Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - December

I can't believe we already made it to December, so this means that this is my final update for 2018! Therefore I am going to recapture all the progress I made this year ;-) And being only two days late is an improvement for me, but nevertheless there is already plenty to see at this months link-up page ;-)

For this month I only worked on one project, stitching is getting better again since my medication is working quite well now, but the time before Christmas is always so busy. I have all my present ready by now (well - I still need to do some baking for my uncle, but that's scheduled for the next weekend), I just need to wrap them up. I also spent a lot of time making tags for the presents, unfortunately it's not so easy to take pictures of them (and with 16 tags made I didn't feel like taking individual pictures):

These are my first attempts to card making - it's really fun, I am not completely happy with some of them, but I am still learning, right? And since these are going away with presents, I decided that they belong to the GG SAL. 

The general idea is that I want to gain some practice at card making. You know, I am going to marry next year and we didn't find invitation designs that were to our liking AND for a reasonable price (some cards are really expensive and since we are going to need like 50 invitations, the price really adds up). I will keep you up to date with my "experiments" ;-)

But back to stitching! I worked on my Map of Middle Earth by Heaven and Earth Designs. Since this is the last update for this year, here is my starting point for 2018, back then I was at 43.000 stitches:

Since last month I added another 800 stitches - so here we are at 55.000 stitches:

So I managed to get 12.000 stitches this year - my original goal was to get at least 14.000 stitches in, but considering the nasty business with my hand, I am completely happy with my 12.000 stitches. I am not sure if I can get the row finished by next year - it's 20.000 stitches after all! But I will do my best and try to get as close to that as possible.

So far I didn't get any more progress into Candy Cane Santa by Dimensions Gold, I thought about not posting until I had something to show, but I didn't want to be to late with this post (well last year I posted on the 23rd...). Anyway, I was still able to make some progress in 2018. I went from here:

To here (at least I took a new full shot)

The biggest change surely is that Santa does now have eyes - I am not sure if he really looks less creepy now - lol.

Another project I took with me from 2017 into the new year is Wolf Kiss by Dimensions. I went from here:

To here:

I only picked this up twice during this year - the progress is really fine for that amount, but I should definitely pick this up more often! It's a nice design, not to many colors and it stitches up in no time.

Last but not least, I restarted my In the Moonlight by Tilton Crafts - you may remember that I managed to mess up the orientation of the fabric. I only stitched two columns, but it's a (new) start:

The background is as dull as the first time, I think I just need to get past the point of my previous progress and then the motivation to work on this will hopefully kick in.

Those are all the things I worked on, I am generally happy with what I achieved this year (there is always room for improvements). The GG SAL will continue in 2019 and I am in for that! Hopefully with more progress on Santa! 

For all those who only drop by for the GG SAL: I hope you have a wonderful and festive time and I am wishing you all the best for 2019 =)

Happy stitching!

WIPocalypse November

Hello everyone,
I am giving myself a big kick to get this post up, I am in an absolute no-blogging-mood, maybe because I am not getting any stitching done (at least that's what I feel like).
I am getting medication for the pain in my hand now and it's working, at least a bit. The medication takes a few weeks to work properly. You start with a low amount and then you increase it after a days. The stuff makes me a bit dizzy, especially in the evenings. During the first week I fell asleep about one hour after my evening dose, but that already got better. I am seeing my doctor weekly because he wants to watch this closely (which I really appreciate, there are a lot of doctors who just leave you with this stuff and say "well you get used to it" - this might be so in a good amount of cases, but since things can go really wrong with strong pain medication, I prefer someone to double check). We plan on increasing the amount one more time, because I still have a bit of pain. The difference so far is that I even had pain when I didn't do anything with my hand and very strong pain when I was doing light work like carrying a mug or a plat or stuff in general. Those things are now painless, yay! I was also able to stitch a bit more, I did like 300 stitches yesterday! But carrying heavy things, using the hand a lot (cooking was complicated, handling knives, stirring something, carrying pot filled with water) still results in pain, so there is room for improvement.

Another good news is that I am going back to work, no teaching (can't handle that amount of writing), but I want to continue with my phd thesis and honestly - staying at home for a week or two is ok - you go like "yeah reading time" and "yeah stitching time" and "yeah netflix time", but I have been at home for four weeks and I am fed up with it by now... Therefore, I am going back by tomorrow and so I am kicking myself to get this up today.

WIPocalypse was scheduled for 25th November, so I am really late for this. At least my answer to this months question about which new stitching techniques I learned this year is short: None...

As for my progress, I decided to pick up Aurora Cabin by Dimensions Gold - I didn't know what to pick up so I chose something I haven't worked on this year. I worked on it for a few days and went from here:

To here:

I just did a bit of work on the background, but it was nice to see some progress on this. Once I got started on the background, it actually went pretty fast.

The second project I worked on is - as usual - my Kreimhilds Revenge. I went from here:

To here:

I think I added like 3 columns to her, so I have 153 040 stitches done on her. I am positive that I can get page 35 done by the end of the month, especially since a lot of the remaining stitches are black.

Since stitching has been so difficult during the last weeks, I spent a lot of time reading - I did the amazing amount of 12 books in November! Well, at the end of the month I decided to reread Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I didn't finish it so far. I forgot how long this book is - 800 pages! We watched the Harry Potter movies last month, I really like the movies, but there is so much more detail in the books, all those lovely small things that build this world, but I see why it's complicated to include all this in a movie. You know the last time I read this was about 10 years ago, maybe 11. I was pretty young then, I think this was one of the first books I read in English (apart from lectures in school). I remember that I tried to read this book in German a bit earlier, but I dropped it after about 100 pages then, but when I tried this in English, I few through it. Anyway, reading this as an adult (and with a lot more experience with English) is like a whole new experience, I am sort of impressed about how much I remember, but I completely forgot about a few things. The pages are just flying by and it is a true delight to enter this book again, it's a bit like coming home ;-)

Well, this is enough rambling, the next post is due on 30th December. Since I don't have to work between Christmas and new year, I will do my very best to post on the 30th or 31st. Until then,

Happy stitching =)