September is over! 2020 is almost coming to close... and it couldn't happen soon enough lol. I didn't have much to document this month, so it's a bit more cross stitch focused! You also get a sneak peek into an idea I've been toying with for a bit heh.

As you might have seen in my previous post, I've started playing Final Fantasy XIV. As of writing this photo journal, I'm just about to finish the base game's main story and I plan on buying the expansion packs since they're currently 50% off (hell ya). I'm loving the game a lot and I'm excited to continue on the various adventures it holds. The photo above is a quick grab I took as a joke to call out my friend William (a.k.a. bfoty) since he's really into brewing and fermenting. You should check him out over on twitch - he just got affiliate and his streams are a lot of fun!

I was re-arranging my cross stitch supplies and projects and found an older piece I did last year for my mutual on Mastodon - Winvi! She love the Nipper Plants from the Mario games so I stitched this for her birthday! I'm still working on a way to create a kind of portfolio of my finished cross stitches here on my blog, something beyond just a static page. With the use of in-page anchors and the gallery functionality Ghost has, I think I should be able to create something neat (once I get around to it).

A web comic I've been following since I was in high school is Questionable Content, and after a very long time, I finally have my first piece of merch from it! My partner was ordering from a website that hosts merch for a number of podcasts and web comics so I jumped at the opportunity to finally pull the trigger and buy something. One of the characters in the comic owns a coffee shop called "Coffee of Doom" and I'm excited to have finally supported her establishment!

One thing I have been prototyping over the past couple months are Cross Stitch Pins! I've loved the idea for a long time and am glad I actually made the idea into a reality and tried to make some. They're still a work in progress but I love the potential they have!

In the left image above, you've got a classic trans flag pin with a black outline and a bisexual flag pin with a white outline. I wasn't originally sure about the border colour so I'm glad I experimented with both, each one has a specific effect to them that I can't decide between! The two underneath it are pins replicating the Perk icons from the game Dead By Daylight - Stakeout & Spine Chill. I love DBD and these are two perks I use a lot. These two designs are actually my original mock-ups! The Spine Chill one was pretty simple but I'm very proud of the Stakeout one. Underneath those, you've got a simple.. name plate? thing? I was trying out since I had extra thread from my Mint piece. I like the concept of this one, although the execution didn't result in what I was expecting since I didn't account for how the back stitch would look (back stitch is the type of stitch you use to create a border, in this case the black outline around the lettering and how it doesn't look 100% correct on the M and N). Next to Mint, we have Ferris! He is the unofficial mascot of the programming language Rust and is pretty adorable. You can take a look here and see my original pixel art this is based off of, as well as the 7 other differing icons I made with it!

I really love making these pins, and although I haven't really made one recently I want to get back to it and come up with more designs. I'll be honest, I've even floated the idea of selling them? Opening an Etsy (or alternative) store?? Taking commissions??? Who knows. It's a big idea that I would love to pursue but I think I need to get a solid foundation of pin designs to choose first and then... who knows.

I finished my Jolteon piece that I started last month! This is the quickest I think I've ever finished something of this size, which makes sense because it was so fun to do. I'm really proud with how it turned out and I'm still debating on what I want to do with the final product (put in a frame, leave it in a wooden hoop, etc). I have the matching Vaporeon & Flareon patterns + thread ready for when I want to start them, but I think I'm going to take a break for a bit to focus on catching up on video games and writing! If you're interested, the pattern for this available on Cross Stitch Quest!

And last but not least - your monthly dose of my baby boys!

That's it for this month! If you want to time travel a bit, why not check out last month's post for August, or the Photo Journal Tag!