WIPocalypse May

Well, it's the last Sunday of the month again, so it's time fro another WIPocalypse update. I am starting this post now (in time!) but I am not sure if I will finish it today, since I need to leave for my monthly bookclub meeting in a few minutes. But I will do my best to finish this entry tonight.

Edit: Did it! And the link-up is also available now =) 

The monthly topic for May is "Where do you love to shop for stash?"
Ah, finally a good topic for me, I love to buy stash! :D

The fist shop is obvious - Heaven and Earth Designs! I love their patterns and if I didn't miscount, I have like 132 Haed patterns (oh my gosh, I didn't know that!) but these also include a bunch of freebies and patterns I got in the Christmas Raffle or from the challenges (so it's not that bad, lol). And Michele keeps releasing such wonderful patterns! Did you guys know that Thomas Kinkade signed up with them? I really love his artwork but before it was only available as cross stitch kits from I think Candamar? on 14ct and I was not happy with the amount of detail, so it was super super excited when Haed announced it!

The second company I love to buy charts from is Golden Kite. They have a lot of classical artwork and they are doing a great job charting them - unfortunately they are very expensive if you buy their charts on full price. But they have patterns on sale all the time (I think it changes every few weeks), so most of the patterns were about 50% off when I got them. In addition, if you buy 3 patterns or more, you get an additional 30% off your entire order, so if you buy 3 patterns on sale, the price is really ok ;-) I just recently got into their patterns, so I only have 9 so far :D But I only started to buy from them last year, so I am working on that.

Another shop I really like is sewandso, I buy kits and my DMC and needles from them, their shipping rates to Germany are fine and it's really fast. Their prices are reasonable (compared to German prices)  and they have a lot of items in stock, so apart from a few things (like the Eva Rosenstand kits) I order everything there ;-)

And as you may have noticed, I joined the Gecko Gold Club last year and started buying a lot of Gecko Rouge kits. They have a big amount of stunning designs, I love that they feature a lot of modern art designs. I own a bunch of their kits by now, I only started two, but I'm sure the number will increase :D

Ok, that's where I order most of my things, so let's go to this months progress! I have a lot to show =)

First up is my monthly update on Kreimhilds Revenge. I made a start on row 5 and went from here:

To here:

It's a lot of black, but also the upper part of her shield and even the tip of her spear =) I am now at 142 260 - so I am heading for the 150 000 stitches mark =)

The second project I picked up is Paris Market, I put in a few stitches and it was really fun =) I went from here:

To here:

I did some work on that giant tree and added a few stitches to the flowers =)

Next up are two new starts - but don't worry, they are smaller designs ;-) I did some sort of maynia this year, since we have four holidays here in Germany, I decided to do a new start for each of these holidays. I'm going to do a full update after the last holiday on 31st May. My new start from 10th May is featured in my GGSAL post for May, so I will not show it here.

On 1st I started a small design I bought at the Creativa this year, it from a small German company called "Liebevolle Kreuzstitchentwürfe".
I started the design to the right - Strandidylle 3:

Here is where I got:

It's a lot of fun and I think I will finish this one next month =) I am looking forward to stitching the little duck =)

On the 21st I started a kit from Alisa called "Robin". I also bought this at the Creativa, but I think it was last year. Here is what it should look like:

And here is where I am:

The colors are a bit off, I will try and get a better picture next time. Stitching this is really fun, it uses different amounts of strand and switches between half and full crosses, so it looks really pretty =) It's stitched on 16ct Aida and I am stitching this in hand, which is a nice change and I stitched this parallel to Kreimhilds Revenge, where I stitched mostly black, so in between, I stitched on something more colorful ;-)

I am going to do another start on 31st May, but I haven't decided on the design yet. A part of me wants to do another Haed (maybe Birds and Blooms Garden or Bilbo Baggins?) and a part of my wants to start another kit since I have tons of lovely kits in my stash, so many pretty Dimensions kits, so many pretty Eva Rosenstands and then there are those super pretty Geishas from Maia! Or another Gecko Rouge design! And I already have so many Haeds on the go... Ah, it's a hard decision!

So, I think that's everything for May. I will be back next month after I did some work on my new start on 31st May.

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - May

I know, I am super late for the GGSAL, but this time it's now my fault ;-) We had some trouble with our internet connection, at first everything just went really really slow, so I could not upload any pictures and by Thursday our connection died completely. But it's all settled now, so I can finally share my progress for GG SAL. This also means that if you take a look at the link-up, there is already a lot to see ;-)

So, without further ado, here is what I did since last month.

My first update is - as every month - my Map of Middle Earth by Haed. I managed to catch up with my goal for last month and added my 1 000 stitches for May. So I went from here:

To here:

I didn't really mention it, but I am doing some weird sort of Maynia this year. In Germany, we have 4 holidays in May this year (1st, 10th, 21st, 31st)  and I am starting something new for each of those holidays and work on it for a few days. May new start for the 10th was actually a restart. your remember In the Moonlight from Tilton Crafts? Last year I started this one, but I screwed up the fabric orientation, so it would not fit. I didn't have a hear to restart it last year, so this was one of my plans for this year and that happende on 10th May. I didn't stitch to much on it (still spending a real big amount of time reading), but I got 1 600 stitches in. This time, I checked the fabric orientation thrice! Here is what I have so far:

And just in case you don't remember the design, here it is:

You see, I'm going to stitch the grey background for quite a while. But as long as it makes my fiance happy, I'll do it ;-)

That's all I have for this month.
Happy stitching =)