. For my superspecialawesome best friend Nick and his twin brother Alex (who is also a long-time friend). Their birthday was on 29th November and I worked my fingers off (in between sessions of Skyrim, of course) for two weeks to get some gifts made.

I gave the Samus and the Distant Worlds logo to Nick, and the Skyrim “Dragon Soul” achievement icon to Alex. Hope they liked them!

Having a few days rest from stitching before I go back to my current project, another Elder Scrolls themed piece! WIPs soon, I promise!

Sprite Stitch Mini Swap 2011 ~ Part One!

Part one because I’ve just sent my gifts out today, and also received some! (Part two will happen when my gifts arrive at their new home, of course.)
Isabelle, otherwise known as Craftymaster90, sent me two lovely stitchings as part of the mini craft swap.

First, this gorgeous version of the dragon symbol from The Elder Scrolls series.

She also sent me this lovely FFX Lulu, which she designed from scratch!

I can’t tell you how much I love these two pieces!
Isabelle is leaving it to me to frame / finish these however I wish, and I hope I’ll come up with something equally as wonderful as they are!

Please check out Isabelle’s other works on her deviantART – http://izzyxiii.deviantart.com/ .

Sprite Stitch Quilt Finished~!

tnitnetny really pulled out all the stops on this one. It only took her a couple of days to complete our quilt, and here it is:

She also embroidered the Sprite Stitch and Child’s Play squares!
I love how it turned out, and I want to thank everyone who got involved
Our plan now is to get organised and send it to the Penny Arcade / Child’s Play dinner where it will be auctioned off. Hopefully someone there will love it as much as we do, and give lots of money!

Some other news now.
I haven’t been posting anything I’ve made lately because I’m working on a set of gifts in the current Sprite Stitch mini-swap. When my partner receives them, I’ll be able to post about them here. What I can say is the first one (that I’m working on now) is turning out really nice!

Also, someone on deviantArt told me that Game Arts tweeted about my Justin and Feena stitchings on their Twitter! I have thanked GA, of course, and they told me they were “very impressed” ! That made me happy
Many thanks go to all the people who found me because of that tweet, fav’d my work, and added my stuff to their dA group, #Icarians!

Back soon with more stuff!

Sprite Stitch Squares!

Alliteration aside, those of you who follow what I do here will already know that I’ve completed five squares for the Sprite Stitch charity project.
Today, I cleaned and stretched them all and got a few snaps of them before I send them off to tnitnetny!

Here they are, almost dry, on a bath towel

People keep asking me if I’m sad to see them go…and in a way I am, because I put a lot of work into these squares. But I’m also happy that they are going off to be part of something special
Also, I tried to come up with patterns that I liked but wouldn’t necessarily make for myself – for example I love Shiva, but if I was making one for myself, I would choose a different image of her. Same for the rest of the images I used. Also, I have ideas for similar projects but different enough that these squares are all one of a kind items (or I hope they are, anyway!)

I hope that whoever ends up with our finished project takes good care of it, remembers all the hard work we put into it, and ultimately what we did it for

Lots of thanks go to:
my best friend Nick – for his encouragement and all-round awesomeness
my crazy family – for their support and help with the little things
everyone who commented here on the blog and on deviantArt – your feedback means a great deal to me
and the awesome people of Sprite Stitch!

Well, almost at the end of this project…but of course I have many more lined up, as always

FFVIII Rinoa ~complete~

Finally got through it!

110 colours, 96×96 on 16ct Aida.

So, that’s two for the FF quilt done. I’ll be starting a Zelda pattern shortly, either the Great Fairy or the Hyrule Creation (depending on my supplies!)

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to complete all the squares I wanted to do, mainly due to some health related stuff I’ve been putting up with for a while. The patterns are all made up, so I can probably stitch them up sometime in the future – and I will be sharing all my charity square patterns when I’m finished with the stitching

FFVIII Rinoa ~WIP 2~

Got some more progress shots of this to share with everyone!

I haven’t done as much as I should, but I am trying my best to catch up!

FFVIII Rinoa ~WIP 1~

I’ve been meaning to post pictures of this one but never seemed to get around to it for some reason! This is my latest square for the Sprite Stitch quilt project, and here’s a couple of progress shots!

The second picture was taken just today, so you know where I am with this one

It’s been quite a lot easier than the Shiva (so far), as there are less colours, but it’s still quite a complex pattern. Anyway, I hope to have this one done very soon, as I want to make a start on the Zelda squares! Oh and of course the Tentacool/Tentacruel patch needs to be finished (along with a ton of other stuff). Always busy!