WIPocalypse March

Well, it looks like it's time for another WIPocalypse update =)
I am fairly happy with last months progress, so here we go:

My first WIP is QS Paddys Luck, finally with a picture involving the missing colors.
Last time you saw him:

And now:

I also worked on Kreimhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson. Finally, more of my actual Kriemhild is appearing!
Last time you saw her:

And now:

I truly love how she is coming out, the detail in her dress looks great =) I plan to pick her up again soon =)

Last but not least, I have been working on Supersized Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall.
Last time you saw Iris:

And now:

The new stats for her are:

Total stitches: 301 698

Total stitches done: 12 800

Stitches in 2016: 3 600

Stitching days in 2016: 5

Average stitches per day: 720

Stitches left: 288 898

Days left to stitch: 402

She is so much fun to stitch! I know that I said that I meant to stitch to the 150-stitches-across-mark, but I just had to add another column (the page looked weird otherwise... now page 3 is halfway done). I think I set a personal record on this one on Wednesday by doing 1000 stitches, lol. That happens if I have some days off :D The first 800 stitches I did on Wednesdays went by pretty quickly because there was not so much confetti in there. The nest 100 were ok, a few more colors coming in, but nothing serious. And the last 100 stitches were confetti hell and they took me about 2 hours to do, lol. And all it did was creating a blob of colors. But well, I guess that's normal if you stitch a Haed... Anyway, I put her away for now to get a few stitches into Supersized Ride of the Yokai while I have a few days off left (and that means stitching by daylight). I only did 240 stitches so far, so not much to show. But the 32ct and I might become friends after all...

Aas for this months WIPocalypse question:
Do you use hoops, stretchers bars, lap stands or Qsnap frames and why?

I use different types for different projects.
For my regular sized and supersized Haed patterns I use my Millennium frame with the matching floor stand.
I love that I can roll up the fabric on the scroll rods, so it is not in the way when I am stitching. I also love to stitch with two hands, which doesn't really work for me when using a Qsnap. I have 6 different sizes of scroll rods and I love them all. Since the frames are quite big, there is enough room to place the pattern and all the colors I need besides my stitching, so I don't need an additional pattern holder. I can't imagine my stitching life without my scroll frames anymore!
I also have some non Haeds I stitch with those frame, mostly because I want to stitch two handed (or use my laying tool when stitching with more than one strand).

My smaller Haeds (Quick stitches or Storykeeps) I usually stitch with a Qsnap. There is not so much fabric that can get in the way and from time to time I just like to stitch with a frame I can hold in hand. I have 3 different Qsnap sizes, depending on the project size.
The Qsnaps are easy to set up, they are not that heavy and I love the tension I get with them. My first frame actually was a Qsnap, I never felt the desire to buy and try a hoop. I have seen a lot of pictures showing hoop marks and never had such extreme marks with my Qsnaps and after all - don't change a working system, right?

Sometimes I also feel like stitching something in hand, it can be a nice change ;-)

I think that's all I can say about frames. I haven't tried all types of frames so far, but I am completely happy with my scroll rods and my Qsnaps. So I don't really feel the urge to try something else ;-)

Happy stitching =)

Page finishes on Kreimhild and Iris, IHSW, plans and even more stash...

Well, I do have a lot on the agenda today!
First I want to thank you for all the lovely comments on the Middle Earth map for Chelle =) The map has been sent on (floss arrived) and due to parcel tracking it has been successfully delivered as well =)

Since the missing floss arrived I also managed to fill in the missing stitches on  Paddys Luck, unfortunately I just noticed that I forgot to take a picture, so an update is to follow in a few days (when I post my final progress on Iris before switching to something else).

As for Updates:
I worked on Kreimhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson and stitched down a page. We do actually see more of Kreimhild now, yay! The page was real fun to stitch (it involved a bit of frogging because somehow I used a wrong color on the previous page and noticed when the pages were meeting (and things looked odd). But now things are right again and i love how she is turning up. She will turn up soon again (see my plans down below).
Here is what she looked like when you last saw her:

And now:

The quality may not be that amazing, but the colors are showing up really well on this one!
So here are my stats on Kriemhild:
Total stitches: 255 600
Total stitches done: 94 751
Stitches in 2016: 4774
Stitching days: 11
Average stitches per day: 434
Stitches left: 160 849
Days left to stitch: 371

I finished the page on Friday and since the previous weekend was the third weekend in March, it was time for IHSW (it's back, yay, and I participated, double-yay!!!). IHSW is the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, so all I did (basically) was hermiting and stitching. If you are interested in seeing the other participants work, take a look over here . It is hosted by Joyce from Random Ramblings and her blog is surely worth a visit =)

So here is my before-picture for IHSW, Iris as you last saw her last year:

I managed to finish page 2 on Sunday:

And made a start on page 3, here is where I left of last night:

Look at those gorgeous blue colors that start to appear! I love it!
As I said, I stitched my butt off, so I am more than happy with the progress in two days!

Here are the stats so far:
Total stitches: 301 698
Total stitches done: 10 550
Stitches in 2016: 1350
Stitching days: 2
Average stitches per day: 675
Stitches left: 291 148
Days left to stitch: 432

Ok, the stats look really funny because I stitched so much on her. Since I have a few more days off, I think there will be another update in a few days featuring a similar amount of stitching, lol.

But that's not even the whole amount of stitching I did :D I made a small start on the little robin kit I showed a few posts back and it's stitching up so fast!
Here is what it will look like (hopefully soon):

And what I did so far, most of the robin is already done:

Due to the flash light the colors looks quite off. I hope the next picture will be better. Since spring is finally coming around, this is a nice small and matching project.
This is just two days work and I am quite happy with it. This is also my first time stitching one of my Eva Rosenstand kits and I am really amazed! The fabric is Aida and it looks and feels great, the floss is lovely and the colors are great (and presorted on floss cards, way better than the Dimensions!). The pattern is easy to read I'm looking forward to working on the other two kits I have =)

I think that is all my stitching so far, so the next thing I want to share are a few thoughts on rotation and plans and so on:
It looks like a lot of people are starting rotations and I sometimes think that I should try that, too. People say that they feel like making so much progress and their mojo is really high, but my problem is that I often feel like leaving "unfinished business" when I drop my needle after a certain amount of days. Like look at Iris. Last time I left it off with a half stitched column and it bothered me since then.  I like to finish pages or half pages or stitching to certain marks (like 150 stitches across or 200 across, I like even numbers...). But there are a lot of things I want to work on and I want to ensure that I get to work on different projects because I love all of them.

So I made a rough plan on projects on what I will work on next:

First is Iris, I want to stitch until 150 stitches across (started column and another one), this is roughly the half way on the first row!
Then I want to stitch another page on Ride of Yokai while I still have some time off (and daylight!).
After that Kreimhild will be back for another page again (I want her finished one day, right?)
Next up will be Starlight, I am not sure if I will stitch one page or a half page, it will depend on my mood (I'll be working 30 hours instead of 20 from April on, so stitching time will suffer).
The next round will be for Yule Angel, I plan on finishing the first row (one page and a small partial).

I will try and squeeze in a few stitches on my Candy Cane Santa Stocking, I have no regular intervals for that. I just pick it up and stitch half an hour or an hour and then I pick up something else. Works good so far.
When I am switching my Haeds, I want to put in a day or so when there is one of my Dimensions projects (the wolves or Aurora Cabin) on the frame. The exception is the change between Iris and Ride of the Yokai. The Idea is that I want to be used to working on 28ct when I switch to 32ct (so maybe it will be easier for my eyes? We will see if this works... but the change from 28ct to 14ct to 32ct would be hard for me...).
I don't plan to stitch for a fixed amount of days, just "rotating by goal" or so... Let's see how this works :D I will keep you updated :D

OK, now for the last part of this super-long post: stash!
It may look like I only keep buying stash because things seem to add up, lol.
I went to a crafts fair last week and spent a ton of money there.
The thing is this: There are not that many stitching shops near me. There are some shops selling knitting supplies, but most of them carry the same yarn (not that easy to get some nice hand dyed yarn or fancy stuff).  I once drove to a shop carrying stitching supplies when I had the issues with the 32ct for Ride of the Yokai and that was an 80km drive to the shop and then an 80km drive back home, taking more than one hour in each direction. So I don't go to shops that often, I mostly order things online. So I went to that craft fair and I finally had a chance to look at things! You know stitched things look far better in real life than on picture. So this is a sort of unique chance for me, so things sort of escalated :D
Here is what I bought:

I bought the Woodland Enchantress from the Dimensions Gold Collection. She was the first cross stitch project I ever saw and at that time I though "wow, I want that!" and that's what got me into stitching. I don't know why it took me 7 years to get her, but now she's mine ;-)
The small Dimensions is from the Gold petite and calle "Silent Night" I think... I saw this stitched and fell in love (I wouldn't have noticed this if it was just a picture..). I also got some Rainbow Gallery petite treasure braid and some hand dyed fabric. I want to try stitching a Joan Elliott Design (or two, can't decide between Medieval Lady and Snow Queen) and I think I will order a pattern and the beads next month and I will share detailed pictures when I decided what to do ;-)
The small Riolis kit is something I got fro free, I don't know if I will stitch it. I don't like the floss (looks fuzzy), the fabric feels like plastic and the beads look cheap... I think the Dimensions Gold and the Eva Rosenstand kits put my standards really high...
I also got some size 28 needles from Dimensions (still looking for the perfect needle...) and another Qsnap (I theoretically own a 11" qsnap, but my sister has it and I think it will never turn up again ;-) ).
I got a small knitting kit for wrist warmers, they were so lovely, I had to get them! And then there is a skein of  hand dyed yarn, it's impossible to catch this on a photograph and I so much looking forward to knitting something from it! It's sock yarn, but I am not sure if I will do socks with it.

There I also got some earrings, they were soooo expensive, but they are so lovely. They are all made of silver and I think they are hand made (the stone is a moon stone I think):

They are quite big and the photo doesn't do them justice at all ;-) They remind me of the elvish jewelry from Lord of the Rings and you all know, I just love LotR!

Not on the picture are things like storage boxes for all my leftover beads from the mill hill kits, some magnets because maybe I will try doing my own needle minders and a magnifier (for Ride of the Yokai, let's see how we get along).

Ok, this may be one of the longest posts I ever did, if you decided to scroll though all my talking and just look at the pictures, that's absolutely fine :D If you managed to read all my ramblings, congratulations, you owned yourself a biiiiig stitching break now :D

I will be back with some updates on Iris soon (or for WIPocalypse at the latest).

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - March

Well, it looks like we are already half way through March and it's time for another edition of the one and only GG SAL =) For those of you unfamiliar with this or who want to look at the other participants work, please take a look over here =)

I am super happy with my progress during the last month. I stitched on the Middle Earth Map for Chelle like a mad girl and managed to finish page 3 on it, yay me!
Chelle told me to "stitch for one month or one page, whichever comes first", so I started stitching on the 4th February and finished the started page page on 3rd March at 10:20 pm, lol.
I had a bit of trouble due to hurting my back and not being able to sit on my frame for several days, so I am super happy that I managed it in time. But I guess you are all waiting for the final picture, so here it is:

And here is a picture of the full map, as of when I finished my part (including my in my pjs, lol... my hair is a mess...)

I smile like a super happy girl, in the end it was really hard to focus on the Map, I even dreamt about stitching it :D I guess I'll be ready to stitch on my own map next month again...

After finishing the map I took out Candy Cane Santa and added a few stitches. Remember last time, when he was looking like an asian smilie:

He turned into overly-attached-psycho Santa (like the overly-attached-girlfriend memes...) :

His eyes look rather creepy :D It's a bit like "He know if you've been bad or good BECAUSE HE IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU!" :D
I added a bit of his hood, which makes him look less awkward... At least a bit..

That's my progress for this month, I hope to get some work done on the dog bookshelf piece for next  month and I think about stitching the small robin kit for my BFs mother (I really want to start it and I think she would like it). But we will see how far I can get =)

Update on Paddy and Stash

Well, I only have a bit of stitching to show since I mostly worked on the Middle Earth Map for the RR. I finished my part a few days ago after really pushing it. I will show a picture of my finished part for the GG SAL in a few days.

In desperate need to work on something else I continued to work on QS Paddys Luck and the first page is as good as finished (I'm missing two colors, but they are on their way and should be here any day now) and I started on page 2. I noticed that a part of Paddys head is going to show on this page, yay!
Here he is so far:

Stitching the rainbow is so much fun, the colors are nice and bright and make me happy! The blocks of color are stitching up very quickly and since there are different parts of the rainbow in one column it doesn't get boring. The green in the lower right corner is actually a part of the shamrock Paddy is holding! Total progress is nearly 5600 stitches (minus some 15 or so where I am waiting for my threads to arrive), that means I added 2600 stitches over the last month. I never thought it would be that much! I will share another progress picture ones the missing threads are here.

The next update will also feature some progress on Kreimhilds Revenge. I put her on the frame yesterday, but there is not much to show yet.

The next thing I have to show is some stash that arrived over the last months and which I forgot to show.

First up is an order I placed at sewandso in January when I discovered my love for Mill Hill, so it consists of Mill Hill:
I got two of the Arctic Circle Santas, Lapland and Greenland:

I got all three of the Medieval Santas: Here are Canterbury (which I already stitched, but he needs cutting and backing and I hate his beard... and BF says he looks like Cthulhu... lol..), Saxony and Avignon: 

And I got another super old kit, I don't know what it's called. I saw this stitched in the Mill Hill group on Facebook and the little reindeers are so cute:

A needlework shop here had to close and had a final sale at the end (30% off) so I decided to get some kits.

I ordered even more Mill Hill Stuff:
This is a rather old kit, I think it's called "Halloween Eve". The kit actually contains some linen instead of the perforated paper in the picture. Maybe I will exchange it because I don't really like the look of it. But I think the little raven and pumpkin buttons are really cute =)

This one is called "All is calm" and I really like the little bunny button. The threads and beads look great as well.

 This one is the third of the Arctic Circle Santas, it's Nunavut Santa (I have no idea how to pronounce this, some days I am quite happy that I didn't find the courage to do floss tube..).

This is one of the Starlight Santas called "Eastern Star Santa" . He will probably be my next Mill Hill start (still doing good on stitching one per month), I really love the colors in his coat!

And I also got two kits from Eva Rosenstand (which reminds me that I still have one of her kits untouched in my cupboard...). The first one is a small one which was listed as "Rotkehlchen" (translates to "robin", I'm not sure if this is the actual name or just a description)

The second one was listed as "Rehfamilie"("deer family")

Those kits are usually very expensive, so I took advantage of the 30% off and ordered those two.

I thinks that's about it. I'll go back to stitching Kreimhild now so I can show some work on her soon!

Happy stitching!