Welcome to the castle of Stitch-a-Lot/Update on Eternal Promise

Well, a big hello to everyone out there! So here we go with a new blog!
After blogging for four years with wordpress, it was time for a change, I decided to change both blog-host and name.
I haven't figured it all out with blogger so far, I don't yet know how all the gadgets work and there will be further changes in layout and so on, so please be patient with me. Blogger is quite different from wordpress, there are many things I can add (which I enjoy!) which I didn't have before. But I am doing my best to make this an enjoyable place for my stitching =)

I decided to change my name as well. When I first started my blog under the name stitchstitchknit, I had no idea of a name to pick. So I chose something to do with stitching and knitting, but  I never really loved that name because it didn't really sound like a name for a person and after all, I want this place to be something personal and I am always happy when I can make contact with fellow stitchers and develop friendships. I'm not really sure if this makes sense, but anyway, I didn't really feel connected. So when I decided to set up a new blog, I decided to change my name as well.
So I will live in the castle of Stitch-a-Lot from now on!
(I love bad puns... I truly can't deny it...)

I hope that some who followed my old blog over the years will find their way here and accompany on my quest to stitch down my giant stash and of corse, I am welcoming everyone who gets here for the first time =) If anyone is interested in my stitching up to this point, feel free to visit my old blog, I'm not planning on deleting it. I will introduce my WIPs in this blog as I pass them in my non-existent rotation, so you don't always have to switch between blogs.

And we can as well start with that! Because I worked on Eternal Promise for the last days and have some 1200 stitches of progress to show!

Eternal Promise is an artwork by Matt Stewart, who is familiar to most for his Lord of the Rings inspired artwork. He was a Haed-artist a few years back, was retired and returned to Haed some time ago. Eternal Promise was recharted then and I am stitching this recharged version, which has a few more stitches and (it is said) has some more detail. Here is how it will hopefully look one day

The design is 525x843 stitches and the large format chart contains 99 pages (!!). It's one of the biggest projects I am working on (but I feel like the Haed charts are all increasing in size...). The chart contains 90 colors and uses the usual DMC cotton.

This is my first time working on 28ct even weave (usually 25ct). I started the project in January 2014 and only stitched one page then. The problem was simple - fabric count to small for my eyes. But I do have a daylight lamp now (which feasts on batteries) and most important - I have better glasses! Right now I can easily stitch for a few hours and I am enjoying it again. I must say, the coverage on 28ct is way better then on 25ct, so maybe I will start another project on 28ct.

As for my recent progress, I stitched the first 1 1/2 columns of page 2. It's mostly the border, it looks amazing, but the flowers are really confetti heavy. But it's worth it. In the lower right corner there are a few stitches of green and in the next column more of the trees will appear

I am really happy about how this is coming out and will definitely continue with this piece for a few more columns!

Apart from this I am working on a small ornament (felt like something really small on which i can see fast progress, lol). But there is not much to show yet, so I will wait a few more days to show my progress.

This post has become longer than I expected, so congratulations if you managed to read it all :D