This post is about Lost

My favorite show is coming to an end. Only one episode left. This makes me sad. Very sad. Lost, in addition to making me happy, sad, frustrated, confused and generally leaving me with my mouth open saying huh?, has also inspired a lot of my craft projects.

So it’s only fitting that I should say goodbye to the show with a craft project. This is a cross stitch of the first quote that popped into my head when I was thinking about stitching something from Lost.

Live together, die alone is mentioned several times throughout the show and I think it captures the spirit of the show nicely.

I also added the numbers, obviously, because what is a Lost cross stitch without the cursed numbers?

And the six symbols represent the six seasons – like the show, I too am all about symbolism.

From left to right: Oceanic airlines logo (very proud of how it turned out), The Island (meh, it needs a polar bear. Or a fuselage. But it’s too tiny to have all that), Dharma logo (the plan was to embroider the word Dharma in the circle, but again, too tiny), Ben’s time traveling bunny, the ankh from the giant four-toed statue, and the “Now you and I are the same” wine bottle (or Evil trapped in a bottle, with the cork as the island, if you’re into symbolism).

I still need to iron it, and have it framed.

I realize that this post makes absolutely no sense if you don’t watch Lost. So I apologize, my dear blog readers. And I promise that after this Sunday, I will go back to my knitting.

But you can expect more Lost related crafts from me in the future. Because Lost is very quotable. And awesome.

Last week most of us were strangers. But we're all here now. And God knows how long we're going to be here. But if we can't live together—we're gonna die alone. (Jack, White Rabbit, Season 1)

An apple a day...

The pretty much only reason I wanted to learn crochet was to make amigurumi toys. Cute little things that you have no idea what to do with, but they're cute, so you make them anyway.
I'd like to say I practiced and practiced, mastered the art of crochet and THEN tried amigurumi, but I'd be lying. I'm far too impatient for that. So I chose a simple pattern, and grabbed a hook. And this is what an inexperienced crocheter's amigurumi looks like.
Not too bad, no?
The pattern is Amigurumi Apple by Lion Brand. Simple and quick. I did mess up in a few places, of course. I dropped my paper clip marker couple of times and after that I couldn't tell where the beginning of the round was.
So it's not really symmetrical as far as decreases and increases go. But that's okay, real apples aren't symmetrical either.
See?

And here's a work in progress. Redwork cross stitch. This will probably go on my wall when I finish it. Red to match the color of my couch.


Edited to add : It has been brought to my attention that my apple looks more like a pear. I wondered why that is, and I'm ashamed to say it took me a while to realize that I SEWED THE LEAF AND THE STEM ON THE WRONG END OF THE APPLE!!

Obviously, this is how an apple looks like. The sad thing is, I didn't even notice, until romantales pointed it out. Sometimes you just don't see things that are staring you right in the face. Thanks romantales!

Mrgud

When I was a kid, "The Smurfs" were my favorite cartoon. I've recently stumbled on a episode on youtube (here in Croatia, the show was dubbed in our language) and it brought back fond childhood memories.
I actually still use some of the quotes from that cartoon, like the unforgettable "Ima li još puno, Papa Štrumf?" ( How much further, Papa Smurf - from the Astrosmurf episode).

But my favorite character was Grouchy - Mrgud in Croatian. His random exclamations of hate cracked me up. I find his wisdom to applicable on so many things in everyday life, one of them being housework. Especially dishes. Washing dishes. Drying dishes. Dishes.

So, with Mrgud in mind, I sewed a dishtowel out of aida cloth and stitched my most honest opinion of dishes.


Imagine Grouchy saying in his grouchy voice: I hate dishes!


That's what I do everytime I look at this. It makes me chuckle a little. And then my face gets the same expression as Grouchys when I realize it's time to do the dishes.


Mrgud/Grouchy was done on 22-count aida cloth, with only one strand of floss. It took me about a week to finish.

The back is a mess and that's the reason it's not pictured. I'll probably sew a patch or something on the back, before I use the towel for drying dishes. Or maybe I should forget about function, trim the cloth, frame the cross stitch and display it in my tiny kitchen as the universal truth?

In which I discover Mani di fata

Finally, I have my computer back. This past month has been one malfunction after another. Starting with the pipes leaking in my apartment (they had to be completely replaced) and ending with my computer dying on me.

So the past two weeks have been mostly about cleaning up after the workers, vacuuming the endless amounts of dust that seem to got everywhere and waiting for the computer repair guy to do his thing.
Now the water smells and tastes funny and the computer makes a funny noise when you turn it on, but I'm so past caring about that. I have returned to my crafts, and I'm on vacation. So what if it rains every single day? I have my needles ;)

I have recently discovered that the newsstands here carry Mani di fata, an Italian stitching magazine. Although most of the patterns are a little too classic for my taste, it does have some cute stuff. Like the cake and cupcake you see below.


These were both done on 11 count aida cloth (at least I think it's 11, I counted the little squares and got 11 per inch) with three strands of floss. Mostly Ljubica by Unitas.
I should have used 4 strands to get better coverage, I'll have to remember that for next time.
Someday, they will become potholders. Or something else that has some kind of use in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, I busy myself with knitting. I'm working on the Pintuck T-shirt and progress is slow. I just hope I'll finish it before the summer's over.

Little gardener

Lately I've been too busy to craft, but here's a project I finshed a while ago.
This little guy was stitched from a DMC pattern booklet. The title is Fairy Tales, I got it as a part of a DMC kit. Since the stores here don't carry DMC, I used Madeira thread and of course, good ole Croatian Ljubica.

I actually like working with Ljubica better, it's easier to separate the threads and it doesn't tangle as much as Madeira. The jeans, the watering can and the paler green are all Ljubica.
Too bad the color palette of Ljubica thread is limited, to put it politely.

I only stitched half of the scene from the pattern, because I just don't have enough patience to do the whole thing.

I might get another plant and put this guy in a frame next to it. Maybe then the plant would survive my care.

Hello Kitty!

Finally back at my computer. I've been on vacation, took a little trip to Zagreb, bought a ton of Madeira embroidery floss there, did some cross stitch, finally finished my 88-17 cardigan and now I'm back home and counting the hours I still have before going to work.

The cardigan is still wet and blocking, but here's a good example of why you shouldn't do cross stitch without writing down the color number of your thread.

Notice something off in Hello Kitty's head? Off white, that's what! I started with some leftover white thread by Madeira, ran out and threw away the little wrapper it came in. When I went to buy some more, they only had that what your see above. Silly me, thinking white is white. Nope. There are shades, apparently.

I still finished it, even if it is with the wrong color. I'm impatient like that, I just wanted it done.
Someday I might unpick it, or start again from the start.
There are a lot of things I'm not happy about - my thread keeps twisting (letting the needle drop and untwist doesn't work) and I keep pulling little thread strands to the front of the work. The back is a mess, in case you were wondering.
Oh well, practice makes perfect, right?

Hello Kitty pattern is from Sanrio DIY Crafts.

X-stitch

Cross stitch is time consuming. Really time consuming. It's a craft for patient people. I'm not sure I'm one of those. It's also a great way to loose your eyesight, especially if you're working on teeny tiny squares. I'm sure this has a name, but I don't know it. Thread count seems to pop up all over the place when you google cross stitch. So, let's call the tiny squares issue the thread count problem.

But despite of all that I have to admit that it's kind of fun when all those little x's begin to take shape of your design.

These were my first attempts. Both designs are from a DMC pattern book, the heart is my very first cross stitch ever.