WIPocalypse -July

And here we go with another WIPocalypse, somehow it seems to be the end of July and I am on time for this - at least while I am starting to write this entry. This months topic is the half-year recap and this could result in a really long post, so maybe I will not finish the entry in one setting.
Since the Lady of Stitch-a-Lot is still on holiday in the Castle of Read-a-Lot , I am also not confident that I will be satisfied with my progress so far (another reason why I don't really feel like writing this post).
I have a few days off from work since last Wednesday and I am so happy about it - it is so hot here in Germany, it's not funny anymore. I feel like I need to water my plants a hundred times a day and whenever I did that I need to shower, there seems to be no way to cool down the house (we are already leaving all our windows open at night) and you can't get outside because the sun burns so hot. I usually get up at 7 am and then I sit outside with a cup of tea (reading - what else these days?) because around 9 am it's to hot to stay outside (our garden is to the east, so I have direct sun there in the morning) anymore. We gave in and bought a small pool this year and it already was worth every penny... My stitching has increased over the last days, I think my bug is thinking about coming back, but while stitching I need to wash my hands all the same because my hands are getting sweaty... I really don't mind the sun or warm days, but these temperatures above 35° celsius (due to google: 95° fahrenheit) are killing me...
Well I am doing my best to put a few stitches in every day and most days it works. I am slowly increasing. I think one reason for my missing bug is that it just needed a rest - I stitched so much during the first months of the year and maybe I just needed a change. I always loved to read, but usually I read on my way to work (and back) and before I go to bed. I used to read like 4 or 5 books per month and most books I read where things I got for cheap while waiting for my train to arrive. But since I discovered booktube, it's like a whole new world is there, I started looking at different genres and so on. I never really read YA fantasy (well except Harry Potter), but there are so many authors I never heard of and so many lovely books, I was truly overwhelmed but it and I wanted to buy and read everything at once - lol. This and the fact that I always love to read a lot of stuff during summer just took most of my energy. I feel my focus moving back to stitching, but since there are still a lot of summer reads I am looking forward to (I am currently reading The Lake House by Kate Morton, it's so good), I think it's going to be a bit more quiet here for a few more weeks. But I feel the urge to stitch on some of my summer projects (like The potting shed or Danielle) now and that's always a good sign.

Anyway, this was a lot of talking about my life, let's move to the stitchy things. As mentioned somewhere above, it's time for a halfyear recap now. As every month - there is a link-up and you can find it here.
I tried to work on a few projects that relate to goals for this year (felt like I needed to do some work on them), so I will start with the projects where there is some new progress to show.

First up is my focus project Kreimhilds Revenge by H. D. Johnson. When I set out for 2018, she had 129 170 done and I had three goals: first I wanted to finish the fourth row of pages, then I want to crush the 150 000 stitches mark and then I want to hit the less-than-100k-to-go mark at 155 600 stitches. So far I did 145 340 stitches - so I met my first goal and I am close to meeting the second one.
Last time you saw her:

And now:

I have not met my monthly goal for July, I only picked her up last night, but I plan on stitching on her for a few more days.

The reason why I didn't get so much work into Kreimhild is my Supersized Sk Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall. I had four pages done at the beginning of the year and my goal was to finish the first row of pages and that's what I did last week - I added 4080 stitches and went from here:

To here:

And I am so happy about this! I planned on stitching on Iris for a couple of days and moving to Kreimhild, but then I was three columns away from the row finish and I just didn't want to stop - so I continued ;-)

The third project I worked on is on my to-be-finished list for this year - Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petite collection. I went from here:

To here:

The progress is hard to spot - I mostly stitched white and it's super annoying and I am so happy when I am done with the white in the fence... A great summer project, I hope to make more progress on it for August.

So these are the projects I worked on since last month, which brings us to my work on my other goals.
So next on the list is my Sloth by Eya Claire Floyd from Gecko Rouge. I want to finish the first quarter of the chart and then head for the halfway point. I worked on this last month, but I only added one column. Here is where I currently am:

I definitely want to work on this, but I won't make any promises. My next plan is to do more work on Kreimhild and then there is that urge to work on The Potting Shed, so I don't know if I can share an update for next month, but I will try.

The last project I wanted to work on is my QS Trapped, I want to finish the top row this year, but so far I haven't picked it up...

Next up are the projects I want to finish in 2018, they are smaller projects so I have a chance to do so. The first one is already finished, my Hydrangeas by Mill Hill:

My Cliffside Beacon is listed above and I didn't do any work on that Bird from Dimensions so far.

Concerning my other projects I don't have any specific goals, I just want to work on all of them during the year. So far I worked on the following projects:
Crossings the Stream by Golden Kite - I stitched one page
Paris Market by Dimensions Gold
QS Paddys Luck by Joana Bromley - I did some 2000 stitches
Yule Angel by Anne Stokes - I stitched one page
The Silence after by Chris Ortega - I did 4000 stitches
Across Winter Lake by Jo Grundy from Gecko Rouge - some 2000 stitches
Geishas by Maia
Robin by Alysa


And these are the ones that still yearn for some love:
Aurora Cabin by Dimensions Gold
Danielle by Sara Butcher
Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft
Miss Christmas Eve
Starlight by David Hoffrichter
Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson
The Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart
The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart
Whispers by Melanie Delon
Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick

So there are 10 projects I still want to work on, I am not sure if I will get this list to zero, but I will work on it ;-)

I also stitched two more small projects and finished them:
One of the beaded eggs from Mill Hill:

And I stitched a small design by Liebevolle Kreuzstichentwürfe:

So on my Haed/Gecko/GK projects I did 32 421 stitches. On my Gifted Gorgeousness projects I did another 9 600 and then my work on the smaller projects - so I am not even close to 50 000 stitches so far. I always want to try and do 100 000 stitches, but I think I am going to fail again ^^°

Well, this is everything I have for this month,
Happy Stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - July

And here we are in the middle of July and it's time for another GG SAL update and this month am not only on time for the SAL, but I also have progress to show on two of my projects AND one of them is Santa! It's currently really hot here in Germany, we are having a wonderful summer (maybe not enough rain, the grass outside looks like hay...), so it was not easy for me to pick up Santa, but I wanted to get the second window section done (there really wasn't much to do...), so I gave myself a kick.
So I went from here:

To here:

As you can see, I even bothered to stitch Santas eyes, lol. He looks a bit less creepy now, but still a bit weird. I guess that the backstitching will help a lot, but since I am stitching this on a Qsnap and I am still moving around the frame, I am doing the backstitching at the end. You can also see that I added a few more stitches to the window cross. I am not sure about which section I will start next - the one with Santas body or the one with the Christmas tree, but I think I am going to start with doing more work on the window cross for orientation ;-)

The second project I worked on is- as every month - my map of Middle Earth. I added my 1000 stitches for this month, we are not moving along that fast with Middle Earth, but the stitches add up. My total stitch count on Middle Earth for this year is 8 000 and that's definitely something =)
I went from here:

To here:

The progess on this is still really slow, there is a lot of confetti in the mountains and that dark blob in the lower right corner is full of confetti (at least it's done for this row).I am now at 51 000 stitches, if I stick to my plan, I should do another 6 000 stitches this year, which brings us to a total of 57 000 stitches. The first row has 75 000 stitches, so getting that done by the end of 2019 would be awesome. I think I will try to squeeze in a an additional 1 000 or  2 000 stitches this year, so I can meet my goal for next year =)

Well, this is all I have for this month, not to much progress, but every stitch counts =) I have a few days off soon and I think I will pick up my Wolf Kiss then, so I can add at least a few stitches to them for my August update =)
I nearly forgot to include the link-up for this month, but here it is =)

Happy stitching =)