Danielle and once more a lot of stash

Well, here is the update on Danielle I mentioned in my WIPocalypse post.
We had issues. BIG issues. I wanted to share an update after finishing page 2 and I did finish page two and then I started cutting my waste knots and then I was tired and impatient and I cut my fabric. I am not that surprised this happened, this projects doesn't really want to be stitched.
I mean when I first planned on starting this, this was for the day I handed in my master thesis. But the fabric didn't turn up in time, but fine, I started something else and did Danielle when the fabric came in. Then I had chart issues, one symbol was used twice, but fine, I emailed Michele and she saved the day. Next up I mixed up symbols, did some green instead of brown, noticed this in the second column and had to find and unpick all the wrong stitches . but fine, I did that. Then, after 1 1/2 pages I noticed that I don't enjoy the E5200 I used. It looks bulky on the 28ct and it's hard to stitch - so fine, I unpicked it all, very carefully with my frog sword and restitched it with Rainbow R000. And then that fabric hole issue happened... I was close to crying and angry at myself because this only happened because I was impatient and tired. So I decided to try and fix it, even if it is super close to the stitching. So I went for some fray stop, just to find that the bottle was not properly closed and it was all dry. All this happened Friday night - did I mention that the closes needlework shop for me is about 1 hours drive away from me and closes early on Saturdays? Doesn't really matter since it doesn't seem to carry Fray Stop anyway... As well as all the other online stores in Germany from which I order... So no Fray Stop, I really had to apply a drop of regular glue (shame on me) because ordering some Fray Stop in takes a few weeks and is quite expensive (shipping). But it worked, so I cut a piece of fabric to place it underneath my damaged fabric (secured with the black thread):

And then I stitched over it, very carefully and I think I was rather successful. So here is where we are now, I think you don't see a lot of the damaged fabric. You can feel it's a bit thicker if you run your finger over the stitching and if you look really close, you can see that the stitches are slightly irregular, but that's ok for me.

And here are the updated stats:

Total stitches: 255 150
Stitches done: 12 000
Stitches done in 2016: 6 800
Stitching days: 23
Average stitches per day: 296
Stitches left: 243 150
Days left to stitch: 821

My stitching average has dropped from 333 to 296. I'm not surprised, I feel like I'm not really getting much stitching done these days. But progress is progress, right?

And speaking about progress or none progress, to ensure I am not running out of things to do I had a massive amount of stash coming in. In the picture below are two orders (one from the beginning of May and one from the beginning of June) that came in:

I decided to order some smaller charts to have a finish then and again. So I went for two Dimensions Gold petite kits, another kit by Eva Rosenstand (to accompany the robin I already stitched), 4 Mill Hill Kits (Gardening Boots are already done, Floral watering can is next in line and I had to get "I love stitching" and "I love gardening", they are even charmed! I need to get the "I love coffee" and the "I love Halloween" ones). The two DMC birds were on sale at sewandso (and I think they still are - 50% off), so I had to get them. The right one (Embroidered Morning) is already started. I got my first chart from Country Cottage Needleworks called "Sheep in the Meadow", I have seen this several times and it's so cute. I got the requested Weeks Dye works (the reason I ordered from sewandso...) and I am excited to stitch with them. I think this will look very lovely on hand dyed fabric (something sky-like). I also got a needle minder from Kelmscott designs because I thought it was cute and then there is just a bunch of beads and shiny threads for the Joan Elliot designs I want to do.
I think my July order will be from Polstitches Designs, some fabric and they have some lovely kits (maybe I'll order my first Mira). I'm doing my best to order only once a month ;-)

I was pretty good at ordering only once a month until mid June, when I somehow payed a visit to the Golden Kit website. I love their designs, they are different from the Haed style and they look so amazing when they are stitched up. And they always seem to have some kind of sale going on. Since you get an additional 30% off if you order 3 charts or more, I ended up buying 3 charts. The charts are usually quite expensive, so I still saved a lot of money. So here is what I got:
Beauty with Parasol at a Garden Wall:

It has 200 colors of which 130 are blended, so I will need to stitch this with  strands. I have some 22ct Oslo  I bought ages ago in a sale and it might just be the right size. It's 700x857, so it's rather huge. I also figured out that I need 281 skeins of floss. I guess it will take me a few months to kit that up. But I really want to stitch this!
Crossing the Stream

This one is huge, it's 990x702 stitches, so like a supersized Haed. It's solid colors only, so I can stitch with one thread. I still need to stitch this sideways (not sure if I want to stitch it on 32ct, it's small and there is still not a lot of left over fabric around). I wouldn't have bought this with blended colors, it would be to huge for me. But I am so in love with this designs, the colors and the detail are so amazing!
Dolce far Niente

This one is 900x441 stitches and has 200 colors, 125 of those are blended. I think she is truly pretty, I think she will be stunning when she is stitched.

I love all three patterns and I am not sure which one I want to stitch first, Beauty with Parasol or Crossing the Stream. I have fabric for Beauty with Parasol, but I need a lot of threads for it. I'm also not sure how to kit it up with the blended colors, maybe I'll use floss rings. I would need to order fabric for Crossing the Stream, but it would need less floss and I could use a lot from my master set. Or maybe I will look at the floss list for Dolce, the longer I look at her... Oh my!

I guess I will stop here :D
Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - June

Oh my, June is just flying by. And it seems like I am starting most every post with this sentence. It's really crazy, time flies by and I always feel like I didn't accomplish anything because it feels like getting up, going to work, go home, eat dinner, stitch for 2 or 3 hours and then I pick up a book and go to bed, lol. I'm not getting much stitching done, just about 200 stitches per night. I am working on Danielle, trying to finish page 2 (which I started at the beginning of the year) and I think it's on the frame for two weeks now and I am not done with it (see below).
The weather has gone insane here, it switches between a lot of rain and even thunderstorms and now it's terribly hot again and there are more thunderstorms to come. This weather just makes me tired all the time...

But as for my WIPocalypse progress!
As I mentioned, I am working on Danielle by Sarah Butcher. I did 3 columns so far (well, I did an additional 70 stitches) and there are 490 stitches left on the page, so it should be done by the weekend.
Last time:

And now:

Did I say that I am absolutely in love with this one? It's so pretty!! I love the colors =)

I also did finish the Haed challenge, so Trapped went from here

To here:

So that's pretty much what I did last month. I stitched a lot on my projects for the GG SAL and I also stitched a Mill Hill kit (which I didn't take a picture of) and on Paris Market (of which I didn't take a picture either...). 

As for this months question: Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in Summer or in Winter?

Well, that's definitely Winter :D There is nothing better than snuggling up on my couch with a cup of tea and some stitching. I don't like to much heat, it makes me tired. I also spent a lot of time outside taking care of my garden. Maybe I also need more smaller projects I can take outside with me ;-) 

That's all I have for this time, 

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - June

I just wanted to share a quick update for the GG SAL this month. The Haed challenge screwed up my stitching schedule, so I only worked on two projects this month. I hope to be able to show some progress on Wolf Kiss and my Dog Bookshelf piece next month as well =)

So here we go! I picked up my Map of Middle Earth and finished the column I started lat month and got one additional column done. 1300 stitches left to finish page 3, I hope that will be done next month.
Before:

And now:

22 000 stitches done in total, 400 500 to go (I'm so excited that this counter will go below 400 000 next time :D ).

The second one I worked on is my Candy Cane Santa Stocking by Dimensions Gold. He still doesn't have eyes, I still think it's funny. I worked on the green stuff and the background. This only got 2 or 3 days of stitching, so I am very happy with my progress (it's mostly half stitches).
Before:

And now:

Well, that's it for this month. If you are interested in taking a look at what everybody else did for the month, take a look over here.

Happy stitching to everybody =)

Haed challenge finished and an update on Paris Market

I finally managed to finish the Haed Challenge no 2 last night, yay! It took ages to fill in all the dark colors and I am so happy it's done ;-) I never thought that I would mind stitching dark colors so much. I still love the design, but I definitely need something different (with more colors) for a while now :D The dark colors are ok here because it's a QS with "just" 40 000 stitches, so I will finish this one, but I will keep this issue in mind for bigger projects.

But here she is, with 7600 done now:

I think her eyes look rather fine, may it was just the missing background colors that made her look funny. I did a total of 80 colors there and for some nights I just had to pick up something else, so I went for Paris Market by Dimensions Gold:

I did quite a bit on the Restaurant to the left, added a few lengths of thread to the tree and made I start on the flowers on the lower half of the project. The flowers are so much fun, I guess I will work on this more often now ;-) Since this is my oldest WIP, this would actually be quite nice :D

I haven't figured out about what to stitch next, perhaps a few stitches on Middle Earth (well that's not exactly colorful) for the GG SAL or Danielle. We will see ;-)

Happy stitching =)