I had some time this evening to try out my new ultra punch needle. I think I'm going to love embroidery again! I'm not even kidding myself ;-)

It's just a plastic tube with a spring and a needle. All you do is punch, lift and slide. If this sounds suspiciously easy...it is. It did take me a few tries to get the hang of it though. I had better results when I went slow because I kept turning the punch the wrong way. Holding it incorrectly affects the way your stitches are made and I found it took a bit of concentration for me. I tested it on some old evenweave fabric, which was slightly too small for the embroidery hoop I had, but I bet if I get a smaller hoop that I would have better results.

On days 14 and 15, I worked on 99 and am almost a third of the way finished; I just need to finish the shelf. I started it January, and have not worked on it exclusively, so I'm happy with my progress.



On day 16, I wrestled with a clasp for my bracelet and only succeeded in making knots.

I also acquired more stuff (I can't remember what day they came in the mail):



On the 16th, I also bought the stuff needed for finishing the bag (I have enough thread to start it). I'm just waiting for stretcher bars.

I find it hard to bead at home, with my kids always wanting to be in it with me, and beads being prone to scattering everywhere. Once a month, I attend a bead meetup, and I get to bead! My mom found a kit, and wanted me to make it up for her. She gave me some loose parameters and trusted me for the rest. I added some bigger glass pearls from my stash. This is what I came up with:



I showed my mom a picture, and she decided that she wanted some bee and lady bug matching earrings. So I need to take apart that first strand to get the bugs, and put it back together.

We got some wind last night! We were up near Woodbridge doing some trail walking and Islington was closed, we got routed through a neighborhood and we saw branches down, fences down, a tree down in the road and residents all standing around in the sun because the power was out. Most people treated the intersections as four way stops, as they should. We dodged the rain, the sun came out on our walk, we got home and we hadn't lost power but we'd lost internet, as something had happened to the supplier that supplies internet to our provider. So I got some drawing done and we watched the Spider-Man movie, which was a perfectly fine super hero movie. Not too full of easter eggs, a little overlong, nicely acted... not the best film of the year, which is what I've seen people say, but for a super hero movie it was fine.

Saturday I put the new Let's Anime up, we took a bunch of stuff to the thrift store, I bought a cooler fan for the PC, we did some walking, I put the new fan in the PC, I swapped the exhaust fan for another exhaust fan, the PC runs a LOT quieter now, thank goodness. We watched the original William Castle "13 Ghosts" which isn't as good as "The Tingler" or "House On Haunted Hill", mostly because those films have Vincent Price and this one doesn't. It does have Margaret Hamilton, though, who is always great.

We actually dropped a lot of stuff at the thrifts on both Saturday and Sunday. I keep uncovering clothes I haven't worn in years or duplicate sets of wrenches or computer speakers we don't need or books I haven't touched; I think we've taken a bag or two to various drop off places every weekend since AWA. I'm at the point where the frustration of "too much junk" is stronger than the satisfaction of "look at all the stuff I have."

Friday after work I changed clothes and we went out to Kensington Market to see Donald and David for their 50th birthday. It's amazing to think that I spent most of my 20s getting home from work on Friday and immediately heading right back out to meet friends somewhere - these days it's a real struggle to do anything but relax on weeknights. I don't have the energy level I did when I was 22. On the other hand, I'm not driving to and from Athens every weekend, and I have an actual job, not the low-paying part-time nonsense jobs I had when I was in school. It evens out, I guess.

by the way Dreamwidth users, when I made the switch to Dreamwidth, I ported over the "classic anime" community from Livejournal. If you're interested in Japanese animation circa 1960-1990, you might enjoy this group.

Well, I'll be honest, so far the group has been me posting Let's Anime links. It would be great if we could get some other people in there doing some chatting about them Japanese cartoons. Come on by.

https://classic-anime.dreamwidth.org/

The seminal Japanese cartoon Speed Racer turns fifty this year, and that means it's time for Gen-X kids such as myself to begin saying "fifty years old? Why it seems like just yesterday..."

Back when the live-action Wachowski siblings' film came out, I wrote a big piece about Speed Racer for Otaku USA, and I've since re-jiggered it slightly and it's up at Let's Anime!

http://letsanime.blogspot.ca/2017/10/speeding-into-fifty.html

The seminal Japanese cartoon Speed Racer turns fifty this year, and that means it's time for Gen-X kids such as myself to begin saying "fifty years old? Why it seems like just yesterday..."

Back when the live-action Wachowski siblings' film came out, I wrote a big piece about Speed Racer for Otaku USA, and I've since re-jiggered it slightly and it's up at Let's Anime!

http://letsanime.blogspot.ca/2017/10/speeding-into-fifty.html

I finished off the latch hook decor!



For the flower latch hook, the canvas was about the right size, so I trimmed just the outside of the frame with the fabric.

I only worked on 99 the last three days. On the 11th, I replaced the wrong gray with the right one in the first two rows. On the 12th, I replaced the gray in the third row (only the bottom of the next to last bottle, thankfully) finished the next to the last bottle, and did everything but the outline and the white on the last bottle. On the 13th, I finished the last bottle.



I meant to do more last night, but I got distracted by doing my nails (which probably doesn't count as crafting).

Back in May 2016, I did a 30for30crafting challenge (craft 30 minutes a day for 30 days), and as part of that challenge (which I documented on Tumblr and in LJ's nacramamo), I designed (except for the flower; that was a kit) and hooked some latch hook decor for my kids.


I went so far as to buy some canvas frames to mount them on, and then they sat. I unearthed them in the newest Great Office Unfucking. In the last week of September, I even got the biggest ones glued onto their frames.



And then they sat again, because I've been focused on the Stitchalong. They've been underfoot waiting for a chance to be finished.... and today, I finished framing the ladybug! The canvas frames I found weren't quite the right size (too large), so I found some cloth to cover up the edges.



I'm going to try and finish the other two this weekend.

I finished week 6 of the Mystery Stitchalong!

Day 11



Day 12



I think I'm going to do some other things for a few days and then get started on week 7!

My birthday was last week but my gift to myself arrived today. I wasn't even going to buy it! Dumb story - my husband wanted a very specific kitchen timer and after driving around to three places to find it, I declared "Ugh! I'll just buy it on Amazon if this saves driving around!"

It didn't qualify for free shipping, but smarty pants Amazon to the rescue. It remembered that I had looked at the Ultra Punch punch needle :) I added that to my cart and we were able to spend the afternoon not running around town :D

It arrived today but I don't think I will get a chance to use it right away. Today I put a UFO to rest, a rainbow hat made on my knitting machine. I was cranking it while watching TV, but now I just want the space back...probably for some different crafting in the future :D

Let a lot of corporate licensed characters work hard to confuse and mislead in an over-written, unfocused comic purportedly designed to get kids to wear their seat belts!




It's all happening right now at Stupid Comics!


http://misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics550.html

In other news, I took a sick day because I was feeling sick, and I am repurposing my 2008 Speed Racer article for Otaku USA as a Let's Anime piece, and the weather has cooled off and gotten rainy. We ate a lot of turkey for Thanksgiving and watched Yamato 2202. Did a lot of housecleaning over the long weekend and there's more space in our space, took a lot of stuff to some thrift stores and haven't really replaced it with anything. Which is the plan, I guess. This weekend we have no plans, next weekend is a AN staff meeting, weekend after that is the AN Halloween thing, and then it's November already!

In the last couple of days, I think I've done enough (or possibly too much) of the beading part of the bracelet to add a fastener of some sort to it. I also worked some on 99. I discovered last night that I'd been using the wrong shade of gray all along; it was supposed to be a light gray (415), but I ended up with a much darker shade on my card. I only noticed because I had to get a new length of thread in the middle of a bottle. It's bothering me, so the wrong color is coming out. Thankfully, there's not too much of it.

Well not everything has aired yet but the remaining shows don't look that interesting to me so here's what I've watched so far: ( longer thoughts on Just Because, A sister's all you need, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, The Ancient Magus' Bride, Land of the Lustrous, shorter thoughts on some other stuff )

Overall, actually a much more promising season than I expected going into it. But I think I felt that way about last season too so we'll see how it actually pans out. XD

I just realized that Mail Art is not a really good idea for this nacramamo because I have to make sure that no address is showing and I'm too lazy to edit the photos...

Anyway, in this batch I used lots of dots/pointilism technique to decorate the cards. Also I finally dug out my Airmail rubber stamps from my moving boxes which has been sitting at my parents' house.

Day 6 is my card for calzephyr :) (to calzephyr, I will send you something else other than the card :D)

Click on picture for larger!

DAY 4	DAY 5	DAY 6
DAY 7	DAY 8	DAY 9

I'm still open to send more cards to anyone else here :)

I'm plugging away on the Mystery Stitchalong.

Day 8


Day 9


Day 10

Drabbles
All Ways But One (AtLA, G): Iroh is a servant of peace. Iroh is an uncle. Written for the prompt 'fear.'
Untitled (Arthuriana/Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, G): It's been a year and a day since Gawaine set out, and Arthur is mourning. Written for the prompt 'delight.'
Untitled (Hannibal, G except that it's Hannibal): "Lost is an interesting word," said Hannibal. Written for the prompt 'lost.'
v.: to follow and observe someone, closely and typically secretly (Person of Interest, T): Shaw is being watched. Written for the prompt 'shadow.'
Fevered (original fic, T): If something burns like a fever, it must perforce break like one. Written for the prompt 'fever.'

Other
Midsummer Festival (AtLA, G): The caldera's Midsummer Festival is a fine old tradition, dating back to before the war. Of course, a lot's changed since then... Zuko & Aang friendship, 574 words. Written for the prompt 'summer fair.'

I didn't do much over the last three days; I did a few rows of beads every day, and a couple of other things on a couple of days.

I am very close to done with the beading part of this and will then have to decide how to finish it (it's Stained Glass by Beadholden Designs):



On day 6, I also finished the last bottle here on 99 by Ink Circles (30 down, 69 to go):




On day 8, I pulled out a latch hook kit called Floral D'Vine that I bought on clearance and started in 2014; I've only done two rows in the last two years. I've now done my row for this year, and might try to do a few more. I do now remember why I haven't been wanting to work on this; it's a little tedious. I do want to finish it someday.