Finished Projects and the Surprise!

Nothing too much to blog about today. I finished the baby blanket completely. Nothing too special.

I also started and completed the wall hang that my friend wanted me to make her. Here are the pictures I took of the process. :)

Here I took a full sheet of canvas and put the words on, not knowing just how much I would end up needing - a lot less than I thought, that's for sure!

Here it is, all cut out and the start of the background - she preferred the look of the long stitch to the single one. I agree, it looks much nicer!

And now, just a couple of fill in pictures.

I love how it slowly comes together and with each row the letters really pop out! She decided to go with the colours I used on my bookmark for the font and background. However, the border she chose, I didn't think would look too good, boy was I wrong.

A nice dark green. I decided to make a hang thread for this. I started by crocheting a chain, leaving long tails at both ends, and then just bordering the tails on to the canvas. It was pretty simple. :)

A close up of the chain attached.

And now, the finished product! So, you're probably wondering why it's hanging from two thumb tacks instead of one. Well, I didn't think it through - do I ever, though? - and the canvas I used was the flimsier stuff, so when I tried to hang it from the center of the string, it just kind of bent and drooped. My bad. I know better for next time, at least!!

And now, for the exciting news!! I am finally going to enter a contest on DeviantArt! I've been following the group Amigurumi-Challenge - http://amigurumi-challenge.deviantart.com/ - for a while now. They've had a few themes that I wouldn't have minded trying, but I didn't feel confident enough in my skills. This month is Woodland Creatures.

I asked if they would allow things like Pokemon and such, they agreed. At this point, I had so many ideas going through my head. This ball of yarn is why.

It was all the store had at the time, and I have been really wanting to do that project I was talking about with the brown fuzzy yarn - which is now on hold - and I figured, might as well just get the giant ball, as it's the only yarn I've seen - out of four shops! - that have the colour closest to what I need! Needless to say, the idea I had for the amigurumi challenge is brown - this shade of brown. With a ball this big, I'll have more than enough to do the challenge and the other project I have in mind. :)

I have until the end of the month to complete the project for the Amigurumi Challenge, which should be more than enough time. I'm hoping it only takes me about a week to completely. I know, I'm being optimistic. It'll probably take closer to two weeks.

So, until this is finished, I'm not sure I'll be blogging too much. However, I think I might do little teasers on my DeviantArt - http://wykked-as-syn.deviantart.com/ - as my work progresses. And maybe a blog or two in between. :)

Ta ta for now!

Here I am! Exciting New Things!

Hey everyone, I know it's been a while since I've posted. But, I have a pretty good reason for that. We'll go in order.

First, that Thursday, I was out with a friend of mine all day, she was teaching me the torture of using a sewing machine. See, my boyfriend - Alex - and I have a bunch of nice, nerdy shirts we just don't wear anymore, so I figured, why not turn them into pillows?! It's a good idea. I didn't manage to get all of the shirts we had into pillows, but I can go back when she's free again!

These are the four shirts I did - out of the six I brought over.

These are the shirts Alex and I got at our first Fan Expo together. :) We never wear them, and we couldn't figure out what to do with them, since we didn't want to throw them out - sentimental value, and all. I didn't make these ones into pillows, my friend, Amy, did. I asked her to because I'd never used a sewing machine before and I really didn't want to mess them up. We decided to leave Alex's as almost the full shirt size - he's not a small man - and to scale mine down a bit so we know whose is whose. Though, the smaller one is still pretty much the size of the shirt. Haha

Here is my Fan Expo shirt stuffed, though it could use a bit more, I ran out - I had tried stuffing Alex's first, just because I wanted to surprise him when he got home, but there was not nearly enough! I didn't have too much left to begin with, but I didn't think it was so little. I used it all here - which puts a halt to any amigurumi ideas I've had running around my head - which were quite a few!

Here is just a side/bottom picture of the pillow, just to show how the zipper looks - Amy called it a hidden zipper. I really love how it turned out, and I can't wait to get more stuffing - I was told of this place, it's a bit of a ride away - we don't drive, so we have to take the bus, and the bus we take, it's like the Lion King, everywhere the light touches is good, and the light doesn't touch this street. haha!

But, I've been buying my stuffing at Wal-Mart. 32 oz - I think - for $20. Apparently, this other place is a lot more for the same price, so I really want to check it out. I'm going to need a lot, with all the shirt-pillows we'll be making!

These are two shirts that I love, but I never really wear, a friend of mine that used to work at EB got them for me. :) I figure, why throw away perfectly awesome nerd shirts - I really love Batman and Assassin's Creed - when I can accessorize with them?! I did these two, as you can probably tell, before I've even posted the close ups.

This was my first attempt. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Amy had the brilliant idea of adding zippers to the bottoms, to make it easier to wash and if they get too flat - Alex likes to sit on things and not realize. XD - I can take out the stuffing and fix it. But, anyway, the top stitching going across the zipper was my very first try with the sewing machine. And then bottom part, I have no idea what happened. But, apparently I'm a pretty quick learner, as I didn't break the needle or even mess up too badly. :)

From there, we used her machine called a Serger. It was pretty scary at first, but it was so easy and so much more fun than the sewing machine - I still think their evil. >.>

This is the second shirt I did, it turned out pretty good at the zipper. :) I'm really happy with it, even if I was panicking a bit while doing these. In the end, I was getting the hang of it. I was sad, though, I had one of those pregnancy headaches kick in, and it wouldn't go away. So, I ended up having to go home, instead of finishing the other two shirts that I brought with me. But, next time! And I will bring Tylenol - it's the only thing for pain I can take during pregnancy, not that I take it very often to begin with.

I would also like to take a moment to let you all know that my friend Amy has her own Facebook page for her sewing - she usually makes corsets, but you can commission her for most anything. :) Check her out - Ravin Apparel.

And now, this was all on Thursday. On Saturday I was working on a bookmark with a Robin Williams quote, the first attempted didn't turn out so well.

I thought it would be easier to read once the background was filled in. Nope. Not only that, I forgot an E in bee. >.> So, I scrapped that pretty quick, however, I didn't start again until Tuesday. And this is why.

This cute little fellow is a kitten that we rescued from a not so good situation. There are a few areas in my city - as I'm sure there is with all cities - that have a very bad reputation. I follow this group on Facebook, a buy and sell group that I'm in for my crafts. Anyway, there was this guy, he only had the kitten for two months, and didn't want it anymore. So, you know, I decided to check out his profile, see what sort of person he appeared to be. Almost instantly I decided that we needed to go get the kitten. At first, I just knew that he was the "thug life" kind of guy, so that probably didn't bode well for the little kitten. Then, after I said I'd take the kitten and we found out the address, we had to rush over their immediately! It was in a very bad, bug infested area of the city.

We knew, before we even left to pick him up, that he didn't come with a carrier. And when we got there, he didn't come with anything. No bag of food, food dishes, toys, nothing. He was so shaky, and timid. When we got back to our apartment, before we even went back inside, we checked him for fleas, he had those. And we noticed he was quite under weight. So, I spent the night in the bathroom with this little guy, with a flea comb, making him clean. After first giving him a bath - the water didn't bother him at all, I hadn't cut his claws yet and they were long, but I got no scratches. :)

Anyway, I managed to get rid of all the fleas and eggs before we introduced him to my other cat, Dinah. This is her and I, in our usual morning snuggle pose - as soon as I wake up, she instantly goes to my chest and assumes the little spoon position, she always has.

Anyway, Dinah and the little kitten didn't really get along at first - but I don't think most cats do, initially. And Dinah has always been Mama's girl, so she was getting jealous of the kitten. From Sunday morning, until Tuesday night, we tried so hard to find the little kitten a forever home, but nobody wanted him - the prospect of kittens that are six to eight weeks seemed so much better to people than an almost four month old kitten - it actually pissed me off, the messed up priorities of people. "Oh, let's get a kitten, we can give it a home." Yet, when there is a kitten - he's only 14 weeks, according to the vet - in dire need of rescuing, nobody wants it. It's stupid.

So, we decided to be that forever home for him. :) We just couldn't bear the idea of putting him in a shelter. And we wanted to know he'd go to a good home, he's been through so much already! We are a good home. Dinah is a good influence on him, and he's helped Dinah out a lot. Dinah has a mild case of Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome. It's not bad, it's just had to deal with some times, especially when she starts twitching, or gets aggressively hyper. But, those episodes have really died down since we got the kitten.

We really weren't going to keep him. And then this happened.

The first happenings of attachment on Dinah's part - we knew it might be hard to separate them at this point. So, we took him to the vet yesterday to get him checked out. He's perfectly healthy, just underweight, which we've been trying to get him to eat - he won't really touch hard food, though, only soft, so we think that's all his last owners fed him, which would be why he's so skinny, there is no nutrients in soft food, really. Not enough to sustain life, at least. Anyway, the vet double checked that he didn't have ear mites or worms - though he did get a deworming just to be safe. I have been raising and rescuing animals most of my life - I lived in the country before moving to the city. I know how to nurse an animal that is only a few days old, to what to look for in terms of infections, bugs, parasites, mood problems. :) So, I was pretty dead on with this kitten - it even surprised Alex!

So, yesterday, he got his first booster shot and is scheduled for his next one in three weeks, and after that, a couple of weeks and we get him fixed - I don't want him spraying everywhere, that stuff smells so bad!

We had issues figuring out what to call him - before we decided to keep him, we didn't want to call him anything, because it creates attachment, so we had just been calling him buddy. Which turned in to Buddy. We tried calling him something else - Ash - but it just didn't seem right, Buddy did. Even though it's more common in dogs to be called that. haha.

Here is when we knew we couldn't let him go, at all. :)

He was sleeping next ti Dinah, went to get up, and she didn't let him. Put her paw on him and pinned him so she could clean him, and clean she did! It was the cutest thing ever!

Now, moving on, I have restarted the bookmark, and it's coming along pretty good now.

I outlined the B because I was trying different ways of making it, but how it is now is the best way. :)

I couldn't decide which colour to use, so I decided that the one on the left will be the inside background, and the one of the right will be the border. :)

Here is how it started to look after filling it in. I rather like it!

I ran into a minor set back here, I didn't realize that I had placed the E over one line, it was no big deal, I was able to fix it in a heartbeat.

Now, here I was left with a little bit of blank canvas, and I didn't want to just fill it in with blue, I don't think it would have looked good. So, I this, instead!

I've been told you can tell it's supposed to be a bumble bee, but, it just looks like a striped square to me. lol From here, all I did is fill in the rest and add the border - I had doing that part, so much. >.>

Voila! The lighting is kind of crap in the picture, but it's enough that you can see the difference in colour between the background and the border. :) I think I will be taking a better picture of this before I post it on my DeviantArt, though.

And I think that is all I have to post for now. Hopefully I'll be back in a few days with something new and exciting to post about! Until then, I leave you with this awesome picture my boyfriend took. :)

Just ignore the kitty litter and boxes - we're still not fully unpacked yet. Anyway, in this picture, I am 19 weeks and two days along. :) And I already feel the baby kick. It's magical. <3

We are Depression - A Robin Williams Monument

I had been planning on working on my friends boa scarf today. But, after the horrifying news last night, I don't think I want to.

The world lost a great and funny man. He brought tears of joy to our eyes for years. And now, tears of sorrow. He was a giant part of my childhood. From Aladdin to Death to Smoochy. He was an amazing man that made my childhood memorable, it is so sad that we lost him to depression.

Depression is one of the hardest battles to keep fighting, and he fought for years. Hiding his pain behind his boisterous personality, behind the smiles and laughs he always had and shared. I do not resent what he did, at all. Instead, I understand it. I, as well, suffer from severe depression. I know the pain it takes to get up every day and fake a smile, to pretend that everything is alright, even though it's not.

Depression isn't a choice, it just happens. Some people can't help it. Sometimes it's trauma induced, other times it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. I know he fought long and hard before he lost the battle, but he tried and with depression that is all you can do.

Sure, some people think it is curable with medication and/or therapy. But, sometimes it's not. Sometimes the damage is already done, even if the person wants to get help, wants to get better and feel better, sometimes it's just too late, some people never stood a chance.

I think, instead of judging him for what he did and resenting him for it, we instead accept it and learn from it. We were blessed to have him in our lives for over forty years, isn't that enough? And in all of those years, he tried to make all of us happy while he himself was suffering. And I think that it honourable.

This is a sensitive subject for me, especially right now, with being pregnant. I will openly admit that this pregnancy has made things harder for me. I have suffered from depression and anxiety for almost 15 years, off and on. Surviving. Trying to get help in all the ways I can. I know what it's like to lose hope, faith, to feel there is nothing left. That, despite all the people around you that you love, you still don't feel good enough for this life, like you don't deserve the love these people have for you. If I feel that, and I am a nobody in this world, how must he have felt? To think, he made the world laugh, but he might not have felt he deserved all the love we had for him. It's a giant burden to bear, and I understand that.

It hurts, just writing this out I'm getting emotional and teary-eyed. But, I continue on. Because in death, as in life, he has inspired me to keep going. If this man can spend so many years suffering and in pain, yet still make the world a better place, then why can't I? Why can't I learn from him? To try and get as well as I can, especially for my baby? Seeing him lose the battle with depression scares me, yes, but it makes me want to be strong, for him, for myself, for my baby and boyfriend, for all those people who suffer from this curse, this endless cycle of despair and self-hate.

There is hope. As small and invisible as it may be, it is there. It is within us all. Ourselves, our friends, our loved ones. There will always be at least one person there to help you when you fall. To just hold you. They may not tell you everything will be all right, because it's not true. Everything will never be all right. But, some things will be fine, some of the time. Life has its ups and its downs. And we just have to learn to roll with the punches. To talk about it, to let it out, to cry or scream if we need to. The worst things we can do for ourselves is to hold it all in, to let it fester and consume us.

It took me years to learn how to let it out, to talk about it. And it's still hard. It's so hard, but we have to try. I still have trouble opening up to my boyfriend, and I know he has the same problems opening up to me. But, we try where we can, even if it hurts, even if it takes days to say. Because, if it's important enough, it will always come out in the end.

Just, never give up hope. We are worth it, even when we don't feel like we are. We are worth it because there is a least one person in the world that thinks so. We deserve to be happy, as much as we don't think we do. We CAN be happy, even though it may feel like we never will be again. We can break this cycle, together. We are worth it, we are important, we are the voices of depression that need to make a stand.

I may not know any of you, I may not know what, exactly, it is you've gone through. But, I do understand the pain. It may be caused from different things, but I still understand, because we all hurt, and that is something we have to remember, even when it feels like nobody understands. There is always somebody who is feeling what you feel. Who has felt what it's like to have their heart break, to feel that happening, to feel the despair and pain consume you whole, to want to rip it out and make it all stop, who has contemplated taking that bottle of pills in the bathroom, or that kitchen knife to their wrists, that one step extra step off the ledge of a fifteen story building.

You are not alone.

Remember that. You are not alone. We are not alone. Let us learn from all of this. From Robin Williams. Think of this as his final lesson to us "Be strong, live on, and always keep fighting!"

Please, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wESAPVUdSI

It is a review on Aladdin and a small part of Robin Williams.

Watch it. Share it. Reblog it. All revenue earned from this video will be donated to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA). 

 In honour of all of this. I would like to challenge all who have read this to share it with everybody they know, depressed or not. Spread the word, the awareness. Be the helping hand, be somebody's hope, even if it's your own hope. Be the light at the end of the tunnel, or at least help somebody else find it. Be strong, help fight depression. We all have it in us to fight, but it's a choice to do so. Make it so. Be strong, for yourself, for me, for Robin, for all the people in the world suffering. I know you have it in you.

And in memory of Robin, I will be making bookmarks with some of his most memorable quotes - from movies and in his speeches. So, please, if there is anything you'd like to see as a bookmark, don't hesitate to comment. Show me the support, show the world the support! Reblog this, share this, do whatever. And remember, it's not your fault. <3

( Picture courtesy of http://8viii.deviantart.com/ )