Not exactly back in the swing of things, but feeling better

Hello fellow artists,

I've been absent the past few weeks for a handful of reasons, the top one being that I've had a bit of artist's block or, as I've been told, worn myself out from it. All my friends, my mother, and my brother said I needed a break. As my brother put it, "You've been working on art every day for years, let yourself have a vacation!" Well, so I have. Every time I so much as looked at my beads or patterns I was suddenly way more interested in cleaning or going back to bed. It was downright awful even thinking about sewing.

For the first time since this began, yesterday I looked at the beads I have gathered for Princess Peach and actually wanted to do something with them. I got online, hunted down through fierce determination the two shades of pink I was missing (one was marked as "salmon", feh!), and was even excited to start working on her pattern again! Like, I'm wondering how I'll be able to get all that gold detail in on her bodice without it becoming clumpy - that's going to be a lot of fun to figure out!

With that, I'll bring you up to speed.

I've been spending most of this downtime playing Hyrule Warriors, which is a spinoff game from some Japanese historical thing and one of my favorite series, Zelda. It's a ton of fun and has been a lifesaver for my time spent away from the workdesk. This past week we picked up The Evil Within which is a massive change of pace from Hyrule Warriors. In one you kill as many enemies as you can, sometimes thousands in a single play, and in the other you're lucky if you only have to deal with one at a time.

From all this, I have no desire to create anything from Evil Within. But, Zelda's warrior outfit has my artistic wheels turning. In part, I think I could figure out how to do her on my current 5-inch scale forms. But I'm not sure about those shorts of her's. I've never done beaded pants! In another part, I think it would look much nicer on a Barbie doll scale but I've never worked on that size before! Stop it, brain. She's not in any sort of plan but I like that I'm feeling inspired to work again.

Here's a summary of current / WIP projects that are in motion:
Princess Peach - should finally have all beads ordered
Ocean Ballgown - most of the beads gathered
Monochrome Eumelia - beads ready!
Mystery Dress - not off the table, but have yet to figure out of my trick will work
Peacock Xstitch - still hanging out on my desk
Fantasy Xstitch - for Stitchingpirates' contest, yet to figure out what I'm doing

And lastly, Mysterious Mysteries. There was meant to be a whole lot of them but with the art block I'm like a month behind on the schedule I wanted. So, they'll probably roll over into next year at some point instead. What I can tell you was that they are meant to be freetime projects as gifts for my friends, and they're mysterious because I can't post WIPs or photos or any sort of information about them because they'd all tell each other and then the secret would be done! So, we all just have to be patient on this.

My Princess Peach beads should be arriving this week and I'm hoping I'll feel awesome enough to get started since I have most of her bodice pattern drawn already.
Here's to hoping,
Ashley Mae
Pinky