Monday Monday regerts

Live! Coming at you from my new computer desk! 

It may be cheap S-Mart pressboard trash but still worth it to have the hutch and a keyboard tray. It's actually an L desk as well but I have to cut down the L piece to fit the space so that's going to have to wait a bit. The cats are all quite fond of this new and exciting way to be between me and whatever I'm trying to read,

Heaven and Earth Designs - Mini Shades of Red

I'm seriously considering scrapping this project to start again with different fabric. This is navy 22 count hardanger cloth and it is just NOT working out for me.

I find the holes hard to see both due to the color and weave (which is not tight exactly but it is dense), and my stitching feels unbearably sloppy. I've been fighting myself to pick this piece back up every time I want to stitch for weeks and I just don't find the stitching pleasant enough to keep going for another who knows how many months. I thought stitching on 22 count with two strands would be nicer than 28 count with one strand but I no longer think so. I was passing a lot of my reluctance off on the stand I've been using but I no longer think that's the main problem, though it is a continuing annoyance.

Ahhhhhh well, lessons learned: I will likely avoid dark fabrics on large works, and no more two strand stitching on full coverage pieces.

I finally got around to cleaning up my mani on Sunday. One of the pitfalls of a nude mani is its easy to ignore chipping so it outstays its welcome. I wanted something green (because it's been a while) and fairly simple that could stand up to potential staining from my haircolor. I've worn Alien Queen from IncidentalTwin as an accent before but somehow never as the star and as with every single time I've worn one of her polishes I was super dubious on first coat and totally psyched by the third. They are sheer but they build beautifully.
Accent nail is Ulta Popping Bottle. 

Since the move in July my nailpolish has been sprawled across more than three cardboard boxes. My swatch sticks were woefully out of date and I had several new bottles that had not been cataloged in Nail Polish Book - a phone app I use to organize my stash (there are only so many bottles of relatively spendy dark teal polish one person needs to buy in one month). I finally took the time this weekend to catalog everything and get my swatches up to date and now I'm looking for a better storage solution than sorting into overly small dollar store bins by used (red) vs untried (blue).

I realized as I was pitting this together that I never posted my #yearofstitch piece last week so I will do so on my Instagram @the_itsybitsy in a few. Its been done for weeks, just not posted.

Just because it was funny, and a good reminder to avoid unitaskers!

Monday Monday - the stuck in because it's apparently winter again edition

The new embroidery frame is a bit fighty, it likes to explode without much warning* so I didn't do work on it much. I have to work out some sort of stabilization beyond occasionally going over the whole thing with a rubber mallet. 

Most of my stitching this week was on #yearofstitch pieces which I generally do without a stand. I'm actually up to week ten though I've only posted through week four.

I didn't hate stitching this like I thought I would! Sadly I started it in two strand and found it a bit weedy, but I was kind of stuck with it by then so I soldiered on with the sides and switched to three strand for the middle section. 

Hooray for laying tools! You can do satin stitch without one, but I certainly wouldn't want to. Finishing off on the back was really annoying though.

I've done some on my HAED Shades of Red piece and it's starting to pick up speed but it still doesn't look like much yet. So much confetti stitching. I had been using a magnifier and light but I think I'm going to ditch the magnifier. It's a lot of hassle and my stitching just seems wonky in the parts where I used it.

There is a cross country stitching challenge at the HAED forum I follow I'm considering but I don't think I have any projects lined up which suit it very well and the prize images they offer aren't typically my thing. I feel like I should join for the sake of challenging myself but it really will cramp my style. There are a couple of months left to join (this is no small challenge) but I suspect I'll leave this one to others.

I did finally try my new Limited edition  Limecrime lip colour Beet It and though sadly I did not get a pic with it on my face I'm REALLY happy with the shade. It looks a bit mauve in the tube (see the small dot to the left) and I was almost pissed at having snagged yet another blah tone but it dries to a really nice intense shade right on that cranberry border between berry and red. I feel like it looked a touch more pink on my face but I also had a much more even application. Putting lipstick on your wrist is surprisingly awkward feeling.

I include the other Limecrime shades I own and a fairly true red from NYX in a similar formula (longwearing matte cream with a doefoot applicator) for comparison. So far all of these have proven to be pretty much bulletproof. Any lippy that will hold up to a dinner party and a mildly absurd amount of wine gets my thumbs up.

Utopia is the color I wore for my wedding!

*The embroidery stand actually exploded again as I got off the couch to set up the lip color pic.

What was supposed to be a simple clean up of my fatally chipped grey and gold polish turned into a subtle but (I think) cool French manicure. The base is Twinkle Twinkle by NailNation3000 and the tips are Love Me Fear Me by IncidentalTwin.

Sadly it doesn't photograph very well AT ALL as the camera really wants to pick up the yellow tone of the flakies instead of the opalescent goodness and I feel like this pic makes my nails look stained even though FOR ONCE they actually aren't.

I may use a pink tinted topcoat next time as these translucent manis seem to yellow out and get dingy really fast.

Monday Monday - almost missed posting on time due to DST!

I generally deal with DST by trashing my sleep schedule so hard that weekend that I barely tell anything is different on Monday. Works like a charm.

I got most of this written out earlier, got distracted by things, and suddenly realized it was almost midnight, oopsie!

Not much motion on the big stitching projects but I did finally start the Badass Crosstitch #yearofstitch and post the first week on Wednesday.

I have the second done as well but am not sure when I want to start posting them. I'm thinking maybe I'll post them Friday to split up the week a little bit.

The biggest thing that I did this week was finally rearrange my apartment. We moved in early July but the space never settled into a good functional flow and so many things never really seemed to find a proper place. We switched two of the rooms so that we now have the worlds tiniest great room and a separated office/craft/workout space.

Operation "be able to take a single picture in my home and not see a random cardboard storage box" is moving along nicely, but there's a lot left to do.

One of the projects I really want to tackle is a makeup and beauty product re-org. I literally have a box full of subscription boxes full of stuff that hasn't been sorted.

So of course I bought more beauty stuff on Thursday.

I stopped in at Ulta after my hair appointment to pick up the Tarte facial oil on the far right and see if I could get my brows done at the Benefit Brow bar (could and did!). I'd been stalking that particular NYX liquid Suede lip colour for a while so I grabbed that and another red. The third red was entirely accidental as I was comparing them to a color I knew I liked and simply forgot to put it down. Still haven't decided whether to keep or swap it. 

I really like a long sweeping liner brush so I'm enjoying going back to a true liquid liner but I would prefer it to be even more matte. I'm also looking forward to trying that silicone brush with a gel liner as I'm not a big fan of the usual suggested firm angle brush and I feel like I've lost the ability to do things I used to do daily on a moving train with liquid (I commuted to college and grad school).

I've gone back to dark blue hair as I grow out the white and it's like hanging out with an old friend. Note also my freshly waxed brow line! Even without filling them in (I always break out less if they don't fill them after) I haven't had brows that crisp since Halloween!

My nails were pretty trashed so I repainted them on a shade I hope will stand up to the blue hair dye. 

The more I use that gold flake polish the more I want to. Not to mention that I saw both a macro gold flake indie polish and a gold foil enhanced mani tutorial vid on instagram within the last day that I'm trying not to think too hard about. Following Sveta_Sanders is kind of a problem as it's Russian language so I can't even read her posts much less buy those polishes, and she post some AMAZING polishes.

My other main beauty related move this week is to drink lots and lots and lots of water. It's so trite but it really works and I hate that I forget that. 

I haven't used lip balm in days and I could probably apply a lip stain right now with no prep whatsoever. I was noticing my skin looking pretty grumpy lately (for example that pic collage above, eek) and this has immediately perked it right up.

Monday Monday Part 5 - A New Beginning

The Friday the 13th reference is apropos of absolutely nothing, that's just where my brain went this morning.

Not as much to report this week as I would like.

Tuesday night was game night, so unless you have interest in my very bare surface understanding of the Dungeons & Dragons 5e system there's not much to go into there.

Lvl 2 Goliath Barbarian, in case you are wondering

Wednesday was colour session one on my Halloween inspired bat sleeve with John Lally at Masquerade Tattoo. It was a bit gruelling but so cool to watch the piece start coming to life bit by bit.

At our first break I texted this pic to my husband and it was the first time I had gotten to see it from the "proper" angle. What looked like some nifty shading from my perspective practically jumps off my arm in 3D from the right side up. There is, not incidentally, an entire BACK of my arm to this project as well.

Interesting note; I am apparently more upset about the movie Prometheus than I am about someone repeatedly and painfully injecting ink into my arm over the course of several hours. Anyone who feels like having a captive audience to talk about horror hit me up for when my next appointment is scheduled.

I'm not entirely joking. It really helps.

Thursday I got to hang out with the family, my Mom is doing better every day and seeing my brother is always a pleasure.

Friday was kind of a crappy day at work so when I got home I buried myself in TV and crafting. My husband eventually went out to a local music show leaving me to my own devices.

These devices apparently didn't involve hitting the bathroom until about 8:30... which is when I found this Limecrime lipstick I've been eyeing for months casually taped to the mirror! Because my husband is the ginchiest I now have Velvetine lipsticks in Beet It, Utopia (the color I wore for my wedding), and Pansy. I just realized all three of these colours are LEs, woo!

I will probably continue eyeing Red Velvet and Wicked (both reds) for some time to come. My current go-to red is NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Monte Carlo. Not that I have any lack of red lipsticks but when you got one that really works it can be hard to commit to an untried product for a night out.

Craft wise I switched up working on the Blackwork piece to get some work done on Shades of Red. So far everything in this piece has been a study in extremes. Huge blocks of slightly mind numbing unrelenting black background or incredibly fussy "confetti" stitching of no more than three stitches of one colour at a time. Thankfully the next section should be a much larger section of colour which will hopefully be a bit more laid back.

I'm realizing as I get further into this project that I like the higher count fabrics more and more and I think I will be sticking to 1/1 on 25 count and up from now on. I thought the lower count would be easier on the eyes but it's not really until you get to 18 and the annoyance of dealing with two strands of floss for proper coverage on a full coverage project is NOT worth the small amount of relief.
I don't think the dark color of this fabric is helping much either.

I'm sort of gearing up to work on the Bowie piece. I FINALLY settled on a fabric but I prefer to work with floss cards and making your own floss cards for intricate designs with upwards of 75 colours is possibly even fussier work than much of the cross stitching itself.

Controlled Chaos

There used to be a system available from a brand called LoRan with little soft binders and pre-punched cards, Dritz has taken over the cards but they don't have enough colours on each card for the sorts of projects I do and they are small for my needs (also SPENDY). I am strongly considering altering some kind of 3 ring datebook to be a project floss holder. Come to think of it I should have a really nice pink leather one lying around somewhere that would probably be just perfect.

As far as the #yearostitch project I am really hoping to get that underway in the next few days. I just haven't taken the time to find the first entry (um, nevermind... check) and take stock of what fabric I will need. I kind of like how Instagram user @Queenofslacking has laid it all out in 20x20 blocks so I'll probably do something like that.

OH! I sort of idly mused last night that I hadn't seen a ship notification for that cone of thread I mentioned buying last week only to dig back through my emails and realize I never.... actually... ordered it.

I know I hit submit on Paypal but I'm pretty sure I must have closed the browser before hitting the final submit on the full order, so I went to do it aaaaaaall over again. I missed out on the shipping coupon but happily the cones were still half off, and threw in a clip on magnifier to boot since I've resigned myself to staring cross eyed at impossibly fine evenweave for the next decade or so.

Oh also, Cheeeeese Gromet!
My Cheese of the Month delivery came on Saturday. I've already tucked into the Dubliner and the Mellville and can highly recommend both on their own merits.