Warning: May Contain Nuts

I was looking on This is why you're fat for super-important reasons when I saw Velvety Balls: little balls of red velvet cake dipped in dark chocolate.

My second thought was, "Everyone loves red velvet cake, and those look nice and interesting."

My first thought was obviously, "I should make those and ask people if they want to try my dark, velvety balls.  Or if they would like my velvety balls in their mouth."

This is why you're fat linked to the recipe.  Because this person is skilled and dedicated, the cake and the frosting are from scratch.  I figure it'll probably work with cake mix and frosting.  I'm far too busy doing super important things like coming up with hilarious male genitalia based puns to actually make anything all by myself.

Yet another 50% off custom framing sale at Ben Franklin, so my mother's been putting old Ben's kids through college.

Octopus's Garden is currently being framed thanks to a grant from the My Mom Foundation.

This is a pre-made frame but a custom-cut mat.  I found the quilt squares pattern on About.com and used it for one of my first DMC Color Variations projects.

And here's what AUDRE Bears currently looks like:

Graph Paper Party

My Octopus's Garden is up at the Ink Circles blog.  I need to take some pictures of the thing I'm making for Michelle.

Yesterday I drew up two new patterns.  I got the verse for the Nintendo one from a book on traditional samplers (which was also my source for the exceptionally morbid death poetry.  Which now reminds me that I should make one with poison mushrooms).

Ever since I first took out the book I've been trying to think of some horrible thing to pair with this verse, and by "horrible", I mean alcohol related.  However, my limited art skills made that difficult, and then I thought "Video games."

I'll see how long the Nintendo Sampler takes to stitch before I decide what I'm going to do with it.  One of the suggestions for selling crafts is to figure out how much you want to get paid per hour--which would make cross stitch ludicrously expensive.  An alternative is to multiply the cost of supplies by two or three--which would put me in "sweatshop" territory.

I should already have the colors written down somewhere.  I'm trying to decide if I should just choose one bright color for the words or do it like the Super Mario World logo.  My assumption is that alternating every other letter would be 1)a pain in the ass and 2)ugly, but maybe do it by lines?  Words?

The other pattern from yesterday is another Star Wars one.  Everybody likes Yoda, right?

I got the alphabet from what used to be one of my go-to caption makers...until they started charging for most of the fonts.  And yeah, yeah, they can charge if they want to, but I can search the internet or old pattern books for free letters.

The colors are from my cousin's Christmas present, but I've gotten some more light greens since then, so I might change my mind about 703.

I have no Irish projects at the moment, so here's Darth Vader

Unless wine tasting counts as a craft, but that's not really Irish either.  If it helps though, I am drinking a pint as I type this up.

*~Busy little bee...

Finally finished Octopus's Garden, thus proving that I am capable of actually completing an Ink Circles pattern.

Now I just need to get back to work on Cirque des Cercles.  Just as soon as I finish AUD, undisclosed needlework project, and my hilarious Darth Vader pattern (which is coming along pretty quickly)

As part of my rocking SPRING BREAK, I'm also finishing up those pot holders for Etsy and starting to make the listings.

I'm having a hard time with the Legend of Zelda one, which you'd think would be fairly easy (since I've already done two for Steven.)  But I haven't been able to find the gold colored wool at any of my local craft stores--so I don't know if I have enough to finish up the words--and I'm not really happy with the way some of the letters look so far.

Here's what the LoZ pot holder looked like before felting, and then a group shot of all of them after their magical journey through the washer and dryer.

I've found that hot soaking/cold rinse in the sink does have a different effect than running them through a hot/cold delicates cycle.

I think this is the first batch I've started by putting through the washer instead of soaking in the sink.

I'm trying to decide if I should list "Bake It So, #1!" or give it to certain discerning relatives.  They could share it.  Like sitcom teenagers working out some sort of insane car sharing plan.  And they're both in NC, so it sort of works.

Engineering Logo and Plain have both already been listed.  I'd like to get Legend of Zelda up before Spring Break ends (since I'm pretty sure it's not going to get done once I'm back in class and having to learn me a book every few days).

Eyes faster than my hands

If wanting to make a cross stitch of Darth Vader that says "WHO'S YOUR DADDY" is wrong, I'm not sure why I phrased that as "if".

Other than giggling moronically at how hilarious I am, tonight's other procrastination project involves playing with my Sublime Stitching Craft Pad.  (Which is currently 60% and super-saver shipping eligible at Amazon)  This also involves moronically giggling, but then nearly all of my craft projects do.  

My only objection to the Craft Pad is the cursive alphabet.  The letters are printed like you'd see in a kid's workbook which makes sense for teaching upper- and lowercase cursive letters, but sucks when you're trying to cut them out.

I really shouldn't be starting another project (let alone two) until I get some serious work done on Unfinished Project Mountain.  Which is really more of a mountain chain that, with some help from my mother's inability to finish projects, extends from the southernmost end table to Computer Valley.  (Simonsens: Proving there's a connection between creativity and slovenliness)  And I'm telling you the vastness of Unfinished Project Mountain to assure you that the cat only sleeps on part of it.  For example, my project from Michelle is carefully guarded.

All of these wrinkles have been lovingly handmade.  I'm holding off on the backstitch (which is going to be a real bear to do all at once) so I don't have to risk it coming loose while I'm working on the other side of the piece.  (Hoops are like the chardonnay of cross stitch.)

I've been working on Octopus's Garden longer (and having to fold more and larger areas in my left hand), so that could account for some of the wrinkles, but a lot of them are because the cat decided to show me who's boss by sleeping on it.  Or because Zoot likes to sit next to me on the couch and I have a learning disability that makes me unable to distinguish between the couch and a reasonable place to store one's needlework (I'm assuming it's at least partially to remind me who's boss.)

I keep telling myself I'm going to push through and finish this one, and I keep finding out that there's more left than I thought there was.  I'm also deliberately avoiding finishing the bottom border because it is going to be boring and potentially inconvenient (one stitch every six squares, which is more than you should really carry the thread across, but such a pain to keep weaving in and out.  You should know that a smart person would probably have done those stitches first, then used the more connected pattern to hold the threads in.)