WIPocalypse June

I am nearly in time for WIPocalypse. who would have thought that could happen! But here I am :D This wonderful SAL is supposed to inspire us to stitch on our projects as if it's the end of the world (and that new projects, just imagine the world ends and you never started one of your favorite projects???) and is hosted by Measi, you can find the link-up post here. 

This months question is about our stitchy spot. I usually sit on the couch when I stitch, it usually looks quite messy ;-) To the one side I have my floss boxes (currently four, I think I pwn a whole set of DMC by now), my Millennium frame in front of me and to the other side I have my laptop and an ort jar. I also have a pillow in the back, it's just more comfortable for me.

I usually looks like this :D I mostly listen to audiobooks (therefore I need my laptop close by), watch flosstube or TV (which is in front of me). I try to have anything I need close by, so I don't need to get up all the time :D

As for this months progress!
The first thing I worked on is The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart, such a beautiful and colorful summer design! I got carried away and finished the first page =) I added 2800 stitches to this one and went from here:

To here:

I absolutely love it!! =) I can't wait to get back to this ;-)

The second project for me was again - as every month and you are probably sick of it by now - Kreimhilds Revenge by H D Johnson. I started page 27 and stitches half of it.
Last time:

And now:

You see the dark thing in the corner there? It's a part of the rock and it means that I am done with the sky-only columns on this row ;-) You can't imagine how happy I am about that :D I am at 117 630 stitches or so, so less than 9000 to go to the halfway point (I did some 12 000 so far this year)!
So stay tuned for next month, she will be back again and maybe we see some more of the actual Kreimhild then ;-) I plan to finish page 27 in July.

The third project I worked on was my Mill Hill kit called Hydrangeas, I already talked about it and finally, there is something to see:

My own Hydrangea is in bloom by now, I just love to see them open up and change the color from green to violett to dark blue ;-) I absolutely need more Hydrangea patterns in my live :D

Last but not least I started my first Diamond Painting. I chose "Dragons Keeper" by Renee Biertempfel. It's 525 stitches wide and 339 stitches high, so it's not that big of a design. But since the canves is 10ct, the canvas is huge! I made a start on page 1 and did some 2000 diamonds:

It goes way faster than stitching and it's pretty, but it does not compare to stitching ;-) after working on this for an hour or so, I just feel like doing some actual stitching ;-) But I think the design will look great as a Daimond Painting, just as a reminder, it should look like this:

That's it for this month =)
Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - June

It's June and I am two days late for the GG SAL. But here I am! And here is the link to this months link-up =)
Yesterday I got a new laptop and so I hope to be more active in  blogland (now that I can open Chrome or a mail program at the same time....) in the future.

I don't have much to show this month. I worked on Candy Cane Santa, not much, but we are getting there!
I went from here:

To here:

At this rate, Santa might be done at the end of 2020! I hope I'll speed up (or find a way to slow time down).

Happy stitching =)

The potting shed - page 1, new start and stash

It has only been a few days since my last post for WIPocalypse and at the end I mentioned that I wanted to pick up the potting shed by Aimee Stewart for a few days and that's exactly what I did ;-)
I just felt like stitching a summer design and Aimees designs are so beautiful and colorful and you all know that I found my love for gardening.

So I took the potting shed out and finished page 1:

It has a lot of confetti, but it is so much fun to stitch! It was not that easy to put this down, but I want to add a few stitches to my Kriemhild (about 3 columns of sky to do!), but I will surely pick this up again before the summer is over ;-)

Another lovely spring design I am working on is a Mill Hill Buttons and Beads kit called "Hydrangea". I love Hydrangeas, they proably are my favorite flowers. I have three by now, one from last year (blue, it's coming into bloom right now) and two I got this year (red and white-pink). I have already spent some time looking for Hydrangea patterns, there are a couple by Dimensions and so I might get some more some time.
This is what my Mill Hill kit will look like one day:

I started stitching the background and this piece is making trouble. It's sort of funny by now...
 First I ended up miscounting, so the piece is not centered, but since I won't run out of space and I plan just to clue this to something for framing, I think it's not that bad.
Second, all my MH kits are stitched with 3 strands, so I just started stitching with 3 strands... But it should be 2. I noticed this when I was already a good deal in, so I decided to continue with 3 strands, I have all the colors in my stash and I just mix the threads so there should not be any dyelot issues.
This, I started stitching on the wrong side of the perforated paper... The correct side is yellow colored, I am stitching on the off-white... Lucky me, I'm doing three instead of two threads, so you won't see the background...
Fourth, I miscounted... I noticed this when I was adding the second yellow color... But I decided to just fix this along the way and it should be fine now....
Anyway, all problems are not that bad, but how unlucky can one be with a single project?
Despite all the trouble, this is what I did so far:

I can start the actual flowers now, yay!

Ok, that's it for stitching my WIPs, here are some new future WIPs!
I bought three Haed charts since the beginning of May. I don't think I showed you the chart I got in the middle of May during the Haed fullprice support thing.
I got "Snow white fog" by Bente Schlick, I requested a color expansion for this one, I just love it and want to be sure that the deer is visible. I requested about 150 colors and the chart now has 126. Fun fact: thanks to the color expansion, the chart now features 4 stitches of white (3866) :D

Then I had to buy two charts during the speed sale. I was really good at resisting, Michele posted that the sale would end some time during the next 24 hours (it was in the afternoon here in Germany) and when I went to the website the next morning, it was still going on and I was like "ok, that's a sign or so". I was so happy stitching the potting shed, I had to pick up another Aimee Stewart design.
I went for the Secret Garden Bookshelf and since I am a mad girl, I went for the Supersized Max color version of this! It just has so many details and I want them as clear a possible! I don't know how I will manage this, I can only fit a Supersized pattern on my Millennium frame if I go for 32ct, but I think with all the confetti it will be hard to push the needle through. For a max color I would probably prefer a 25ct, so my frame is 10 inches to short. One idea is to stitch this sideways (which I haven't tryed before and I imagine to be weird), another one is to stitch this with a Qsnap (I need to see how heavy this is and get a big grime guard to get the fabric out of the way) or get a costum frame, maybe an Omanik frame (they are cheaper and faster than Needle Needs). I will find a way!

The secong pattern I bought is called Aofie by Pat Brennan. I think he is fairly new to the Haed family, but he has a few stunning designs. Aofie was released just a few days ago and I had to get her. I think she has something magical to her and I love the colors, they are really calming. With just under 180k stitches, she is one of my "smaller" designs... I really need to stop buying all those supersize patterns..

Isn't she gorgeous?? If I didn't have sooo many WIPs and new starts already (and not even through my rotation), would start her right away!

But that's it for me now, I hope everyone had a wonderful stitchy weekend!
Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse May

And again I am late! Like every month :D This wonderful SAL is hosted by Measi and you can find the link up post here =)
 I did not spent that much time with my stitching this month, the weather improved and I spent a lot of time working in the garden.

This first "WIP" this month was our raised bed:

It is not completely finished, the planks on to still need to be cut, but that will happen next week. I put some strawberrie, some salad, peppers and carrots in. There is still some room left, but I have not decided what to put in there. I have some tomatos, a cucumber and some beeries as well, so I guess I will have plenty of vegetables and fruit throughout the summer ;-)
In front of the raised bed I put some herbs:

We have some lemon balm, basil (three different ones: one with small leaves, a violet one and a "normal" one), some french lavender, mint and parsley.
I also got a few cuttings from my neighbours rosemary and sage and hope to grow some plants from them.

So a lot of time went into this project, so less time for stitching, but I still got a few stitches in!

First up is Danielle by Sarah Butcher. Oh how I love her, all those amazing colors! It's a true summer project! I got two columns in, so 1600 stitches were added:
I went from here:

To here:

I think it's not to far to go until the little bird will appear, I am looking forward to picking this up again soon =)

Then I also spent some time working on Kriemhild and managed to finish another page on her (the second one for this year). I went from here:

To here:

I am bravely making my way through the sky, at least it stitches up very fast. I actually think that this was the last full sky-page, yay me!

The last project I worked on was Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart, I stitched some more trees.
I went from here:

To here:

It doesn't look like a lot of progress, since the trees all look alike, but I added 1600 stitches and I think that's better than nothing.

I also started a new project calles "Hydrangeas" by Mill Hill. There is not much to see, especially since I only stitched light yellow on lite yellow paper :D So I will share a picture next month when there is (hopefully) more to see =)

Due to my rotation I still need to work on Wolf Variant and QS Paddys Luck. But I decided to pick up the potting shed by Aimee Stewart for a week or so because it is really calling to me. Then I will go back to working on the remaining two projects and maybe start my first Gecko Rouge project after that (maybe the Sloth?)

Anyway, as for this months question! It's about designers I would like to try, but I am to intimidated to start them. I suppose I didn't make much progress on that front, it is still Chatelaine. They have beautiful designs with so many lovely special threads and stitches, but since they are fairly expensinve and I never really tried special stitches, I am intimidated (like when it's so expensive, it's even worse if I mess it up).

That's it for this month,
Happy stitching =)