Sprite Stitch: MCM London Comic Con Part I: Retr8bit

A few of you asked for the link to my write up for Sprite Stitch about Comic Con's talented crafters and I nearly forgot!

Here's part I, where I look at Retr8bit, from whom I bought these lovely keychains.

Baby Pokemon biscornu

Remember the baby Pokemon biscornu I started well over a year ago? I had finished one side, but never got round to the other. Well, in a fit of finishing, I stitched up and completed it. I think it might be the cutest biscornu in existence.

My favourite is Chingling, who's yours?

Pokémon Pixelhobby

Aren't they cute? I've got a lot of Pokémon to make up for Retrogamebeurs Deurne.

Kung Pow Pixel: Pokémon X and Y

I don't get very excited about most games, but I love Pokémon games and always get excited about them.

Pokémon X and Y were announced last week for the Nintendo 3DS. This is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, it's a 3DS game. I don't think many people were really expecting that after Pokémon Black and White and B&W2 were released for the regular DS. It was rather an eventuality as Nintendo won't be able to support the DS forever after the release of the 3DS, but Nintendo did rather seem to be putting it off, as even spin off games such as Pokémon Conquest were not released on the 3DS. Secondly, it looks, from the few screenshots we have, like they've made quite a change to the graphics and the battle environments, which look much more dynamic.

The attacks look way cooler too!

The starters don't look too bad. I'm especially enamoured with Chespin, he looks quite similar to Oshawott, who was my starter in Pokémon Black, maybe that's why. I also quite like Froakie as he's quite an original looking water type, though Fennekin reminds me a lot of Vulpix and Victini as it's another fox-like fire type.

Pokémon X & Y are coming out in October world-wide, so I hope to be able to get one at launch. At least I hope that I will be able to get Black 2 before then, as I am itching to play that too!

Kung Pow Pixel: Games that have inspired me

I don't talk about games much, even though they are the subject of a lot of my crafting, so I'm bringing Kung Pow Pixel over here. I would like to take a moment to write about games that have inspired me, games I love making crafts from.

Wario Land 4

This game is a lot of fun. I had played the previous Wario Land games, but unfortunately gave up on them, but this one was just right. Hard enough that I didn't play through it all in one sitting, and not so hard I couldn't do it. And the sprites in this game are beautiful. It's such a bright and vibrant game, I just had to stitch up Wario and I hope to make more using this game's sprites in the future.

Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland

I love the Kirby series, and for my last birthday my boyfriend bought me Kirby's Adventure for the NES, and even though he accidentally bought the German version of the game I still loved playing it. So when I saw the 2002 remake Nightmare in Dreamland on the Game Boy Advance at a games fair I had to get it. The game itself is brilliant and the sprites art even more so. This, and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror are my go-to Kirby games for sprites.

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

I once tried to play the Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on the PlayStation, but didn't get very far. It wasn't my game, so I never got the chance to play it again. However, after hearing my boyfriend, and one of his brothers, rave about it, I picked up Empire of Dreams for the Game Boy Advance. It's a wonderfully fun game, and only as difficult as you want it to be, as the levels are fairly simple to get through, but it gets hard if you want to collect all the bonus gems. It's not a game I've made anything for yet, but I have been inspired by it, and am sure to make something in the future.

The Pokémon series

Pokémon is probably the most influential game series of all time for me and who doesn't love Pokémon? My go to games for cross stitching are FireRed and LeafGreen, they have the best sprites for Gen 1 Pokémon, however, my favourite Pokémon game would have to be Black. The update to the graphics and gameplay was done really well and the new Pokémon added were more imaginative than the previous two generations. Pokémon is probably my most stitched subject matter and will continue to be for some time.

As you might have noticed, all games I've mentioned here are Game Boy Advance games. The Game Boy Advance is such a wonderful little handheld console, and the games produced for it have been really inspired, and really inspire me.

Christmas Koffing pattern

Yes, as promised, here's the pattern for Christmas Koffing.

And as an added bonus, you get Koffing Pudding absolutely free! (Yes, I know, Christmas Koffing is free already...)

Click on the pictures to enlarge them. If you have any trouble reading the pattern, let me know. If you'd like the pattern in another format, e.g. you want a PDF, or you like your symbols without the colour blocks behind them, let me know in the comments, or e-mail me at eveningemma@gmail.com.

Sometimes e-mails go to my spam folder and I don't always see them, so if I've not got back to you within a day, leave a comment and let me know you e-mailed. 

Christmas Koffing

My boyfriend had the idea of making round Pokémon into Christmas baubles, so here we are with a Koffing in a Christmas hat.

Another idea that may or may not come into fruition is a Koffing with a Christmas pudding topping.

If you want the pattern for Koffing, tune in tomorrow and it will be yours.

Sprite Stitch September/October swap gifts.

As I mentioned before, I participated in a Sprite Stitch swap. I sent out the headcrab and received these goodies from Caslzelda:

She managed to fit in all my favourite games, Puyo Puyo with the card, Tetris with the necklace, and Pokemon and Bioshock with the cross stitch. The quote is from Bioshock, and the Slowpoke, of course, from Pokemon. She also sent a little purse, tiny clogs,  a beautiful scarf and chocolate.

I was thrilled to receive such wonderful goodies, thank you Caslzelda!

TUSAL 6 & Eevee

First of all the TUSAL for this month.

My boyfriend decided to play with the threads in the pot (it is kind of fun, it's become like a little thread pie), so you can't really see what I've been doing this month. Some black and brown on top there from Eevee below. I'm going to need to move the threads somewhere else soon, the pot's getting a bit full!

I wanted to try something a little bit different, so here's Eevee:

Eevee was supposed to be a practice piece, but my boyfriend liked it, and so it's going to go to another of his brothers for his birthday.

Wipocalypse 6

I do have something to show for the last month's wipocalypse.  I've finished the first of the two Japanese Kokeshi dolls I'm stitching for my mum.

I've also done some more on the Epic Pokémon pattern. Ditto's taking shape and Aerodactyl is nearly done.

Thank you, Bekca!

Bekca over at the Stitching Lion had a birthday stitch surprise giveaway at the beginning of the year, and winners were to receive a gift in the month of their birthday. I was the winner for May and today my gift arrived!

Bekca obviously knows what I like, because my gift is very purple and very Pokémon, which is very me.

I received some lovely purple fabric, purple cotton and a dotty purple ribbon as well as some Pokémon cards to add to my collection and this adorable Eevee figure.

And speaking of giveaways I'm most definately going to be doing one. I've got most of the stuff together, and the giveaway post will be up before the end of the week!

Thanks again, Bekca!

Wipocalypse 5

I managed to get a bit more stitching on my Wipocalypse pieces done this month.

I did about 200 stitches down the right side of Klimt. 

And I'm getting close to finishing Lapras and Dragonite in the Epic Pokémon pattern.

Wipocalypse 3

I started work on the japanese dolls this month, and also did a bit more on the epic Pokémon pattern.

Wipocalypse 1

My first Wipocalypse post is also my Epic Pokémon Pattern update, as it's the only piece I've had time to work on.

As I said before, I got the rest of the threads for Christmas, so now my bobbin box is nice and full!

Around 100 colours!

The first page is almost done now.

Close-up of page 1

Christmas cards & Pokémon cards

I finally finished my second Christmas card stitch.

It took me a while because my second week at work was very tough, not really work-wise, but just the travelling and getting up early was making me very tired.

I've been spending some of my hard earned cash. I bought some stitching supplies, I finally got the threads for the Autumn Fab Fob. I also got a Wacom Bamboo Pen tablet, I hope that this will help with my pattern making.

It is so much fun to play with and I can't wait to have some time to use it properly.

My boyfriend and I went on our weekly trip to the comic book shop on Friday evening and I came across these:

If you don't know what they are, well, they are Pokémon trading card decks, and about 10 years old. Two of the decks are actually still sealed. I've still got four more decks waiting for me at the comic book shop. I was so excited when I saw these.

Work is going well, we've finished the training now, and we'll be starting taking calls on Monday.

I hope I'll be able to update more in the future.

Last weekend of freedom

My boyfriend came back here on Thursday and we start work on Monday. We're just lazing about enjoying our free time (although we have done a bit of hard work to sort stuff out before we start!) as we are going to be having very long days. To get to the place where we work, although not far away, is going to take nearly two hours, as we are reliant on public transport, and the route we have to take does not have very regular buses and trains. We're hoping to find a flat somewhere closer in the next few weeks!

Because of all of the above I'm not taking part in IHSW this month, I don't think I'm going to pick anything up at all.

I did a bit of stitching before my boyfriend came back.

I don't know when you'll hear from me next, it'll depend on how tiring working full time is going to be.

Is it just me, or...?

Does it look like Jolteon is wearing boxing gloves?

IHSW

This month was my first one! I worked on Pokémon some more and finished off Articuno (as far as I can) and made a good start on Jolteon.

Since my last post I have another five followers, so welcome to you! If I am not following your blog it is because I could not find it, so just post a link in the comments and I will follow.

26 followers!

Yay, I'm totally excited about this. I was at 22 followers for quite a while and suddenly it shot up! Welcome!

My mojo's come back a bit. I haven't quite felt like working on Dragon or Klimt, but I did a couple of birthday cards, one of which I didn't photograph before it was sent off, but the other is below:

I know it's not very festive, but it is for an older lady and I don't really know her, but I thought I should make her a card as I'm going to her party. The design comes from a DMC alphabet mini kit.

I've done a bit more on Pokémon as well.

My photographs today are even worse than usual because my camera's batteries run out so I had to borrow another (my camera needs four AAs and we could only find two that worked), and I'm not used to it at all. That will teach me for being a cheap-arse and not buying the Duracels. My last set of batteries worked for years, these lasted less than a month. ¬_¬'

Mythical Dragon update

I've been addicted to this stitch since I started and I have harldy stopped working on it.

And just to show you that I am still nerdy, as I haven't been doing much video game related stitching lately, this is the tin that I keep all the dragon stuff in:

They had empty trading card tins in the comic book shop, so I had to get one for my stitching stuff. I had to choose Raikou as I love electric type Pokémon.