Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - November

Sometimes I think I should try and schedule the GG SAL updates for like the 12th or so in my mind, so I can be on time for the actual update, lol. It looks like I am 6 days late for this and in 4 days there is WIPocalypse (I expect to be late for that, too). I so much wanted to finish page 7 on Middle Earth first, but since my hand still hurts, I took ages to do so. On some days I can do about one or two hundred stitches (spread over one day), on some days I did not stitch at all. Compared to the fact that before I was able to easily do 600 to 800 stitches on a free day, this is really depressing =/
I had a few more appointments at various doctors over the last to weeks and some of them were truly awful. But at least I am getting some medication now, so the pain will hopefully lessen soon (the medication take a few days to work). I am currently off work and will stay so until the end of the month, but I hope to go back to work by December. I won't teach, because I have trouble writing, but I want to try and continue my work on my phd thesis. But enough for my health troubles, you are here for my stitching, right?

As mentioned above, I worked on my Map of Middle Earth and I am finally done with page 7, yay! I added 1 300 stitches since last month an the total stitch count is now 54 300.
Last month:

And now:

I also put a few stitches into my Candy Cane Santa, not much but every stitch counts, right? I went from here:

To here:

Well, that's all I have for this month. I really hope that with the new medication I can get a bit more done (I was told to try and use the hand from time to time, so the muscles would not stay intact, so I try and stitch for a few minutes then and again). I merely forgot to add this months link-up, a lot of great updates can be found over there ;-)

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - October

Well, it looks like October has been renamed to Octover by now (pun-alert, sorry...) and I haven't posted for WIPocalypse by now. I don't know, time just flies by and I really have to kick myself to post at all (most of the time I feel like I don't have much to show anyway...). I'm pretty busy with my work right now and the issues with my hand are quite unnerving. I am going to hospital tomorrow and I sort of hope that they can finally figure out what's wrong, running from one doctor to another and everyone is telling me that I am perfectly healthy (except for annoying pain in my hand that doesn't let me sleep at night that is) is truly unnerving by now...
But back to business. I read 9 books during the last month, but I still managed to get a few stitches in as well. I have two bigger projects and two mini finishes to show (can't believe it myself!). But first, I would like to answer this months question:
Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time?

Well, I guess that's easy. I rotate my projects. If it's a really small design (like my two finished this months) I finish them in one go, but that go also takes one or two evenings. But apart from that, I rotate my projects and I can't think of any other way for me. Those who watch this place know that I love BAPs, I do a lot of Haeds and they usually have like 250k+ stitches. I think I would go crazy otherwise. If I have enough time and I am in the mood, I do about 1500 stitches per week (I am picking rough numbers to make the calculations easier). So a project with 300 000 stitches would take 200 weeks to finish, that's nearly 4 years! I truly can't imagine working on just one project for 4 years! I have my two focus projects (Kreimhild and Middle Earth) and I am doing my best to work on them every month and even that is sometimes exhausting me. So there is clearly no way that I am stitching one project at a time.

Since I already mentioned two smaller projects, here they are! I stitched two mini Halloween designs, they seem to go by the name of "Make me for Halloween". They are small, cute and pretty cheap, so I ordered three (so I need to stitch one more) of them last month. I chose some hand dyed fabric from a grab bag that I got from Polstitches. Unfortunately, I don't know the name, but it's a nice and light purple/blue/green shading. Also, the colors don't really show in the picture:

I also got some small frames and I already frames the pumpkin and still need to do this with the witch. The third design I have is a little spider and I think about getting a fourth one since I still have some fabric for another design. 

Apart from that I worked on two of my Haeds. The first one I chose is Whispers by Melanie Delon, my New Year start from 2017. I decided to finish page 2 and went from here:

To here:

The red bubble still looks pretty strange to me, but I guess it will get better once I am starting on page, I think this is going to be another flower. I always love to work on this in autumn/winter. The colors are dark and gloomy in the back, but the flowers are warm and I absolutely love red! I am torn between taking this out again this month or working on another project that hasn't gotten any love this year (like Starlight or Rheingold of Wolf Variant). Since I am currently into audiobooks (currently listening to Steven Kings It) again, I sort of hope to squeeze in a few more projects in a month. 

The second Haed I worked on is - as every month - Kreimhilds Revenge. I managed to make a start on page 35, not much but enough to get me past the 150k mark, yay! I am at 150 730 stitches now, so I met another goal for this month. I went from here:

To here:

The colors are a bit boring, I mean there is some confetti spice things up, but it's all black and brown and I fear it's going to stay like this. As far as I can see, we are going to encounter some of her dress in the middle of page 36, I am not sure if I will get there this year, but definitely early next year. I am keeping her on the frame for a few more days, so I can hopefully finish page 35 this year. 

Since it is already November, I am starting to think about next year. I usually do a new start for New Year, but during the last months, my focus turned from stitching to reading and so I am unsure bout ne new start. I currently feel like I am not getting as much done on my current projects and maybe I shouldn't start something new. But then it is also a kind of tradition for me and I always enjoyed them. I usually have a few days off after New Year, so there is enough time for stitching. Maybe I will watch out for a few Black Friday deals for threads and kit something up. I think I will go through my stash or maybe buy something new. I currently have my eye on "Memories of Venice" by Alex Levin:

As I said - I love read and I absolutely love the golden embroidery! But I also have a few nice things in my stash, maybe I will just do another post on this matter. 

This blog post turned out longer than I thought. You can find all other entries at this months link-up here. Measi just announced that WIPocalypse is also going to continue in 2019, that is already going to be the 7th year! 

Anyway, that's all I have for this months WIPocalypse, I guess I will really do a post on my new year start thoughts ;-) 

Happy stitching =)