Have finally made some progress with the cafe press shops. (Has anyone else ever sold stuff through cafe press? Is it just me or is their system a little wonky? Or just convoluted. I keep clicking links and ending up somewhere totally different from where I expected to be.)

Anyway, if you liked my Star Trek "I'm a Doctor" t-shirt then you can get shirts and accessories like this here.

And if you liked my Inception "Specificity" t-shirt you can get stuff like this here. (Only some of the shirts have "Darling" on the back.)

And, finally (for now), my Princess Bride inspired shirt can be found as a t-shirt or as a bag like this one here. (Again, only some of the products have the quote on the back, have a look around!)

My Buffy "Effulgent" design, a Battlestar Galactica inspired definition, and dark coloured t-shirts are all coming soon. If there's anything not up that you'd like to be, then please let me know and I'll get on it!

 

Oh, stencils. You are still my happy place. (Let us not speak of my attempts at screenprinting.) And I will apparently never tire of making spaceship related crafts.

Three different versions of Serenity on a shopping bag, a drawstring bag, and a t-shirt await you under the cut.

 

They are each different colours, but for some reason the pale silver and medium silver ones look totally the same in this picture.













I love how dramatic the sparklyness looks in this lighting!

Oh, stencils. I love you so. Stencils are so simple and soothing compared to the disaster-crafts I have been attempting lately. Although I did, of course, have to set myself a  new challenge - I wanted to make stencils with no floating pieces I'd have to wrangle so I had to put more thought than I usually do into the planning and photoshop stages. It took some finnicking about with, but I think ultimately it made making the stencil itself easier and I think it makes the image stand out a bit more. Definitely something to keep looking at.

Anyhow, here's my Batmobile bag!
 

I think I have made Hipstamatic go insane:

So, nearly six months, 8,165 stitches, and 32.1 metres of 20 different colours of thread later, my Serenity cross stitch is completed.

Despite being considerably smaller than either Peter or the Enterprise, this particular Cross Stitch of Doom has somehow caused me more stress than both of them combined! But she's turned out rather beautiful and I'm quite a bit proud.

"Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down... tells you she's hurting before she keels."


 

 

Before it was framed:

 

Here's how the colours look under different lighting:

 

This close up should show the stitches a little larger than life size, depending on the monitor you're viewing this from:

 

And this is my favourite photo of the bunch, as it's the only one that really shows up the fact that I mounted it with a few bits of tin foil on top of black card, so that from certain angles the light catches the foil and it looks like stars in the background. Handmade lens flare for the cheese factor!

 

More pictures to be found here, and you can look back on the various ups and (many, many) downs of my progress here.

Onwards! To the next gigantic project!

Mwah ha ha hah!

Mine is an evil laugh for I am nearly finished with this project! I have bested the great cross stitch of doom once more. I spent so long being really frustrated by it that I didn't notice until last night how close to the end I really am. The finish line is in sight!

I'm so close to finished, in fact, that this is the last pic I'm going to post until she is done and cleaned and pressed and framed, and ready to be presented to the world.

And then I'm going to start mithering about what my next cross stitch project will be...

This t-shirt seems dramatically out of date, since Supernatural appears to have forgotten about both the colt and the anti-possession tattoo thingys. But I've been meaning to make it for a while so I just did it anyway. And it has turned out quite nicely.

It's odd that despite being a very anti-gun type person in real life, I do seem to love them in my fiction. And am quite fond of putting them on clothes!

 

I haz my cross stitching mojo back! Hoorah! And huzzah! And other exclamations of joy!

Don't know why, don't know how, but it's just suddenly become much easier, and progress is much, much faster. And I've barely even cussed her out in days! Being able to take some of the guidelines out, because certain bits are complete, was a major psychological boost I think. I'll definitely have it finished by Christmas now I'm sure. Not quite ready to bust out the "nearly finished" tag, but almost!

I can hardly believe that it is the time to be doing this already. Where did this year go?

Anyhow, if you think that any of my one-of-a-kind geeky crafts would make a good Christmas present (or a Winter-celebration-of-your-choice gift) this is your warning to get your orders in soon!

The last dates for delivery before Christmas are -

Standard Parcels within UK: Wednesday 15th December

Airmail Parcels to Western Europe: Monday  13th December 2010

Airmail Parcels to Eastern Europe, USA and  Canada: Friday 10th December 2010

Airmail Parcels to South & Central America,    Caribbean, Africa, Middle East,  Asia,  Far East (including Japan), Australia  and New Zealand: Monday 6th December 2010

So if you want to purchase any listed item as is from my etsy store or my folksy shop, please do so at least one or two days before the last date for your location.

If you'd like a custom order, or you want something personalized, please order before the end of November, and remember the more complicated the order, the more time I'll need to complete it! Photos of all my crafty creations are on Flickr and I can relist or remake any items not currently up in my stores. Please feel free to get in touch with any queries.

Just to make this post a little more interesting, here's a t-shirt I've just listed and a sweatshirt I customised for myself.

     

This week has been very strange, but mostly in a good way.

Saw John Barrowman (Barrowmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! *shakes fist at sky*) in concert on Wednesday, which was all kinds of fabulous. It was cheesy as all get out, of course, but in a wonderful way. To hear him sing in person was a fantastic experience, but what really surprised me was how I could have listened to him tell his showbiz anecdotes all night long. The man could have a career in stand up if he wanted! (Although this feeling may have been intensified by him using his Glaswegian accent for most of the show, and the extra cheekiness of a home town gig.) And I really like the way he has his support act on for two short sets in the middle of each act, rather than as a warm up act. Also, Wonder Woman/Spiderman mash-up. Really.

Then Friday was Take That ticket day. Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffffffffffffffffffggggggggggggggnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. That was ridiculous. I have never had to work so hard in my life to get someone to take my money. Total capitalism fail. You'd think Ticketmaster of all things might be somewhat prepared for the onslaught of people wanting tickets. (Although, fair enough, selling over a million tickets in one day is pretty huge.) But I succeeded (after four bloody hours) and all is well with the world!

And I think I have finally hit the home stretch with my Serenity cross stitch. Swearing levels are decreased, accomplishment levels are increasing. I'm starting to like her again! Hurrah!

Progress: Still slow, but moving at least.

Sanity: Hanging in there.

Times stabbed self with needle this week: Only twice.

Times flung across the room in despair: Just the once.

Profanities uttered whilst cross stitching: All of them. Many times.

I have been meaning to make this for nearly a year now and had just never gotten around to it. But since I'm in my annual "I hate my latest cross stitch project" phase and progress on Serenity has slowed to a near standstill, I thought a less arduous project might be a good idea. And it was!

A little back story first. If you're not following Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on Twitter, then you're missing out on a great deal of hilarity. Like the time last year when they had an interesting discussion about fan fiction wrote Hot Fuzz slash about their own characters.  (See, Simon Pegg's rpf mpreg ramble makes much more sense when you realize he has form in this area.) One particular tweet of Edgar's made me smile, and so I had to take him at his word and hand stitch it:

 

 

Many more pics here!

I got featured in another treasury over at etsy, which cheered me no end. My Marv t-shirt is in rather nice company - I particularly like the Ctrl Alt Del cushions and the SNES controller soap. If they're still available in a few weeks I think I may know how I'm starting my Christmas shopping. Click the pic to head over to etsy and check out these fine people's work!

Whilst doing some online housekeeping* I realized that I never blogged about this bag. (Or, if I did, I cannot currently find the post!) Which is quite odd as I rather liked it, even in the midst of actually making it, which is rare for me.

*Why is it so difficult to keep tags organized? How do they get so out of control? Are they sentient? Are they like gremlins, getting up to stuff behind my back in the middle of the night? And why oh why oh why do I not have a system where my tags are even remotely similar here and on Flickr?

Anyhow, here's a Buffy bag!