WIPocalypse - Year in review

Well, it's the 31st of December and 2019 is nearly over. We are celebrating the new year with some friend and we are leaving for their house in a bit more than an hour, so I will try and squeeze in my end of the year report for WIPocalypse. The original posting day was on Sunday, but since I did a fair bit of stitching in the last days (I am having some time off from work), I waited until today with my check in. But a couple of other people already wrote their entries, so be sure to check those out here.

So how was my year? It was not always easy, especially the trouble with my right hand and all the pain and medication, but the situation improved a lot after I went to hospital to get treatment for chronic pain and I am off my medication for several months now, sometimes I still have a bit of trouble (lifting heavy things, opening jars and writing on a blackboard for more than an hour in [almost] one go), but I am very optimistic that things will go back to normal gain.
On the sunny side there was my wedding in September, certainly one of the best days in my year and life and even though the time before was quite stressful, it was worth it all. Also our honeymoon in Greece was wonderful. We spent a lot of time with friends and family (even the situation with my mother in law improves - no socks for Christmas, she finally got it!) and my phd thesis is working out as well.

On the hobby site, I am fairly happy with the amount of reading I did in 2019 (134 books, including like 20 audiobooks) and I read a lot of fantastic books. There are only a few books I didn't like at all and I think only one or two books I did not finish because really didn't enjoy them. Please don't ask me how many books I bought, I can just tell you that it's way more, lol :D
On the stitchy side, I worked on 16 of my bigger projects (out of I think 27) and I am currently stitching an ornament) and I did 68 182 stitches on my full coverage projects (54 582 on projects for WIPocalpyse and 13 600 on projects for the GG SAL). I only had 2 new starts (3 if we count that ornament) and no finishes (what else?) and I bought 5 new charts and (I think) 6 kits, so I have been a good girl!
But you are here for some pictures, right? So let's have a look at what I did. I am just following the order in which I made note on the projects (like stitchcount) in my journal, it's approximately the order in which I worked on them

First up is my 2019 new year start Noble Spirit by Jody Bergsma. Since I started this in January, I don't have a before picture. But I did 4500 stitches and here is my progress:

Second is my focus piece Kriemhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson. I did 20 097 stitches on her and finished the 5th row of pages in early December. At the beginning of the year she still looked like this:

And now:

Number 3 is one of my supersize projects - Ride of the Yokei by Ruth Thompson. I did 1 860 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 4 is one of my Quick stitches - QS Paddys Luck by Joana Bromley. I finished the first row of pages by doing 5 440 stitches. Before:

And now:

Number 5 is Starlight by David Hoffrichter. I did 1 680 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 6 is Danielle by Sara Butchere, I did 2 400 stitches on her and went from here:

To here:

Number 7: Garden Gate by Done Gelsinger, also a new start for this year and therefore no "before" picture. But I stitched 2 400 little crosses on it:

Number 8 is my second supersize project and actually not a haed, but a Golden Kite: Crossing the stream. I did 3 350 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 9 is again a Quickstitch, this time  QS Trapped by Melanie Delon. I finished the first row of pages and did 5 200 stitches. Before:

and now:

Number 10 is again by Melanie Delon, but it's Whispers. I stitches 4 960 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 11 is Yule Angel by Anne Stokes, I don't think I shared my progress for December yet, but I did  2 695 stitches on her and guess what? I found one of her wings! I went from here:

To here:

Now here are some projects on which I did not count my stitches. Number 12 is Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petite collection. I went from here:

To here:

Number 13 is Miss Christmas Eve by Mirabilia. I put her on the frame on the 25th and since then I did some work on her skin and her head. I did the first stitches with the Caron Waterlilies and the colors are just gorgeous! I went from here:

To here:

And I am throwing in that Mill Hill ornament I am stitching, I started this some time before Christmas. I already did all the crossstitching, so the beading fun can begin in the new year!

It is called "Woodland sleigh" and I think I own all the sleigh ornaments form the collection, they are so pretty! I will definitely bead this in the next days and it will look amazing then! 

The other three projects on which I worked are Wolf Kiss by Dimensions (not counting the stitches here), In the Moonlight by Cindy Grunsten and charted by Tilton crafts (1 600 stitches) and my Map of Middle Earth (12 000 stitches), but I worked on those for the GG SAL and shared my final updates on them last week. 

Well, those are the things I worked on. There are a buch of projects on which I did not work and even more on which I would have liked to work more, but considering my health issues, I am super happy with what I did and I am super optimistic that I am going to stitch a storm in 2020 =) 

I must confess that I did make a few goals at the beginning of the year, but when I realized that the issue with my hand would slow me down, I decided to forget about them and just work on what I felt like working on. I wanted to make a start in row 6 on Kriemhild, but at least I finished row 5, so that was a close one. I also finished the first row of pages on both Paddy Luck and Trapped (but did not finish the next page on Trapped). I only stitched one instead of two pages on Crossing the Stream and Ride of the Yokai has only 12 500 stitches instead of 15 000 complete and Cliffside Beacon is still not finished. But those things don't really bother me, I did my best and that is what counts.

Since we need to leave for our friends house soon, I am ending this extra long post now and hope you are all as happy with your year in review as I am. I hope you all have a great 2020 and a lot of health, happiness and stitching time =)

See you next year =)

GGSAL - Final update for 2019

Oh my, it's already the 23rd! First I didn't have time to make a post and then I completely forgot about it and now it's the evening of the 23rd! Good news is that all preparations for Christmas are done, I finished my Christmas baking and wrapped the last presents. Honestly, I am not really in the mood for Christmas, I mostly feel stressed out and just want to relax for a few days.
But now I got my butt up to do this finals update on the GG SAL for this year. You can find this months link-up here.

I only worked on one project for December - again. And again it's my Map of Middle Earth, but I managed to do another 2 000 stitches, so I reached my goal to do 12 000 stitches on it this year.
At the beginning of the year, my map looked like this:

And now:

So all the writing in the first row is now done and it's only 8 000 stitches to finish the first row. I plan to focus on this piece during the first months of 2020 with the goal to finish this row soon.

Since this is the last update for 2019, I want to do a short recap on what I did during the year. Apart from Middle Earth I also worked on my Dimensions project called "Wolf Kiss" and went from here

To here:

And I am pretty happy with that progress. I really should work on this more often (I say that every time), after all it stitches up in no time. There really isn't much left to finish the first page (the pattern only has 2), so I hope that I will work on this more often in 2020.

I did a bit of work on In the Moonlight. We had a bit of a bad start because I had to restart this and that didn't help with my motivation. But I got the piece out once and now I stitched up to the point where I was before I had to restart it. I went from here:

To here:

It's not much, but I hope that stitching up to my previous progress will help me working on this more often in 2020.
I did not work on Candy Cane Santa at all, he somehow slipped by. I hope to change that in the next year.

Considering the fact that I was very ill for the better part of the year, I am still happy with my progress and since my health is improving every day, I am confident that I will get much more done in 2020 =)

Since it's nearly the 24th, I am taking the chance to wish everyone a happy holiday, to those who celebrate it a merry Christmas and I hope you all enjoy a lovely time with your family =)

WIPocalypse November

After being on time last moth, I really needed a break and decided to mess it up again for November. I somehow thought November had  31 days, so I thought that I had an additional week and today would be the official WIPocalypse day... Ah well... I am not really ready for December yet. I am not in a Christmas mood (even though I went to a Christmas market last Friday and spent a ridiculous amount of money on food and drinks) and yesterday we bought a last-minute advent wreath (there were not so many left, but we found a pretty one). We don't have any decoration up yet, but we lit the first candle for breakfast and it was pretty festive =)  I started to collect the first presents for Christmas, so I am making progress!

But back to topic, this is supposed to be about stitching ;-) I made a fair amount of progress since last month, looks like the end of the year in sight makes me speed up! I worked on three projects.

First I still hast QS Trapped on my Qsnap, since I started late with the one-per-day-challenge, my challenge ran until the 6th November and I kept my pace of one square per day. I was pretty close to finishing the first row, I think like 1 600 stitches, so I decided to do those in November as well. So I went from here:

To here:

So I did 2 880 stitches on this one in November, even more than in October =) I am super happy that I finished this row, I originally wanted to finish the next page on the second row as well for this year, but I think I am trying to work on a few more of my other projects instead. I did over 5 000 stitches on Trapped and I think that's a good amount of progress.

The next project I worked on it Whispers by Melanie Delon. It has been quietly sitting on my WIP-pile for ages now and when I took it out and started to stitch on it, I just couldn't stop. So I stitched a full page in just 10 days! I went from here:

To here:

I still had trouble putting this down, but I had to do a bit of work on my Map of Middle Earth for the GGSAL and afterwards I put Kriemhild back on the frame, so I put it away after one page. But I plan to work on it again early next year.

The third project was - as mentioned above - Kriemhild by Howard David Johnson. I still have a row to finish there and did a fair bit towards that already. I went from here:

To here:

I did 3 columns, which means that I still have 3 columns left to stitch. I am using this project for the current Haed-challenge, so I need to finish those three columns until Christmas, which should not be a problem.

So I did a total of 10 150 stitches in November, oh my! This might explain why I only read 5 books :D Well, I listened to a lot of audiobooks (mainly the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Institute by Stephen King), so it's more like 7 or 8 books for the month ;-)

Last but not least there is this months question, about which new techniques I learned in 2019: eh.... none :D
But maybe someone else picked up something new, only one way to find out: Check out this months link-up to see all the other updates!

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - November

Oh my, it's already the middle of November, where did this year go? It's only 5 weeks until Christmas and 6 weeks to the end of the year. I feel like I still have tons I want to do this year, so many books I wanted to read in autumn and now it's winter, so many projects I still want to work on or on which I haven't met my goal this year... I usually start organizing my presents for Christmas quite early, I normally make a list in November and pick up most things at the end of November and then I am done with my shopping in early December. But this year I haven't really planned anything so far (well I have two books on my list that I want to give to my mum - she is always "easy" because she reads a lot, but usually she doesn't buy hardcovers because cost twice as much, so I always pick up one or two hardcovers for her).
But back to stitching! I worked on one project for this GG SAL and - as almost every month - it's my Map of Middle Earth. I went from here:

To here:

So I finished the column from last month and added another columns . Middle Earth now entered the Iron-H, lol. Since I want to do 2 more columns to meet my yearly goal of 12 000 stitches, I am keeping this on my frame for a few more days, I want to do at least 500 more stitches before I put it away until the middle of December. I also have that Santa Stocking lying around somewhere, so it would be nice to pick that up as well for Christmas ;-)

I am directly heading off to my frame again, Middle Earth is calling and I can't wait to get back to my current audio book, which is "The Institute" by Steven King. I am listening to the German translation because it's narrated by David Nathan and I absolutely love him! So all I have left to do is point you towards this months link-up, so you can take a look a how everybody else did this month.

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - October

Guess what? I am on time for Octobers WIPocalypse! So far only two people signed up for this month, so I really am an early bird ;-)
This months question is again an easy one - rotation or one project at a time? Well, as you can see/read, definitely rotation! I do have a few focus pieces (currently Kriemhild and Middle Earth), but in between I rotate my other project on an irregular basis, it just seems to be the best for me. I guess I will try a rotation plan again next year to swipe through all my projects and we will see how that goes (last time I managed to stick to this plan for like 5 months).

As for my progress for this month, I have two projects to show.
First up is my work on the One-per-day challenge. Since I started late on this, I will continue for a few more days. So far I went from here:

To here:

I finished page 3 and did a total of 2320 stitches so far and I am pretty happy with that. There are about 2800 to finish the next page and finish the row and I hope to do this for my November update. Since there is a lot of background here, this stitches up really quickly and it's pretty easy to do my 100 stitches a day. And by the way, since it's October I am super happy to use that extra cute needle minder! I don't remember where I got it, but it so adorable =)

The next project, that is also still on my frame, it - as always - Kriemhild. I went from here:

To here:

There are only 15 stitches across, but they took quite long. Her hand was pure confetti, but at least it is finished now and I think the confetti is getting better now. There are 60 stitches across to finish the row and I really want to do this before the year ends. But looking at this picture, I must say that I am once again overwhelmed by the detail in this chart, the rock looks so real!

So that's all I have for this month. My plans for next month are to finish the row on QS Trapped and add at least 3 columns to Kriemhild, who will stay on my frame for a few more days. I want to change projects towards the weekend and maybe work on Whispers for a few days, it's such a perfect project for gloomy days.

Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgousness SAL - October

I am only two days late - I am getting better at this! And I again managed to work on two projects for this months GG SAL
Things are going back to normal now - we went to our photographer and got a couple of pictures printed for our thank-you-cards and we finished putting them together today - finally! Then we also went to another wedding on Saturday, two of our best friends got married and we did our best to help them as much as we could (honestly, we would have been lost without all the help from our friends, so we were even more motivated to help). The celebration was great, but the whole thing was pretty exhausting for us ;-) So I am still a bit behind with all my stuff here ;-) But I hope it will get better now and I will be able to follow your blogs on a more regular basis in the future =)

But back to topic, I guess you want to see a few pictures! So here we go!
The first project I worked on was In the Moonlight by Cindy Grundsten, I went from here:

To here:

Not much to see - still background here. I did another 1 300 stitches on this and I will do my best to add another column for next month, this would mean catching up to where I was before I had to start over (and I would hopefully be more motivated to work on this again..:).

The second project I worked on is my Map of Middle Earth, I fear I have only 600 stitches to show for this month, but I went from here:

To here:

I will keep this on my frame for a few more days to finish this column and to (hopefully) add another column for next month =)

I also knitted a pair of baby socks for my friend (the one who got married), but I already gave them away. I am currently doing another pair for her that match the baby socks, but I still have a way to got there.

I fear this is all I have to show for today.
Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse September

Better late than never - right? So here is my update for September, which is really tiny! September just flew by! First the wedding, then I went to a retreat from university (which was pretty boring, I read a lot, but no stitching), then I was at how for three days and then we went on our honeymoon and then October was here.
We spent a really nice time in Greece, the weather was great and both my husband and I need a break, so we spent a lot of time relaxing in our private pool:

And well, lots of food, a bit of culture and for me a lot of reading and swimming. But I am back in Germany now, being back home is a nice thing, but it is so cold here :D

Well, back to stitching! I only have a super tiny update on Kriemhild to show, but at least I managed to finish page 38. I went from here:

To here:

There is a bit more confetti by now, since I managed to finish her dress (at least for this row). Now it's only one full age and a very small partial page to finish row number 5! Kriemhild is staying on my frame for a few more days (I think), because I really want to get a bit more done. I want to finish this row this year and I currently feel like I need to speed up a bit. Sometimes I feel like I need to take a month off from working on her and I feel that coming, so after the current row I am taking a small break.
In October there is another One-per-day-challenge going on and I plan to attend. Since I am joining a bit late, I am going to continue a bit into November, so I am going to work on my project for one month and hopefully daily =) I decided to pick up QS Trapped by Melanie Delon, I have not worked on this for ages. Here is my starting point:

I am continuing on the first row, there is 5200 stitches left, which might be a bit to much to do in one month, but I definitely want to finish page 3 (29 across) and at least make a start on page 4. I again plan to stitch (at least) one square per day, so my daily goal varies from 90 to 110 stitches per day. I am going to post updates on my Instagramm (@lady_stitchalot) during the month (not daily, but once or twice a week), so feel free to visit me there =)

This months question really made me laugh (and cry a bit) - it's about finishing styles... hahaha... me and finishing things... a well, I must say that I really love to see wall hangings and I think I would like to finish a project like this one day ;-) But I must say that a lot of my projects are things that I can best imagine to be framed in the end =)