WIPocalypse August

Oh well, it's already past time for another WIPocalypse. Honestly, I don't have much to show this month, I am still so busy with the Haed Challenge (but nearly done with it).

I only worked on Supersized Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall and added a few lines.
Before:

And now:

This one is so pretty and so much fun to stitch, I can't wait to get back to it =)

And then I started two new projects... As I mentioned before, I could not resist buying and kitting up The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart and as soon as my missing threads arrived, I could not help starting it. I haven't done much on it, I just took a little break from my Middle Earth and did the first 1000 stitches (of 349 000):

The colors are really beautiful and I think even those 1000 stitches look amazing =) I guess I will go back to it to finish the first half of page 1 when I am done with the Haed Challenge. Here is how it will look one day (I hope):

And then I had another new start! I have a few days off from work (going on holiday tomorrow) and thought another start would be great. I decided to go for something different and picked "Sheep in the Meadow" by Country Cottage Needleworks:

I still had some 32ct Murano in light blue in my stash, so I'm stitching this 2 over 2 and the sheep will have some sky around them. Here is a picture of the finished design:

This is my first time working with variegated floss and it's so pretty =) I'm stitching all the green now and will fill in the rest afterwards. The outline of the first sheep already looks so cute!

This months question is about reading: Have I read any books involving stitching? Not so far! There are somr crime novels by a German writer called Tatjana Kruse (I think) and the police inspector is a stitcher. I looked for her books in the shop but they didn't have them (I always plan to order them, but they forget about it.. and I already have soooo many books I haven't read). But then I recently got one for a reduced price. In Germany the price for a book is fixed and shops are not allowed to give you a discount on new books. But if the book is damaged (like has a cut in the cover or so), they are allowed to sell it at a lower price and I own quite a lot of such books because they are less than half price (and I am always like "oh, what a good deal, I'll take it!") Anyway, I could not resist buying one of Kruses books for the reduced price. But that was yesterday, so I haven't read it.
I have another crime novel called "A deadly yarn" I won years ago and I never got around reading it. But it has something to do with knitting :D

Anyway, that's it for this month, I'm off to pack the rest of my things for a week by the sea =)

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - August

Well, it's already the middle of August and therefore time for another GGSAL update =) The SAL is hosted by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching.

I only have two projects to show this month, but one of them is my project for the Haed Challenge on FB, so I have tons of progress to show.

Here is Middle Earth as of last month:

And now:

I stitched 60 row on page 4, so another 38 (or 40, as I somehow stitch 2 additional rows to get even numbers) to go for the challenge. It's so amazing to see the writing appear, it finally looks like something and most of all, you can recognize that it's the Map of Middle Earth now! I stitched the same portion when I worked on the Middle Earth RR, wich was the "regular" size(450 stitches wide). I am quite happy that I went for the Large version (750 stitches wide), you can see the writing much better. "The Lost Realm" is still a bit blurry, but I think it's okay, you can still read it. I remember that I thought about getting the supersized version of this (999 stitches wide), but since I already had this one started I decided to stick with it. The writing would surely be clearer, then again I don't think I can finish the supersized version in this life :D With this version of the Map, I am actually confident to finish this one day :D

Apart from Middel Earth, I only worked on my Dog Bookshelf piece, I finished another page, roughly 5000 stitched to go, time to speed up to get this done!
Before:

And now, the big confetti bunch is done:

I am not completely sure, but I think the dark blobbs up there are some writing? I am actually excited to see how the writing will be, I ordered the supersized version of the chart because I wanted the writing to be readable and I had doubts if the normal version would be fine.

I didn't work on Santa this month, I don't know, I was just to busy with other stuff, but I hope to improve next month. I don't think he'll be finished this year, but I still want to get some progress in :D

Since I don't have enough Wips or charts, I got another wolf-themed chart, I saw it on Joysze blog and my boyfriend was instantly taken by the design. So I went to Tilton Crafts and got this fellow:

It's called "In the Moonlight" and it's so beautiful. I think this would be something to stitch for  BF one day (maybe in 2017?)

Ok, this is my progress for this month. I fear I started the Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart (some 1000 stitches so far), so I guess I will share an update on that soon. I hope to be able to share a page finish on Middle Earth for the next GG SAL =)

Until then,
Happy Stitching =)

Iris - Page 3 is finished

I'm still busy working on the challenge, I did 4 rows and made a start on rpw 5 since I took this picture:

Then I took a small break to work on something else, so I chose Supersized Iris Keeper and made some progress. I finished page 3 and added a small bit of page 4, so we have a total of 16 000 stitches done:

I truly love how Iris is coming out, all those lovely colors!

In the meantime, my missing threads for Potting Shed have arrived and I am more than tempted to start it! Maybe I'll put a few stitches in tonight (so much for the "no more big new starts or 2016" :D).