Ding ding ding ding...

Sounds like I won the jackpot in Vegas! Unfortunately, I'm in San Diego, not Vegas. Well, not so unfortunately... I'm at Comic Con 2004, hanging out, drooling over merchandise (it's not all comics, I'm really not very into those), listening to speakers, and so on. Our hotel is conveniently right on the rail line, but it's a very busy rail line, and since it's actually shared with the Amtrak, they use standard railroad crossings, complete with the bells and lights. And it goes off every 5 minutes at times. I guess that's the price of convenience. Another post on convenience later. ;)

DF just finished going through the box of Babylon 5 trading cards he bought yesterday, where we got three autograph cards, (box promised two, so no complaints there), and a piece of Sheridan's Minbari-made uniform. Pretty cool... will go along with the final episode script we got signed by JMS, B5 creator, at last year's Comic Con.

I also got to spend part of the day with my best friend from my high school days, and another of our mutual friends, as they flew in from Minnesota for the event, and met up with one of my LiveJournal friends, who I met through another LJer and first met last year at Anime Expo in Anaheim.

Three more days of the exhibit hall, autograph signings, panels, anime showings, and I'm sure I'll be nice and tired and ready to sit down and just veg and stitch on Monday. So if you don't hear from me till then, don't worry!

Oh, and I do have the Mystery Garden project with me, to work on while waiting in lines and such, so I'm getting a bit of stitching in. I have my camera, too, but I forgot to bring the cable so I could connect it to DF's iBook. So no updates till I get home.

Temptation Strikes

I was poking around on the TWBB and various stitchers' albums today, and came across the French Mystery Garden Design. I've liked these little garden designs I've seen in the shops, and been tempted, but never gave in because I have so much to stitch.

But how can I resist the temptation of free, especially when it's a chance to use the yummy Gumnuts thread I got from Lorchen back when I participated in the secret santa exchange. I have the perfect piece of 28 count evenweave, already serged, from some magazine project I never started and now can't find the magazine, so this is a no-guilt project, or nearly so. :) After seeing some of the renditions in the gallery, I put together my own color scheme, and I'm ready to rock.

But first I want to finish up as much as I can of WHG. I did get a nice chunk done yesterday, but don't have the floss to do all of the section (besides the missing Marlitts).


© 1996 Dragon Dreams

Working on WHG anyway

I looked around and found some of the DMC colors needed for Why Hoard Gold, as well as the yellow Marlitt used on the dragon's claws, so I'm going to go ahead and work on it this week. I can finish up the sweets and the chocolate puddle, and the lettering other than the word 'chocolate' which is stitched in another Marlitt (which at least doesn't have to match anything else).

Next time I know I'm going to NIAH or The Makings, I'll try to take the piece with me, and see if I can match up the Marlitts I still need. The other option would be to call or e-mail my old LNS and see if she might still have the same lots of colors from back when I bought them. She has a small shop, and I'm not sure how much turnover there is on the rayons.

I still hope that my little white bag of fibers for this project will somehow turn up, but I have pretty much run out of places to look.

Here's a 'before' shot, for the record...

© Jennifer Aikman-Smith, Dragon Dreams, 1996

The Best Intentions...

Argh!  That's really all there is to say.  Somewhere between Roanoke and San Jose, I seem to have lost the little white bag of fibers for Why Hoard Gold? So when I was at Needle in a Haystack on Saturday, on my trip to the airport, I saw the WHG pattern and remembered this.  And thought, "Oh, I'll just grab that Marlitt I need to finish up the draggie."  Easy enough, and they did have that in stock, so I was a happy camper.  It did seem a little on the bright, yellow-y side, but heck, it's been most of five years since I've really worked on it.
 
So today I dig around and pull out the table stand frame bits, get it all set to start stitching, and hold my new Marlitt up to the part of the dragon it goes with. 
 
"Hmm, it's a bit greener than the rest of the dragon looks," I think to myself.  "Did I grab the wrong color?"  I checked the pattern, and yes, 1030 is the color of the dragon's body.  "Okay, maybe it looks a little different, when stitched."  So I stitched a few X's.  Nope, it's different.  It seems 1030 now is somewhere between 1030 and 1032 of 5 years ago. 
 
Add to that the fact that I need more of 3 other colors of Marlitt, and wondering how much they've changed in the meantime...  WHG may be a UFO for quite some time.  Unless that little bag of old flosses turns up, or I decide to frog half a dragon and restitch her all in new skeins of floss.  Boohoohoo. :(

Yay, I'm home!

For a few days, anyway. :)  Thursday morning we'll fly down to Sandy Eggo for Comic Con.  Fun! :)
 
I had a great time at the family picnic yesterday, and all around, a good trip.  I even got to go to Needle In A Haystack on my way to the airport, and had a little S.E.X.  Got a little kreinik over-one kit for 32-count, and bought a bit of fabric, so I had that to work on while I was in flight.
 
My real reason for going to NIAH was to pick up some more Silk Bella so I could finish Blackwork Dragon, but they were out.  And out of the DMC perle that has gone missing from my supplies for my Dutch Treat table topper.  But they did have the Anchor Marlitt for Dragon Dreams' "Why Hoard Gold?" so once I finish up the Greek Key border on my table topper, I will pick up WHG as my project o' the week. 
 
I tried to take a progress pic of my table topper, but as soon as I put it down on the carpet, Munchie was on it.  So, you get a Munchie pic, too.
 

 
The border in that bottom center square will say "EST. 1999" so I will finish that up today and put it away till the next time it comes around.   The border took a lot longer than I expected, and used up all of the watercolors fiber, so I will have to buy a bit more of that for the herringbone stitch in the middle.  I wish I'd realized that before I went to NIAH, but I think The Makings had plenty of that color.