I'm safe

I love Ren from the anime Elemental Gelade Need to rewatch it soon.
 

 Apologies if any of you have been worried, I thought I'd put one post up here in September. Still busy isolating from the world as best I can during this crazy year. Honestly not been doing a lot of craft, mostly gaming to stay distracted. Covid19 has a lot to answer for. I am trying to get back into craft so please keep bearing with me. I will post pictures later this week. Just had a lot on my plate these past few months, along with being more unwell than normal occassionally too. I hope you all stay safe!!

Over on Nayu's Reading Corner #25 Let's talk about the anime Aikatsu!

 

 Find out my thoughts on the 2021 latest Aikatsu! anime series over on Nayu's Reading Corner. Sometimes shows go on too long! This is Ichigo from the first series.

Nayu's Craft Time #320 Crafting is happening!

A 4mm clover hook (don't think the photo is by me)

I feel rather bad that I have barely blogged here all year. I am sorry! I shouldn't neglect this blog for Twitter, where I do share all my news. I am making the effort to post more regularly - I get new followers each week and want content for you all to enjoy. I blame the weird way that 2020 has panned out. Certainly nothing any of us expected. And, in truth, I think it has changed life permanently. But that's pretty much all I'll say on the matter. I am high risk for covid, but I am alive which is a blessing.

Time to show you some craft work which I did not post on Twitter but I did do yesterday (Friday). Friday's are my time to work on a secret craft project involving a needle and thread. Unfortunately when the weather is really hot (which, for the record, my malfunctioning body lives for - being warm is a real joy! Not to need a blanket is a rare and precious occasion) I don't sew because thin needles feel too weird against my skin. I have always been like this which is why I haven't done much embroidery lately.

Crochet I can do because I don't really touch the metal part of the crochet hook. I dived back into working on a crochet blanket for a local cat charity, Cats Protection who always need blankets for each new arrival and have branches all over the country, so see what items yours is taking for donation and please help them out if you can. It is lovely to hear the blankets go with the cat on to their new home, so they have something familiar with them. I do not know when I will be able to give them the blanket, but I plan on making a few then donating them, which will be some time. I added 1 row which you can see here, created some more pink squares, and turned a skein of yarn into a proper ball.

I love crochet because I use the same stitches for the granny square, a few chain stitches and treble stitches (UK terms). I use the join by crochet method of attaching the squares together. They had been in alternate colours, but yesterday I got so engrossed watching the wonderful American Pioneer series Little House on the Prairie that I forgot to pay attention to which square I chose. Ordinarily I d unpick it, but because it is a patchwork blanket, and not all the squares will be the same colours I left the out of sequence square where it was. The cat who gets it won't care what it looks like, only that it is warm and cosy.

As much as I need the hot weather for my health, I do hope it gets cooler because I have so much fun embroidery to start! I will talk more on that in another post. Hope you all have at least one fun thing to enjoy this weekend, and I hope to post again in a few days. Side note: this is made using the new style of Blogger, which is certainly different to the old style, but it mostly makes sense. I will get used to it soon enough. I am less keen on the new Windows update, it seems I can only crop and reduce a photo, I can't simply remove a bit from the top or bottom, so I edited the blanket picture on my phone which does what I want it to.

I firmly believe this! Picture artist/photographer unknown.

New posts coming soon

Worked on this in May!

Needed a break but hope to post a craft update next week! I may be quiet here but I have been busy with cross stitch and embroidery! Stay safe!

I am around

Madoka from the anime Aikatsu! in shock

I am around, just busy with life :) Hope to do a post when I can as I have some exciting new embroidery books I've got to share with you! Having to prioritise books and games that I have for review before this blog - really sorry.

Nayu's Project Progress #40 Here be embroidery!

Colourful kitty project!

If you follow me on Twitter you'll already have seen the pictures in this post. It is more for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter - I don't want you missing out on seeing what I've been working on craft wise! 

I am very happily getting to grips with embroidery. I have almost finished a kit which uses different stitches that I received as a gift from a family member. Look how cute the cat is! I started with the stitches I knew, backstitch, and learnt the other stitches when I reached them. I am forever grateful to a Youtuber who I can't remember, whose video about French knots explained them perfectly, and they are no longer a stitch I fear. As you can see I got to do a lot of them in the cat kit (small round dots on the tail). They are super fun to do and I look forward to using them, instead of dreading them and having to create my own version of the stitch. 

All finished!

At the same time as working on this kit I started new embroidery projects - I wanted something I could do with stitches I already knew, rather than having to learn new stitches when my brain fog makes me fuzzy headed. I transferred patterns from a book I will feature in a future post, using the iron on method of transfer. I use varigated thread (a thread which has a rainbow effect of colours dyed into it) and took great delight in practicing my lazy daisies, back stitch and straight stitch with a few french knots in this purple creation. 

On finishing that I changed colour to the other varigated thread I'd bought and started this now almost finished mandala. Think I prefer the colours and style more than the angled one. I am going to try all the patterns in the book before repeating them, but already have plans to tweak this pattern as well as work it with sepearate colours for each row/each type of stitch.  Not sure how I will frame them yet - I may even create a quilt like blanket from all of them! 

I hope you like these and stay tuned for more! I think embroidery is helping me stay as sane as I can in these crazy times, as is gaming, but embroidery helps me watch something pretty grow, which is important. 

Nayu's Craft Time #320 Let's keep hibernating!

Credit to whoever took this photo online. The clock is gorgeously pretty!

Despite the deceptively sunny days and the changing clocks at the weekend, my body still feels it is winter due to the temperature so I am cosily hibernating away. Staying in due to a certain pandemic isn't too different for me, as I am mostly home and have plenty of hobbies to stay busy. Once the temperature starts increasing more reliably (it is the minimum temperature which I have to pay attention to) I will blog a bit more with what craft projects I have on the go. I can be found on Twitter daily @Nayuleska

I pray you are all staying as safe as you can, staying home where you can and only going out when you absolutely have to. The world is crazy but we will get through it. I expect it to be like this for a while. Take care and let's hope April is a bit kinder to the world than March has been.