A finish and final update for 2016

Well, this is the last day of 2016, so I want to share one last update because I made some more progress on various projects.

First up is another finsih for 2016, yes, that does happen!! I finished my first Nora Corbett called "Gwen":

Actually, the colors on that picture are quite close this time! Now that she is done I am really happy with her, the beads really did the trick and they were so much fun to do! =) I can actually see myself stitching more Noras! I even found a mermaid I like! Oh my! Unfortunately I am not so good at capturing Gwens beauty on a picture. I will try to frame her and will take another picture then =)

As for further progress, I stitched like a mad girl! I had some time off before Christmas - you know like you have to prepare for Christmas and all the people and so on and then you have to relax from Christmas and all the people and so on :D It's nice to see all the family, but also a bit exhausting, just to many people around. Anyway, I while I had some time at home I hermited and stitched. So here we go:

I did some more work on Yule Angel, I am now at 28 000 stitches:

And I worked on Wolf Variant to finish my goal for 2016 of filling in the 100x160 stitches block:

And I also worked on Starlight, finally! I only did 2 columns, but progress is still progress, right?

So, that's it for 2016!

I plan to try another rotation, at least at the beginning of the year. I want to rotate through all my projects once, so I won't feel bad for not working on something for a year. So I will dedicate about one week to every project and I will work on Kriemhild each month for 5 days to get some progress into her. Once I am done with the rotation, I will decide if I continue with it of go back to stitching whatever I want.

The first project for 2017 will be my annual new year start, so stay tuned for that!

I hope all of you spent a nice time with your family and I hope you will make a good start for 2017! =)

Happy stitching!

WIPocalypse, GG SAL and year in review so far

Aaaaand it's December! Well, December is already halfway over, it seems. 

First of all I want to apologize for being so quiet and not commenting on blogs these days - my laptop is dying. So I went along to get a new one, I found one that suited me and the prize was very good because it was the last one in stock. So I took the thing home and it didn't charge... Great... So I went back to the store and they took the thing in and sent it in for a repair and now I am weiting on that for two weeks... The shop keeper doesn't really communicate, so I have to run after him to get some information and all I get is "soon". Honestly, if he doesn't have the thing fixed in a day or two, I will see if I can get my money back... I'm a bit unnerved by now... especially since my old laptop takes ages to start and crashes all the time...

Anyway, back to topic! I am already a few days behind on WIPocalypse and the GG SAL, so I will put both posts into one. WIPocalypse asks for a recap of the year with final before and after pictures (so far), so I think I will do the same for GGSAL as well (and it's always nice to see how much I accomplished, it's sort of motivating for me).

So here we go!

First up is my update for the GGSAL projects, you can take a look at the other stitchers work here.  

The first project I worked on was my Map of Middle Earth by Heaven and Earth Designs. I love stitching this piece and it was sort of a focus project for the GGSAL this year.

At the beginning of 2016 I had 18 000 stitches done on it:

And - I added another 900 stitches since you last saw it - now I am at 32 000 stitches, which makes a total of 14 000 stitches on this one!

I am so happy with my progress on this one, the writing looks amazing =) I hope to share a good bunch of progress pics in 2017 (5500 stitches to the halfway point on first row - that should be possible) =)

Speaking of Middle Earth, I was also part of the Middle Earth Round Robin and stitched a page on that (I think about 7000 stitches, a small part was already stitched). Here is my final picture when I was done:

I think the map is currently in New Zealand and the first row is completed by now.

The next project I worked on is my Dimensions kit Wolf Kiss. When I pick it up, it stitches up quite fast, but most of the time I forget about it and I get bored with it after two or three days (not so many colors, only full crosses with those few colors... stitching in black... but it's so pretty!). But I managed to pick that up again this month. 

In total I went from here:

To here:

The second Dimensions kit I am working on is from the Gold Collection and it's a stocking called Candy Cane Santa Stocking. It was a new start in 2016. In the beginning I wanted to finish this by Christmas, but you know me and all my plans and other projects - I am far from being done. I will try again next year!

But this is where I got - my creepy cane Santa:

Since last month I worked on the ribbon, actually quite pretty so far! And I think I will stitch the eyes last :D I like him creepy :D

At the beginning of the year I showed my stitching on a part of Randal Spanglers dog bookshelf, which I finished in November. So I went from here:

To here:

I think I did like 8 900 stitches on this. Unfortunately I didn't get round to ironing it so far, I washed it, but no time for ironing yet. But I have some free time starting on Wednesday, so I plan to do that this week. And then I will hopefully sent it on soon ;-)

Another finish this year was my little robin by Eva Rosenstand, I stitched it for my BFs mother:

This was also my first attempted to on lacing and it worked out quite well I think ;-) The little Robin is so cute, I honestly think about stitching him again for myself. I also have a matching blue tit in my stash.

So, that's it for GG SAL! I will absolutely join this in 2017, I enjoyed posting and reading peoples blogs on it and I am really pleased that I got so much done on Middle Earth =) 

Which brings us to the bigger part of the post - my WIPocalypse update :D You can find the linkup here.

First is my Kreimhilds Revenge (Head). I started with 20 pages in:

And I stitched pages 21 to 24, a total of 15 300 stitches! Yay me! Row 3 is done and dusted!

One of the best things about this is that there is only one full page of sky to go! I can't believe it! Goal met!

The second WIP is Das Rheingold (Haed): 

I picked my lost piece up an put a few stitches in:

At the beginning of 2016, I was half way through page 5:

And I finished page 5 and even made small start on page 6:

I added 4 columns - 3200 stitches. And even more important - I enjoyed it ;-) Goal met - I even added a few more!

Third is Yule Angel (Haed): It is still on my frame, so a few more stitches will add up - but my goal was to finish the first row and there is no way I can do that... But I will do so in 2017! I went from here:

To here so far (and like 300 more):

Those are like 1100 stitches added so far, but I plan to add two more columns.

Number four - Eternal Promise (Haed):

I love working on it, if only I had more time to do so! Those flowers in the border are so pretty and the trees are amazing, even if they take ages to stitch. Anyway, I added 4000 stitches.

At the beginning of 2016:

And now:

The goal was to finish off page 3 and made a start on page 4 - goal met - I added a few more!

Number five - Wolf Variant (Haed):

Oh I love this one, it stitches up so fast and the violet colors are so pretty. So I went from here:

To here:

The goal is to fill in the missing block, I will see what I can do (some 2100). But so far I did 7 100 stitches and I am happy with that - goal not yet met.

Number 6 - QS Paddys Luck (Haed).

I started this when I handed in my master thesis and I really need to spent more time on this - it's so cute and colorful and shiny ;-) 

At the beginning of the year I had 3000 stitches in:

Big plan was to finish the first page - did that and added 1200 more, so I am at 6400 stitches in total now:

And number 7 - Danielle (Haed).

I love this project, even if it hates me. We had some issues with the blending filament and some more issues with a hole in the fabric and so on, but I think we are good now! Here is where I was at the beginning of 2016:

The goal was to finish page 2 - did that and added half a page! 6800 stitches done this year =)

Number 8 - Supersized Iris Keeper (Haed)

I made such a wonderful start on this in 2015, so I wanted to stitch the first row in 2016, but that didn't happen, even if this was so much fun to stitch. 

here is where I started:

And I stitched so far:

I only did 3600 stitches, I absolutely failed here... Need more time to stitch!

And my biggest shame so far - I have not picked up Starlight this year, I will work on that for a few days soon (so it gets some love..)

And I worked on two of my Dimensions Gold pieces:

Aurora Cabin went from here:

To here:

And Paris Market went from here:

To here  - we are getting somewhere!

So, this brings us to new starts!

My 1st January was Supersized Ride of the Yokai (Haed). I stitched 4 partial pages and started the 4 pages above:

Soooo pretty and I really love the coverage on 32ct - I am actually looking forward to stitching more things on 32ct =) I did a total of 7500 stitches on this one!

The second new start was QS Trapped (Haed):

I started this for the cross country Haed challenge and stitched 7600 xs on it:

She's really beautiful, but stitching all the dark colors was not so much fun. I will see how I get along with this next year.

Another new start is The Potting Shed (Haed) - a design I really love, but I only did 1000 stitches on this:

I completely forgot about this one :D Oh my! I need to work on that some more!

And yet another new start was a smaller project called "Sheep in the Meadow" by Country Cottage Needleworks - I ran out of the green weeks dyeworks, but I bought some more so I am ready to go on!

Not much left to do here!

And I started my first Nora Corbett - Gwen: Very pretty and ready for beading - sounds like a good plan for the holidays:

And I started Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold Petite:

Ok, I think that's it? Oh my, the idea was to feel motivated at the end of this, now I feel guilty for not spending enough time on my projects and making so many new starts!

Ok, I added up the above stitches (minus my Dimensions and Gwen and the sheep) - I am at 90 500? Oh my! 

Page finish on Eternal Promise and update on Wolf Variant

Well, time for an update, I have quite a lot to show!

First up is my end of rotation update on Eternal Promise, my LotR Haed by Matt Stewart:
I finished page 3 and made a start on page 4, I have a total of 16 000 stitches done now:

Those trees are really lovely, but the confetti is really hard. I love the outcome, but those 4000 stitches took ages to do!

After sharing my update on this for WIPocalypse, I really had to take a small break and picked up Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick. I worked on this for 4 days and finished off page 10! I did 2100 stitches in 4 days, yay me! It was soooo much fun =)
So here I am right now:

Total Stitches: 409 500

Total Stitches done: 13 900

Stitches done in 2016: 7 100

Stitching days: 14

Average stitches per day: 507

Stitches left: 395 600

Days left to stitch: 781

We already reached December and I still have so many goals I want to meet this year. One of those is to fill in the missing stitches on that 100x160 block and I will see what I can do. I mean this is way more possible than finishing the first row on Iris, the first row on Yule Angel or something like that... I put Yule Angel on the frame for now and will work on that for a few days. Since I haven't worked on Starlight this year, I will do my best to pick that up as well. And then I also wanted to finish my sheep in the meadow and Gwen... Oh my! Where has 201 gone??

I guess I should go for some stitching ;-) 

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - November

And here we go again, after being super in time for WIPocalypse this month (yay me), I am a day late for the GGSAL (boooh me).
But at least I am still on my way to post every month for this SAL, just one more post in December and then I can be proud of myself for sticking to this ;-)
If you are interested in the SAL and want to see what everybody else did this month, just pay a visit to Jo, who is hosting this SAL.

So here we go!

First up is my work on the Dog bookshelf piece. I went from here:

To here:

 And it's finished!!! Yay, finally! There was an awful lot of confetti in that funny decoration stuff on top, but I made it (though it kicked me off my weekly schedule of doing 520 stitches per week...). The thing still needs a bath and then it can go on it's way soon. To be honest, I was quite sick of it in the end, I really spent a lot of time on it and after all the confetti, the black was easy but boring to stitch.

I also picked up one more project, not Middle Earth though. That will surely be back next month!
I picked up the Candy Cane Santa stocking I'm stitching for my boyfriend and I went from here:

To here:

Doesn't he look creepy, peering over my Qsnap like that? :D It's really fun to work on him again, I will try and fit in half an hour or so a few times a week. No chance to get him done by Christmas, but there is also Christmas in 2017 (and 2018, 2019... lol).

Anyway, that's all I got for this month.

Happy stitching :)

WIPocalypse - November

Oh my, what's this??? WIPocalypse update on WIPocalypse day! Yay me!
To be honest, I wondered about when the next date would be a few days ago and was sort of prepared to post today... But anyway, here I am! And I feel like I have super much progress to show =)

First up is my lovely Kreimhild, I managed to finish the third row of pages!
I went from here:

To here:

There was quite a lot of confetti in the trees, I actually think they were the most confetti heavy thing so far, but I think they look stunning. I really hope that I can get this on the frame one more time this year, I think this would be a great feeling to start the next row of pages. I also think there is only one full page of sky left here!

Ok next is Gwen, I planned on finishing her in October, but then I got stuck with Kreimhild (I finished the third row on the 30th) and just put Gwen on the frame for a few days.
I went from here:

To here:

I can still not really capture the fabric color, but it's getting closer (at least more orange). I finished the cross stitching in her dress and hat and added the fence. So I need to do the cross stitching on the flowers, backstitch her upper body and add beads. It's still weird to stitch something with so little color changes, after a few days I just feel the need to get back to a Haed...
I think I will put her on the frame once I am done with my current part on Eternal Promise.

Yes - Eternal Promise is back! It has not seen the light of day - or the LED spots of my living room - for a good year, how could this happen? Anyway, I am working on it.
I went from here:

To here:

There is an awful lot of confetti in the trees, but they look amazing!  And the blue frame is so much fun to stitch, there is some confetti in the flowers (and you can't see the sparkle), but it's fine. The plan is to add a total of 4000 stitches to it (5 columns), this would finish page 3 and make a start on page 4. So far I did 2400 stitches (3 columns) and there is a partial column left on page 3.
As you can see, I also started feathering my edges - I didn't fear column lines as there are many changes of color, but they don't hurt and they make counting far easier (especially if you park your threads somewhere "far away").

The last thing I worked on is my Dimensions Gold Petit kit called "Cliffside Beacon" which I started back in Summer. I got a few stitches in now and then and when I took it out for a picture yesterday, I thought that I might as well add a few more.
I went from here:

To here:

The sky stitches up quite fast - it's only half crosses. I am filling in some of the gaps then and again, always nice for a little change.

Ok, those are my updates for now. I still have two projects I haven't picked up this year (Starlight and Yule Angel) and I really hope that will have changed in time for the next WIPocalypse update (at least one of them).

As for this months Question: What pattern (or designer) is on your must-try list?

Ok, there are a few. Mostly it's non Haeds (there are some "must-stitch" things there, but since I have stitched a couple of Haeds, it's not something new to try).
First up is Golden Kite. I really love their designs, they have a lot of antique artwork. For a long time I was scared by the price, but I finally gave in and bought 3 patterns on sale (which put them to a reasonable price). I am starting one designs next year, it's called "Crossing the Stream":

And it rather similar to a Haed because it's full crosses only, full coverage and in this case a solid colored design. They carry a lot of designs that feature blended colors and I definitely have to try that (and hopefully admire the effect). I would really love to stitch "Beauty with Parasol":

But I need about 280 skeins of floss for that, so I did not kit that up so far (maybe I should try and find a floss fairy or kit this up bit by bit...).

The next I always wanted to try is a Gecko Rouge pattern, I really like their style and I also found quite a few I like. I love the artwork by Gillian Mowbray, especially "A Lighthouse Evening"

I don't know what it is with me and lighthouses these days... But I truly love this one, the colors are so pretty!

Apart from that, I would like to try stitching something like Death by Crossstitch, You know, just one color and (mostly) full crosses. There are a lot of things I like about the designs, but I never felt the need to stitch an alphabet (but then again I see so many people work on this and it looks so amazing! I also found a beautiful piece of 32ct murano in a pale green, I think this would go along well with some color changing thread... But then I haven't seen someone stitch this 1over1 on a count as high as 32...we will see...).
Also on the must-try list is a Joan Elliott, she has so many pretty designs and it's something different from my Haeds...).

Ok, that's it for this month. The Link-Up is not yet set up (look how early I am on this), so I will add that later.
In the meantime you may visit Measi at her place, she is hosting this SAL.

Happy Stitching =)