2023 Wonders of the Hubble Telescope Stitch-a-long by Climbing Goat Designs

I usually pick some sort of project at the beginning of each year that is a multi-month design. Sometimes it is a quilt-a-long, somethings a crochet or knit-a-long, sometimes just a longer project that looks interesting. This year I decided to make Climbing Goat Design's Wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope for my wife. She loves NASA and space related things, and there is a sadly bare wall above her desk that this design would be perfect for.

Part 1 of Climbing Goat’s Wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope stitch-along is done (Completed 01/26/23). It’s of the planetary nebula NGC 2818. I am looking forward to seeing what the next image will be.

Part 2 - Galaxy NGC 6217. Finished this past weekend (Completed 3/4/23). This square had a lot of pale grays and blues that were harder to tell apart as I stitched, so I tried to do some of the brighter colors first to act as a visual guide. Smaller and more subtle that the first design, but with a bit more trickiness.

Part 3 - The Engraved Hourglass Nebula. I just finished part 3 tonight (Completed 4/14/23). I really like the figure 8 shape with the ”eye” in the middle. The vibrancy of the reds and oranges is nice too. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings. This month’s frame had a solid black background. I didn’t totally like that it didn’t match the prior two frames, so I added a few background stars to mine.

Part 4 - NGC 602 Star Cluster and Nebula. Part 4 was just finished today (Completed 6/3/23). I think it might be my favorite so far. I love all the pinks and purples and the way the star bursts stand out against the swirl of the nebula.

Part 5 - Whirlpool Galaxy (Completed 9/2/23). This one has taken the longest of any of the frames to finish. Part of it was that there were so many shades of similar browns and creams and grays. There were a lot of recounts just to be sure because I wasn’t positive what that next color should be. Another part of the slowdown was because my carpal tunnel and tendinitis has been glaring up, so I have had to pace myself to avoid the pain getting unmanageable. I think the final results are very nice though. The black really makes the swirl pop.

Part 6 - Helix Nebula (Completed 9/6/23). This little square seemed like a breeze in comparison to the last one. Smaller, fewer and more condensed colors. Very vibrant to look at too, which is always fun.

Part 7 - Antennae Galaxies (Completed 9/12/23). I made a big departure with this design. I wasn’t super keen on the interpretation the original designer took for this cluster of galaxies.

The image to the right is the original stitch-out designed for the stitch-a-long. There is nothing wrong with it. It's a good design. It was just a bit too one note in color, and the proportion seemed off to me. A little blobby. It also didn't match many of the Hubble photos we found of the reference galaxy either. My wife agreed and asked if I'd be able to make a new design more like some of the other photos we had seen of the Antennae Galaxies.

So I used some online software to convert a photo of the Antennae Galaxies to a pattern in the same dimensions as the original frame we stitched before part one. The image to the left is a side by side view of the final stitch-out beside the web image of the galaxy that I used for reference to create the design. Really, really happy with how it turned out. The salmon color had me questioning my choices for a while, but I think all the colors work together in the end.

Part 8 - V838 Monocerotis (Completed on 12/19/23). I had paused my work on the stitch-a-long
because I was working on Yule and Christmas gifts for friends and family. I'm just now getting back to it. This stitch-out went really quickly. It only took two days to complete. The design isn't super exciting, but it's pretty and goes well with the other designs. I am still not sold on the star bursts as a design element, but the bursts on this design balance out the bursts on the fourth design placed on the opposite side. I like the symmetry of it.

Part 9 - Center Section Hubble Telescope. My wife and I are still debating if we should go with the designed image for this middle section or switch it up for something different. As designed, it is the Hubble Telescope in orbit with the curve of the earth beneath it. It's not a bad design. Pretty realistic. We'll likely stick with this for the center section, but we've also been debating perhaps replacing it with a NASA symbol or a different version of just the telescope. Neither of us like the writing that part 9 tacks onto the bottom of the design. We both prefer that the design stay square in orientation rather than rectangle. I am thinking I will move the names of the pictured items into the center section or have them go around the outside edge of the design if spacing is correct for that. We'll see.

Update: I decided not to stitch the stars in the background because my fabric already has stars on it that look good on their own. I ordered some framing supplies that are on their way. Soon this will be on the wall behind my wife’s desk.

FINISHED! Below is the finished Wonders of the Hubble Telescope Stitch-a-long by Climbing Goat Designs. I ordered the custom double mat from a seller on Etsy and acid free mounting board from Amazon. The frame came from either Target or Walmart. My wife and I are both really happy with the way the finished piece turned out. It will go above her desk in our office.

2023 Advent Calendar Adventures

We always get together with our friends for a joint Yule and Christmas celebration. We hang out in our pj's or other comfy clothes, have a potluck of soups or order take-out, and exchange gifts with each other. We try to make the holiday as low stress as possible because we all know how stressful family get-togethers during the holidays can be. No one wants to add to that.

This year for our gifts, my wife had the idea to make each person an advent calendar. She actually brought the idea to me last year, but at that time, we didn't have enough time to pull it all together. So, we reserved the idea for this year keeping in mind that all calendars needed to be completed before Thanksgiving in order to be able to gift them to everyone before the start of December.

Let me just begin with, we had no idea what we were getting into.

We spent a couple of months looking for design ideas for each of our friends that suited them specifically. I found a lot of the patterns/instructions on Etsy and was able to purchase the cut files for my Silhouette Cameo. I was not well versed in using the paper cutting machine at the start, and now I am extremely experienced with it. Once the patterns were decided on, there came the task of finding suitable decorative papers and cardstocks for each project. It was fun but also a big task. It took a while to sort.

Then, the cutting and construction began...

1) Baldur's Gate III Video Game Sleeve Advent Calendar

The first advent calendar we started on was a Baldur's Gate III inspired calendar made to look like the game packaging from the outside and like a bookshelf on the inside filled with books holding each advent item. They each had titles of books actually found in the video game itself. The larger drawers at the bottom are supposed to represent the crates you can smash for loot in the game, and I 3D printed a potion bottle dice holder to represent the urns and vases that are often on the bookshelves and in the rooms.

                       

2) Baldur's Gate III Double Library Advent Calendar

We also made an expanded version of the Baldur's Gate III themed advent calendar that looked like a wardrobe cabinet from the outside and revealed a library within full of books from the video game.

3) Bag of Holding Advent Calendar

We made a Bag of Holding Advent Calendar by making boxes in the shapes of polyhedral dice (used when playing Dungeons and Dragons and other D20 based role play games. The recipient also crochets, so we found a nice craft bag to use as the holder for the advent dice.

4) Princess Castle

For our friends daughter, we made a pink princess castle. The hardest part about this one was finding fun kid items that fit in the tiny boxes. I was particularly pleased with the pack of scrapbook papers I found in all shades and patterns of pink.

5) Beer Barrel Advent Calendar

A lot of our advent items and calendars were themed toward gaming things. We have one friend who does not game, but he does like to spend quite a bit of free time in the summer at our local Renaissance Faire. And he likes to bake. We combined those two things and printed and painted a cookie jar in the shape of a wooden barrel to be the calendar storage. We wrapped individual advent items and placed them inside.

6) Water Dragon Advent Calendar

Another friend really loves dragons and I found a pattern for a super cute dragon advent calendar on Etsy. She also (as dragons do) loves sparkly things, so I chose glitter scrapbook paper in various shades of blue and green for the dragon scales. I giggle every time I look at his dragon face. It's probably my favorite of the calendars.

7) Witchy Library Advent Calendar

One of our friends shares my interests in both gaming and metaphysical things. She also, like my wife and I both, has a love of reading and books. I made her a wardrobe library similar to what I mentioned above except I chose mystical and witch related scrapbook papers to decorate the books so that they looked like old leather bound mystical tomes I really loved the papers I was able to find for hers. She has pet snakes, and I was even able to find some with a snakeskin pattern and others with a drawing of the snake.

8 and 9) Medieval Castle Advent Calendars 

For two of our other friends, we made medieval style castles (one red, one blue). D8 (8 sided dice) boxes held each day's advent items. I put 1 inch grids on the castle ramparts and in the center section of the castles so they could actually be used with miniatures to play D&D.