Backstage Stitches

(via An Apology)

This is an apology to my husband.

I am not very good at the game, but I get very competitive at it, and uh...a smidge vulgar. In an effort to never say anything I'll regret to my husband or myself, I generally reserve insults for the characters we're playing as, which can sometimes be a little mean.

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(via Dice Bag)

I finished up this bag yesterday! I'm irrationally proud of it, especially since it feels like forever since I actually completed anything.

Made of plastic canvas, yarn, and paracord (for the strap)

(via Life and Loss)

(via Wearing Stitches)

I’m dabbling in making my own dresses! Joann Fabrics had a sale on patterns, so I grabbed an “easy-to-sew” one, and watched a couple of youtube videos. 

(via Fake Doctors, Real Fanart)

So, one of the things I’ve been doing throughout the lockdown is rewatching all my favorite shows, and a couple of those shows have some rewatch podcasts by the stars of the shows. So, I’ve been watching along with Office Ladies and Fake Doctors, Real Friends. It kind of keeps me from blowing through a series like I usually do, which is somewhat of a challenge. Now, The Office is a show I love and have been watching on my own since I first got a copy on the ship. Scrubs, on the other hand, was something Frank and I started watching together in high school and throughout college.

(via Full Stitching Alchemist)

One of the new shows I picked up during lock down was Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Amazingly I avoided all spoilers the entire time, and I only had to take two emotional breaks. I won’t say when, but if you know, you know. 

Then, you know, the ‘rona hit, and suddenly, I was home all the time with the baby, and worried about my husband, who works in an essential field now. So I didn’t do anything for myself. I barely could get my WFH work done, and just went through each day as it came. I felt pretty useless. The 3D print groups i belonged to exploded with PPE prints, and I so wanted to be a part of that, but how to know what hospitals would accept? I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time and money on things people couldn’t even use, so I waited. In the meantime, I gathered some fabric from other projects, and made masks for Frank and me. Elastic was nowhere to be found, so my mask is held on by hairties on my ears, and Frank’s uses an elastic hairband cut in half. The aren’t the prettiest, but they work, and have a pocket for a filter.

Then in a local group, someone from the university where I work now was putting together a team of local makers, and I leapt at the opportunity. Finally! I am useful! They provided the files and filament, and I think I ended up printing the frames of roughly 75 masks by the time we stopped production.

Throughout this time, Animal Crossing:New Horizons took up quite a bit of my time. I’ve poured quite a bit of time into the game, and it reminds me of when I played New Leaf on the ship. The other day, I printed a little Roald. I’d like to print all our faves. I also made one of my houses into a full on theatre, which I can post a video of or a Dream Code if anyone is interested lol.

Personally, I am working on transitioning back to work. Even though we’re back with daycare, and I’m working from home most of the time, I’m still just…blahhhhh. My stitching bug is slowly peeking out, and I’ve finished a couple new small pieces. So I hope to be posting those soon. And my best friend just commissioned a piece, so I need to get on that. I’m also printing some more stuff like jewelry or things for my D&D group. In order to not fill my whole feed with 3D Printing for the next 6 months, I’ll be posting some completed projects on its own page until I get caught up with what I’ve done so far.

Honestly, I used bought and free patterns for a long time. And it was soothing! Then I branched out to “making” my own patterns basically by looking up video game sprites and stitching those. Phrases are easy. Just look up an alphabet. Border, no border? Your choice! I would start with sprites and phrases I guess...because that’s what I did lol.

As for programs, I use KG Chart (I don’t know if the Lite version still exists, but I used that first), but people use Microsoft Paint with the grid on, Win or MacStitch, and there are even a couple mobile apps. There’s also just plain old graph paper.

Needle minders maybe?