North Palace - end of week seven

I'm pretty happy with this week's progress, and it's definitely starting to come together. Not going to lie though, I'm dreading finishing the floor because it's so tedious and boring.

Looking at the project, I'm not 100% happy with the colors. *shakes fist at KG Chart* The blue I'm not thrilled with, and I'm still undecided on the red. I'll probably play around with the colors if I ever attempt this pattern again.

In other news, we may be moving next month or October, which will put a slight damper in being crafty. Though we'll be moving into another house on base, which will mean a bigger place, which means I'll have more room for said crafts. *does happy dance* I just wanted to bang out a quick update shot, and now I'm heading to bed.

North Palace - end of week six

I'm a few days late with the actual entry, but the picture was taken on time at least. Here's my progress after week six. I didn't get to work on it as much as I would have liked this week, but it is still coming along.

Working on this project has definitely been a learning experience. It would just be way easier to scrap this project, and restart with a re-tweaked pattern and some black aida, but I am determined to see this through. I would like to try this pattern again sometime down the line though. There really isn't much to be said, that the picture doesn't already cover as far as progress goes.

Maybe later I'll touch on Retro Gaming League from this past weekend, but we have some errands to run, so that will have to wait.

North Palace - end of week five & a bookmark

Am I a slacker when it comes to updating? *hangs head* Yes. I haven't even made a real update in my personal journal in months. I have been busy working on my North Palace project however, so at least lack of update isn't due to lack of progress. I guess this means I'm not a total slacker, right?

So anyway, here's the progress at the end of week five.As you can see, I finally completed the floor bricks and have moved into the equally monotonous task of filling in the gaps in between. The great thing about this project is it gets along really well with my ADD. There are enough various sections that I can skip around between without having an adverse effect on the whole design. Brilliant! That said, even my ADD got the better of me, and I decided to take a break for a few days and work on a quick side project.


Ta-da! My husband goes through books like some girls go through boy toys, and I give him crap for never using a bookmark. Add to that the fact that he's a huge Mass Effect fan, and whores his endorsements around the Citadel like nobody's business, and this bookmark was a no-brainer. This is my first time dealing with pre-made bookmarks, and going by the pattern I didn't expect to have all that extra space that the end. I've tucked that little bit of information away for future reference, I assure you, as well as the fact that I need to fold the ends under to prevent fraying. For now, I'll finagle something to prevent that from happening.

I can't take credit for the N7 logo though, as I found that pattern on the Sprite Stitch forums. It was a nice little side project, and I'd like to make more of them. We shall see. Oh, and because I like to think I'm clever;

My husband is the John Ringo fan, not I.

Well the pip-squeak is making it clear that she is now awake from her nap, so off I go.

Zelda II - North Palace (started July 8)

I was always one of those quirky people who actually enjoyed Zelda II: Adventures of Link for the NES. Sure, it was hard as all get out, but I loved it anyway. I have also always loved the opening screen shot in the North Palace. I'd eventually like to do this on canvas, however for now 18 count aida will have to do. You know what? I'm ok with that. I banged out a pattern in KG-Chart, and just needed to pick up the supplies.


Now I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment, and was way too impatient when it came to starting this project. My original intention was do this project on 18 count black aida, which would have saved me a ton of stitching time. The problem? Michael's Crafts only carries black aida in 14 count, and the pattern was way too big to fit what they had on hand. So I settled on some 18 count Ivory colored aida, and accepted that I was going to have to stitch all that black as well. *le sigh* Realizing this, I had scurried back to the flosses to pick up the much needed black. Oh Michael's, you just had to add insult to injury, didn't you? They were completely out of black floss. Oh well, what could I do, right? Off to the register with my 50 lbs of floss, and figured I could keep myself occupied enough to do without the black floss for the time being.

After we got home, I put the pip-squeak down for a nap and set out to plot out the border on my aida. Having done that, it definitely put the whole thing in perspective.


Oh my sweet and fluffy lord, what have I gotten myself into? My impatience led to this, so I had to man up (figuratively speaking, of course) and just jump in. Besides, I still had the full six seasons of Xena on DVD that Michael had gotten me for Xmas that I had barely made a dent in, and several cases of Diet Coke.

The day one progress was rather unimpressive to say the least, but it was something and I was determined to stick with it.


This was all July 8. A few days later I had gone to Hobby Lobby in search black floss, which I happy they had some in stock. Come to find out that they also stock black 14 count aida in 30" x 36" size, which would have been big enough. Needless to say that information has been filed away for future reference, but I had already committed myself to this one, and have every intention of seeing it through to the end.

Fast forward a few weeks, and July 28 marked the end of week three.


That's the most recent WIP shot I have, and I have made a bit more progress since then. If I completely devote myself to only this project, I would like to shoot for having it done by the end of September. I think even that may be a bit ambitious, but I guess we shall see. As is I have a bunch of ideas buzzing around my head, but I want to get a bit more done on this one before I start working on side projects.

Time to grab something to get, and get going on tonight's progress.


Started: July 8, 2011
Cloth: 18 count aida
Colors: 14
Stitch Count: 59,392
Finished size: approx 14.25 in x 12.88 in