It's That Sparkly Time of Year

Hello celebrators,

As time grows closer to my favorite holiday the glitter around town is becoming more abundant. It pleases me greatly and inspires me to keep working.

First things first: I had a sale this month! It was another faux stained glass piece I did years ago and it'll be shipped out tomorrow. Hooray!

I've finished two cross-stitch pieces this month, started a third, and will be shortly beginning a fourth. The two finished pieces are already on deviantART: Mrs. Claus and my Ornament Angel.

The third piece started is just one I picked up to finish and sell later. It's a Dimensions kit that I won't be "finishing" like the kit wants me to, which is lots of odd tacking, gluing, and ribbon stuff. I did that last time with my butterfly and am not very pleased with the end result. So this time will be different! Quite unsurprisingly, this one is also a butterfly, but includes two flowers with it instead of grass.

Fourth is an ornament for Magical. She created two ornaments for the stitchingpirates secret santa exchange, but only one made it for the deadline. I said, "Don't feel left out, I'll trade the second one with you!" and so I'm going to be doing something pretty with that. I haven't started just yet but I'm, like, 99% sure of which pattern I'm going to use for it. And it's going to be awesome.

Mysterious mysteries is officially finished and is being mailed out as I type. Four of seven packages have been mailed and the other three are in waiting for tomorrow. What happened is that I accidentally paid way too much for some international shipping by putting them in white priority boxes, as opposed to recycled brown boxes. I just picked them because the mysterious mysteries fit in them - and I paid a hefty price for that! Next time I won't be so thrown off.

Reference of the back of her dress. Finally.

Princess Peach is now five hours into her skirt pattern drawing... and I'm only to her knees. I've taken multiple measurements from the photos to try and make them fit the five-inch scaling of my mannequins/dress forms. Here's a side story though, and it'll make sense in just a moment.

When starting my gingerbread dress (which has turned into more of a chocolatey gingerbread dress), the first form I grabbed wasn't drilled properly. That is, the stick entered at an angle instead of straight up-and-down, making the entire thing tilt to the left. I jammed some glue dots onto one end of the stick to straighten it out and the result is that the stand is straight but also taller.

So I've been measuring and measuring and measuring again with Peach. Her dress is just a bit longer than the five inches, there's not much I can do about it. I keep looking at it like, "if I could only add five more rows here or there, everything would work out." Well, my brother Arthur noticed my gingerbread discard being taller than everything else, and pointed out I could just do the same with Peach. Tuh-dah! Problem solved, thanks, Arthur. So Peach should be able to move right along now. The next problem will be figuring out how to get all that gold detailing to look proper. And then the beast of sleeves.

You'll notice in the reference photo I took above, that the back of her bodice is white and lacey. Well... I didn't know that until I took the picture, and even then I didn't know until I examined it on the computer and noticed, "hey! It's not pink!" The internet seriously lacks references from behind, it's so frustrating. Next time, if indeed I ever do a Princess Daisy version, it'll be fully accurate.

Monochrome Eumelia is still on the sidelines, and as I stated when I announced her, it's been over a year now since I first posted her! I knew when I announced her that there would be a time gap, but I didn't quite expect this much of a gap. This is because I'm really focusing on the other projects, especially Princess Peach, to get photos done for my magazine interview.

Until next week, happy holidays. May your cookies be tasty.
Ashley Mae
Pinky