Monday Monday week 3 - Do All the Things!

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
For serious, read this blog.

Okay, so uh, what all did I do this week:

Love me, love the occasional Batman Bandage

Nail polish break went poorly so I finally re-polished Sunday. My nails were getting shorter and shorter and my cuticles longer and longer so it was high time. I am at the point where I can't file any further without removing flesh on several of my fingers because of the way my nailbeds attach underneath (that is literally as short as my pointer and middle fingers can get right now).

I used this FANTASTIC "Super Juiced" colour I recently picked up from ILNP mostly because my hair was going to stain whatever colour I used blue anyway so might as well go with it. My nails are nubby and my cuticles are a mess, but hey, at least the colour is sexypants.

Cannibalized a mood ring and a crappy old needle into a fingertip laying tool with the magic of pliers and E6000 glue and so far I'm pretty jazzed. It's butt ugly and I want to blunt the needle a bit more, but it's comfortable to wear and works like a charm. Thankfully (?) with the mind numbing amount of black background in the cross stitch project I've been focusing on this week I have had PLENTY of opportunity to practice with it .

Got into a discussion of floor stands and Qsnaps (a popular style of needlework frame) on a Facebook embroidery group Saturday and decided to try out the combination on my stand. I have an Edmunds Stitch Master Floorstand which is not the sexiest thing out there but for the price (half price with a Joannes coupon, in fact) it is pretty good for my purposes. It's a bit tippy but I have zip tied it to a box which lets me wedge it under the edge of my couch.

I used a shelved Supernatural themed Work in Progress (or WIP) to test it all out and figured while I was at it I might as well get some work done on it. All I had left was stupid annoying really effective backstitching so I had at until it was done. It's all stitched so I just need to wash and mount at this point. I think I want to try out a padded mount for this as I hate how glass looks over embroidery.

As a... break? (am I crazy? I'm starting to think I'm crazy) from cross stitching I decided to try a blackwork project so I spent much of Sunday getting the fabric prepared for that. I've decided to do the astonishingly free Box of Delights by Elizabeth Almond of Blackwork Journey ( <- link is the designer's own Pinterest page, in case anyone is worried about copyright. Her own page doesn't have such a nice spread of pics, but it is here).

I had originally tripped over her also astonishingly free Save the Stitches design first but having never done much (or really any) blackwork it is WAAAAY too rich for my blood. I like how this one is worked in perfectly reasonably sized little chunks.

It's the perfect project to use a silver 32 count linen I've been hoarding and this particularly lovely aqua I've been drawn to every time I open my floss box. I'm basing my piece more on the blue and white version but with a darker outline. The aqua will be the patterned part, the darker blue will be outline, and the coppery colour will be used in place of the metallic thread her original design calls for.
I did say this was supposed to be a break and metallic thread is not a "break".

Why yes, DIY grime guards ARE on my imminent to-do list, why do you ask?

I've got my fabric all mounted and prepped but... [EDIT]
I had a whole thing about being daunted by Holbein stitch here but then I woke up this morning to find out via Facebook that it's not designed for Holbein at all and is instead entirely worked in backstitch (woo, more backstitch!). Which tells you something about how well Elizabeth Almond supports her patterns as that wasn't even eight hours and she lives on a different continent.
This is, might I add again, a FREE PATTERN.

I'm in the process of kitting up another (considerably more detailed) David Bowie cross stitch but I have to pick a fabric and set up project cards so that'll be a little bit still.

I have some family stuff coming up this week and a major apartment layout overhaul planned so I'm not sure how much interesting stuff I'll get done in the coming weeks but fingers crossed I'll get some tinkering time.