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 =)