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.