WIPocalypse - January

And here we go with the next WIPocalypse, hosted by Measi and here is the link to the linkup page. Thanks to my rotation, I have quite a bit to show and I think January worked out really well!

But first I want to answer this months question: What SALs are you participating in this year?
The answer to this is quite short - I am doing the Fabulous Women in History SAL by Cloudsfactory.
The idea of this is really nice, I just hope that there will be a few scientists there, too (like Marie Curie or Mageret Hamilton, I would also love to see Emmy Noether as well, but I don't think she'll turn up).
So far we got Eleanore Roosevelt (in my eyes a very extraordinary women) and Coco Chanel (I'm not really into fashoin and could have done without her, but she's there and it's ok).
Unfortunately I got quite irritated by the little black arrows on the pattern and thought they would indicate the middle of the designs, but they were only for the middle of the block. Anyway, I had to change the position of Coco and Eleanore and I think this should work out now:

I am sorry, but the fabric color is really hard to catch, especially with artificial light in here.

As for monthly SALs, I am joining the gifted gorgeousness SAL hosted by Jo, where I show my work on pieces that were gifted to me or are meant as a gift for someone.  For further information on the SAL or in case you want to join the ride, you can sign up here.

Next step, WIPs!
First up is my new start Whispers by Melanie Delon, I did 4000 stitches (new start enthusiasm I guess):

Doesn't this flower look pretty! I was so close to screwing over my rotation (after week one...) to continue with this, but I forced myself to go on!

Then I spent 5 days working on Kreimhilds Revenge, I did I think like 1300 or 1400, I just hope that these stitches will add up over the months. I am aiming for 2 columns per month (1 560 stitches) and hope to catch up soon. I went from here:

To here:

There actually was quite a lot of confetti there, even if it doesn't look like it. but I think it looks very pretty and I am looking forward to picking her up again in February.

I picked up my Supersized Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall, not a lot of progress, but 1600 stitches is still more than no stitches. I went from here:

To here:

I am at 17 600 stitches in total now, I will do my best to finish the first row (that would be 24 000 in total)!

The nest Haed I worked on is my The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart. A stunning design, but I am not sure if I ever stitched so much confetti in my life! I love the outcome and I really spent a lot of time on this one, but it just takes a while to stitch up. I went from here:

To here:

When I bought this, I was quite tempted to go for the Max color version, but considering the amount of confetti, I am pretty happy I went for the normal version. There were so many color changes in that small bit of sky there! But this doesn't bury my plans of doing a max color one day (I saw someone work on Aimees Birds and Blossoms in MC and that looked stunning and then that is also one of her "smaller" designs). I managed to add 1400 stitches in the week I worked on this.

Last but not least I have been working on the Haed Challenge, I am doing about 100 stitches a day (at least that's the plan) and since I started a bit late on it, I am at 2000 stitchs now. The section I picked is 7 800 in total, so I have a way to go, but this will also mean that QS Trapped will gain a bunch of stitches. I went from here:

To here:

That funny thing next to her head had some confetti, but I think the outcome looks quite nice. I hope to finish page 1 by the end of february (3200 stitches to go) and then do the half page underneath in march (2600 stitches).

Ok, that's it for this month,

Happy stitching!

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL January

Well, I didn't decide to drop out of the SAL this year, I am just late. So far, 2017 has not been a pleasant year, everything seems to go wrong these day (after the break i in my bf mothers house AND her accident, our car just broke down when my bf was on his way to the hospital... we just hope that it is something that can be fixed and is not to expensive...) and so I just put blogging off.
I had a little birthday celebration on Friday (I usually don't do birthdays, but from time to time I invite some friends). We had a lovely barbecue and a lot of fun. I didn't get any stitching stuff, but a bunch of books, which is also great since reading is my second biggest hobby right after stitching.

But back to the topic - welcome to another round of the GG SAL, hosted by our one and only Jo. Last year I managed to post every month and I want to do the same this year. I got a lot done in 2016 and hope that 2017 will go along, too.
So far I only worked on my Santa Stocking, the one I am doing for my boyfriend. It's not much, but every stitch counts, right?
I went from here:

To here:

I decided to try a rotation this year and the plan is to stitch on my Stocking each month, just pick it up from time to time and hope that the stitches will add up. I did my best to include a GG SAL project every month, so I will hopefully have more to show then.

Happy stitching!

New start and rotation plans

Well, I finally have time to write another post here. 2017 didn't go so well, my boyfriends mother is in hospital with a broken leg and there are a lot of things to organize. So I am sharing various things in this post.

First up is my new start "Whispers" by Melanie Delon charted by Heaven and Earth Designs.
Here is what the finished designs is going to look like:

I absolutely love the lace and the colors and also the flowers, such a stunning design! It's 525 stitches wide and 770 stitches high, I am working this on 28ct light grey (gotta try some new colors from time to time, right?) lugana and so far I did 4000 stitches, it's some background and the beginning of that first little flower in her head piece:

I absolutely love it, it's so much fun to stitch and the flower looks amazing! That's my usual problem with a rotation, I work on something and then I don't want to stop!

But I was a good girl and put this away and took out my Kreimhilds revenge, 22 500 stitches are to be done in 2017! I made a start on the 4th row of pages, due to all the trouble around here I only did 1330 stitches, I wanted to do at least 2 columns, but I will just catch up next time:

That page does indeed have some confetti, but the sky is ging to appear soon enough, so I won't complain. But I think the second page of that row is actually the last full page of sky there is! Yay!

I just put my supersized Iris Keeper on my frame as the next piece in mal rotation and will share an update on it in a few days.

In the meantime I made a small start on the haed challenge, the big plan is to stitch about 100 stitches on my QS Trapped each day (decided to do so on monday - I am at 400, 7200 to go...) and I will see how things go. In the beginning I wanted to use Kreimhild, but parked threads are not allowed this time. I am not entirely sure, if I don't find enough time for the challenge, I will leave that one out.

The bigger plan for this year is to try a rotation. First I want to work on Kriemhild each month to make some progress, so from the 8th to 12th of each month, she will be on my frame.

From the 1st to 7th, 14th to 20th and 21st to 27th I am going to work on one of my bigger projects and from the 28th to the end of the month I am working on a smaller one and then the month is done. I usually manage to stick to a rotation for like one month and I will ses how far I get this time.

Anyway, I am off to stitch all the stress away now,

happy stitching!

WIPocalypse introduction

First of all - Happy new year to all of you! I hope 2017 holds a lot of health and happy days for all of you and that we all will find enough time for our most beloved hobby - stitching! =)

And as last year (and the one before and the one before the one before and so on) I am participating in the WIPocalypse event hosted by Measi, you can find the link up post here.

Since this is the first post for 2017 and there are - as every year- a lot of new people joining us on our quest, I am doing a short introduction on myself, my projects and my plans: 

My name is Johanna and I am by now 25 years old (26 in about 2 weeks time) and I live in Kamen, Germany. I live with my boyfriend and besides stitching I like to read. When I stitch, I like to listen to audiobooks (so I can combine reading and stitching). I don't have any kids or pets (though bf wants to have a dog). I am currently working at the university in Bochum (where I studied) to get my phd in mathematics (same as last year, not much has changed...). I started stitching when I was 18 and it became my favorite hobby. I am mostly a Haed stitcher (who owns over 100 patterns...) but I also enjoy the kits by Dimensions (sometimes it's nice to stitch something in Hand with different stitches and backstitching). I recently got my first Golden Kite patterns and plan to start the first one this year (see plans). Last year I stitches my first Nora Corbett, my first time working on hand dyed fabric and beading (accept for Mill Hill kits) and I plan to gain further experience there - I have some Joan Elliott designs here.

Plans:
My biggest plan for this year is to try a rotation - the idea is that at the end of 2016 I felt bad and stressed because there were some projects on which I didn't work and then I didn't dedicate as much time to them as I wanted. Therefore I made a plan with all my wips and plan to rotate through all of them once. If I dedicate about a week to every wip, this is going to take until June or so. But then every wip will get some love right away. I will decide what to do after that when I am done.

I also signed up for the Cloudsfactory SAL this year - I ordered the Weeks Dye Works needed for that and I am looking forward to participating. The plan is to do so and complete the SAL!

My other plans are related to my projects:

First is my Kreimhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson (Heaven and Earth Designs), I want to focus on this one to get this finished some day:

105 300 of 255 600 stitches are done and the big plan is to hit the halfway mark on this one - go, me, go! 22 500 to be done in 2017, I can do it!
To do so, I plan to work on this one every month for 5 days while I rotate through my projects!

I want to finish my Country Cottage Needleworks "Sheep in the Meadow" on which I haven't worked since last summer:

And I want to finish my Cliff Side Beacon by Dimensions Gold:

With all my other wips I aim for roughly 4000 stitches on them, but the only real goal is to work on all of them during the year. Since I did a very long and exhausting end of the year post, I will only name my projects here (except for new starts):

Haeds:
I have 11 Haeds further already on the go (I hope I didn't miss any), it would be amazing to meet the goals on all of them but if I meet the goal on at least half of them I will be happy,
Yule Angel by Anne Stokes
Starlight by David Hoffrichter
Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick
Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft
The potting shed by Aimee Stewart
Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart
QS Trappes by Melanie Delon
QS Paddy Luck by Joanna Bromley
Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson
Supersized Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall
Danielle by Sara Butcher

I don't have any goals for my Dimensions projects, except to work on them:
Paris Market
Aurora Cabin

New starts:
Whispers by Melanie Delon - Haed (already started, will share an update soon):

Crossing the Stream by Hans Zatzka, Golden Kite -scheduled for February

In the Moolight by Cindy Grunsten - Tilton Crafts - scheduled for March

I will do my best to put some work into all my beauties and I really hope that my rotation will help to get some work into all my projects! 2016 was amazing, I ended up with putting about 95 000 stitches into my Haeds, by I don't think I can do that again this year.

But now I am of to do some more stitching =)