#eto wips

[eirstohter]

*crawls out of everything-happens-so-much hole*

*throws WIP-shot and bundle of hugs in your direction*

*crawls back into everything-happens-so-much hole*

For life-WIPping purposes: Sat, 17th October 2020; cut fabric pieces

[eirstohter]

Guess who’s trying to wrangle her brain back into drawing?

I know it’s just a sketch and I’m going to colour it later, but I’m honestly thrilled to have come up with something I don’t hate, so here you go :-)

[eirstohter]

Gratuitous WIP picture because this is probably THE most visually satisfying project I’ve ever done. Going round and round with all these colours is like a spa vacation for my brain, and my only regret is that I didn’t use the blank backside of the braiding disc instead. Guess I’ll just have to make another one (or ten) 😁

And a look at the other side, too:

[eirstohter]

I’ve been trying to make this post for over two weeks, but somehow my word-making isn't working anymore, so here's a pic dump so at least I’ll feel like I accomplished something:

Old, small, ratty bag vs new, bigger, shiny bag

Hidden inner pocket and cell phone compartment

Separate key compartments and coin holders 

Obligatory stealth Shakarian on the back

I’m honestly really thrilled and proud of this one and would love to ramble about all the little things that happened while making it, but again, brain not make words go. Naughty brain :-/

❤️ to you all

[eirstohter]

I haven't been around much these days because of a lot of life stuff happening (did finish my taxes on time though, yay me) but can we please take a moment to admire how ridiculously neat my seams are on this one? I am absolutely thrilled (and a little stunned) because this is usually something where I have to take a deep breath and go with the 80/20 approach, but this time I absolutely nailed it 😁

How are you? How did you surprise yourself today?

[eirstohter]

Five Happy Things

I'm picking up @probablylostrightnow‘s open tag to post five things that make me happy right now, because today is a good day for a little boost in the cheerfulness department, so let's see:

1. I finally finished knitting the Neverending Dr Who Scarf Of Infiniteness that I started some time in 2015. It's been growing in irregular spurts and I'm honestly quite impressed with how much of it there is now:

Since this is a post about happy things we won't be dwelling on the fact that I now have about a fricktillion ends to weave in, and I won't be tackling that for a while anyway because

2. I started working on a new N7 hip bag! My old one has been looking a bit worse for the wear for a while, but I've been putting it off because this really is a complex and daunting project if you don't remind yourself that it's worked one small step at a time, like everything else. Now that my brain has apparently re-tagged it from "procrastinating" to "problem solving" I'm really excited to get going and kind of tempted to start making regular WIP posts again (because that's the kind of thrilling content you all crave on your dash, right?)

3. After a lovely spell of hot summer days we finally had a good rain last night. I love the heat and the sun, but I also love my garden, and the roses already look a lot happier than they did the past few days.

4. Last week I finally collected and submitted the last bit of paperwork for a child related thing that's been keeping me busy (and anxious) for months. Now we still have to wait for a decision to be made, but it really is a relief to not have anything to submit, fill out or follow up on for now. Plus, every single person I've dealt with in this matter has been polite, helpful and at least moderately competent, which has made the whole process a lot less of a pain than I expected.

5. The baby turns two next week and is just starting to say two-word sentences, and the one she says most often is "Danke, Mama" ("Thanks, Mom") which always fills me with (admittedly undeserved) parental glee. Also whenever she thinks I did a good job (put a toy away in the correct place, turned off the light on leaving a room etc) she claps her hands and says "Super, Mama" which is ridiculously adorable and I hope she'll keep it up for a little longer.

This was fun, and if anyone else feels like sharing five (or two or ten) happy things from your life, please consider yourself tagged 😊

[eirstohter]

So for the past three days I've been grappling with The Thing That Did Not Work Out (thank you for your lovely words, @the-emerald-halla and @thisonelikesaliens ) and why it threw me harder than it should have. And I've realized that I've neglected a bunch of things that used to be good for me and that I would like to start again.

First, I'm going to start the daily WIP posts again. Even if no one (not even me) particularly cares to read "Added ten rows to the Neverending Scarf Of Eternalness" eight days in a row, it does help remind me that I am making progress at least on some things and not just fighting an endless losing battle against entropy. I also want to include some sort of progress picture, because I like that kind of thing. These will go under a cut because they'll mostly be unposed, badly lit tablet camera pictures that no one needs on their dash.

Second, in addition to the WIP of the day I want to post a Happy Thing of the day. Just some small thing that has made me happy that day as a reminder that I actually do live a pretty nice life even if my brain often tells me otherwise.

And thirdly, that thing up there that looks like a unicorn threw up all over the paper? That's me having an unexpected amount of fun with water soluble crayons. Playing around with colours like this is fast and relaxing and satisfying, so once in a while I'm going to put up one of these just because I can.

So. You've been warned. All posts will be tagged with "Eto WIPs", "Eto has a Happy" and "Eto's Colour Exploits" for your filtering convenience. All right, now that that's out of the way, let's get on with it!

WIP of the day: #35, Ashley portrait (thank you for the prompt, @feedthedamnfish , I love it!) Finished the line art and printed it out several times so I have room to really mess around and learn how these colours work.

Happy thing of the day: Today was cold, but beautiful and sunny. When I took the baby for a walk I wore my N7 hat, N7 hipbag and Shakarian mitts, which gave me the Nerdy Crafter set bonus of +3 confidence, +2 awesome and +5 quality of life. A+ styling decision, highly recommended :-)

[eirstohter]

WIP of the day: #35, Ashley portrait. Started coloring in the first face and after a brief moment of “this is way too small what have I done” it was a lot of fun. It really is tiny (next time I’ll probably go with four copies on the sheet instead of six) but that actually makes it go pretty fast and the colours really are a joy to play with.

Happy thing of the day: After over a week of illness and cranky misery the baby is finally back to her cheerful and healthy self. Fingers are crossed that she can go to day care again on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.