WIPocalypse January (and also my IHSW update)

Guess who's on time for WIPoclypse this month?? Yes, ME! But don't get used to it, I am sure it won't last to long ;-)
When I just looked at the link-up  for this month there was only one other person who already signed up, that's really strange :D

Answering this months question is also easy - What SALs am I participating in this year? Well obviously the WIPocalypse SAL and apart from that there is the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL hosted by the amazing Jo. This SAL is about stitching on all the wonderful things that were gifted to us or are meant to be a gift one day =) I'm featuring a couple of projects in that SAL, the biggest of them is my Heaven and Earth Design called "Map of Middle Earth XL". This thing is 422 500 stitches and over the years I featured it in the SAL, I did 48 000 stitches on it, so it's really motivating =)

And this brings us to the WIPocalypse SAL and to this months stitching =)
I worked on two projects, which is not overwhelmingly much but I am super happy with my work on those projects.
My first update is on my new start "Noble Spirit" by Jody Bergsma. You may remember that I am (again) trying a new way of stitching (for no particular reason, I just like to try something different from time to time) and I am stitching diagonally (blockwise). Last time you saw this one I had 1 000 stitches done:

I also used this for the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, on which I forgot to post. Before IHSW I was at 3 600:

And I did another diagonal during that weekend (I was hoping for two, but one is better than none). So I am currently at 4 500 stitches:

I am so much in love with this project, it was a challenge to put this down and I feel an itch to pick this up again. But I planned on taking out Ride of the Yokai next, it didn't get any love in 2018 and it's time to make up for that. But maybe I can squeeze in another diagonal on this anyway.

My next update is my monthly update on Kriemhilds Revenge by H D Johnson. I stitched half a page on her and went from here:

To here:

As you can see, we reaches her dress, so soon I will have to face stitching all the light colors on that ivory fabric again. But at least it's no background!
And the best thing: I have now 156 120 stitches done! This means 99 480 to go!!! It's less than 100k to go, I am soooo happy =) This gives me an extra motivation to work on her, it's like I can see the finish line, lol. I mean I guess I will take another 3 to 4 years to complete her, but I feel like I can finish her one day ;-)

So those are my updates on stitching and since of of might now fear that I could actually finish something one day and therefore run out of stitching entirely, here are two new charts I bought during the last Haed sale:

First up is the max color version of "Francesca" by Tatiana Hordiieko.

I bought this like right after it was released, I fell in love immediately! I am currently into high fantasy, so I couldn't walk past this amazing elvish queen. A part of me wan't to start her right away =)

The second one I picked up is a design I have been eyeing for ages, another max color chart called "She sleeps" by Stephanie Pui-Mun:

The detail in this one is just amazing, I think the SPM charts gain so much from the max colors! I originally thought about getting her in December and make her my new year start, but I was to intimidated by the amount of colors and I feel like she is more of a summer design. The year is still young, so a lot can still happen ;-)

That's all I have to share with you for this month =)
Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - January

Well, here we go with another round of GG SAL! I am super happy that this SAL will continue in 2019, it is a great motivation to work on my gifts an gifted projects on a regular basis. =) As every month, there is a link-up (big goal for 2019: sign up after making a post - unlike last November, lol), where you can find all the posts for this month =)

One of the projects that will appear here on a regular basis is ma Map of Middle Earth from Haed. I am doing the large version, which is 750 stitches across. (There also was a supersized version, but when that was released I was already a few pages in and didn't want to restart - even if the writing was a bit clearer in that case. The original version was 450 across, so my version already is a lot more detailed). I received this chart as a rak shortly after it was released and started it in the middle of 2014. I'm featuring this in the GG SAL since early 2015 (I think from the start of this SAL) and since then I added about 47 000 stitches! So far I added about 1 000 stitches every month and I am planning to continue this way =) So here are my 1 000 stitches for this month:
Before:

And now:

I have now 56 000 stitches done, since the whole design has 422 500 stitches, we still have a way to go and I really hope the GG SAL will continue for the next 15 years ;-)

Unfortunately, this is all I have to show for the month. I know you are missing some updates on my other projects (In the Moonlight, Candy Cane Santa, Wolf Kiss) and I will do my best to pick them up soon =)  But right now I am off to do some stitching, I am actually planning to join the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, I haven't done this in ages but this weekend is (almost - it's my birthday tomorrow and we are going out for dinner) free for stitching! I will get back to you early next week with my progress =)

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - Introduction

A new year means a new round for WIPocalypse and since this is the beginning of the year and I am still going strong with my new year resolutions, I am on time! Yay me! Appreciate it while you can, lol. But there seem to be a few people who are even more on time, they already signed up for this month!
Well, my name is Johanna, I am 27 years old (turning 28 in two weeks) and I am currently doing my phd in mathematics (at the university in Bochum, Germany). I am living with my fiancee and we are getting married this September (so I guess there will be a few updates on that as well). Besides stitching I love to read and I love to listen to audiobooks while I stitch. I am mostly into crime and fantasy novels, but I am always open for new things (I am participating in a book club, so I read a lot of different things). I also knit or crochet from time to time. As for stitching, I prefer bigger projects, I love Heaven and Earth Designs, Gecko Rouge and Golden Kite, but I own a lot of kits from other companies as well. I usually go for the bigger projects and higher counts. Ah and yes, I am usually late for WIPocalypse :D

If you would like to see all my projects, feel free to check out my last post, there are so many projects, I think like 23, and if I showed them all again, it would be exhausting for all of us. Therefore I am only going to show the projects on which I want to focus and for which I have a goal.

My first goal is something I didn't achieve last year - I want to work on all my projects! Last year I only worked on 18 of my 23 projects and this year I want to work on all of them. I am still not sure if I want to try another rotation or not. I will keep you up to date!

My focus project for this year will again be Kreimhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson , charted by Heaven and Earth Designs.

Here she is, at least how she will hopefully look one day. She is my oldest WIP, I started her in March 2011, so she will turn 8 this year. So far I finished 35 of 64 pages:

I am at 154 503 stitches now, so just over 100 000 stitches to go on her. I definitely want to finish the 5th  row of pages and make a start on the next row. I will do my best to work on her every month =)

I also have two quickstitches on which I would like to make progress:

QS Paddys Luck is a super cute design, those colors always make me happy!

I started him after I handed in my Master thesis, but so far I only stitches two pages. 

I would like to finish the first row of pages, that is one full page and a partial if I remember correctly, so it should be ok.

QS Trapped has been a WIP for somewhat longer, I started her in 2016 for one of the Haed challenges on Facebook. 

The full design on this is also great, but it's very dark, so I went for the QS version which concentrated on the woman. I have seen a few people work on the original design and it's truly pretty. I worked on my own for two of the Haed challenges and after that she vanished in my cupboard. 

This is where I left her in March 2017, so it has been a long time since I worked on her. Therefore I want to focus on her for a bit and finish the first row of pages (half a full page and a partial) and finish the first page on the second row! I need to make up for the lost progress of 2018.

Another project on which I want to focus is my Golden Kite project called "Crossing the Stream"

Golden Kite does actually have a bunch of patterns without blended threads and this is one of them. To make up for this "loss of detail" it has a few more stitches - 990 across! It's close to 700 000 stitches in total! So far I stitched three pages:

I want to stitch at least two pages on this one, otherwise this will never get done!

And since I don't have enough on my plate yet, I also want to work on my second supersize patter, Ride of the Yokai:

Such a gorgeous design and I didn't manage to work on this in 2018! It was something like "oh I want to work on this in summer due to better light" and then I got into my reading mood and then the pain in my right hand and wooosh, 2018 was over! I am not really working page by page, I started in the lower left corner and doing something between working across and up...

I am at 10 690 stitches by now and I want get this to the 15 000 stitches mark at least! And take a better picture, it looks nearly as bad as Trapped!

Last but not least, I also want to finish something this year! I am working on a Dimensions Gold petit project called "Cliffside Beacon":

I already did a bunch on this one, I am more than half way done. I haven't done any backstitching, so that's also on top:

I made my way through most of the white fence, stitching that one was no fun! But since I managed to do most of it, I hope to speed up my progress and finish it. I have so many wonderful Gold petit kits in my stash, but I want to finish this first.

Well, this has been a long post so far and I guess some of you are already wondering and fearing, no word about new starts, let alone my new year start! But don't worry, of cause I started something new for 2019!

It's a pattern that has been in my stash for years and it's an amazing design! I am talking about "Noble Spirit" by Jody Bergsma:

I did not feel like kitting a bigger project up, I was just so busy! Therefore I wanted to pick somethin that I could do from my stash. So I also chose 32ct Murano in light blue for this one, the same fabric on which I am stitching Ride of the Yokai. I also decided to try another way of stitching:

I decided to stitch the blocks in a diagonal way, I am not sure what to think about this. But then I only have 1 000 stitches done so far, I will stitch a few more diagonals until I decide. Angela (imp stitcher) is doing a lot of diagonal stitching and it looked so interesting, but then she is not using waste knots (which makes the whole matter more complicated). If I really don't like this way of stitching, I will just go back to my usual columns. 

This is also one of my smaller projects, it only measures 350x466 ;-)

As for more new starts... We did some changes on the furniture in our living room (new bookshelves!) and I had to empty my stash cupboard to move it. So I decided to go through all my stuff and I had no idea that it's sooooo much! I have a ton of kits and a ton of fabric and I have like on million Mill Hill kits! I want to stitch from my stash as much a possible, so no "completely new" projects. I picked something smaller for my new year start because I want to start something bigger later this year:

This wonderful design is called "Young Lady with roses" by Golden Kite. I have a meter of 22ct Oslo in my stash and it has been therefor ages, the pattern is fairly new. I want to kit this up over the next months and start it this year, but I have no specific plans.

Another point for using my stash is to save a bit of money. We are currently spending a lot on our wedding. I bought my wedding dress just yesterday and my fiancee chose his suit and then we booked our honey moon (going to Greece!) last week, I never spent so much money in just 10 days... I guess I am going to live on pasta for the upcoming weeks...

To save even more money I am trying to go on a book diet, so far I didn't buy any books this year :D You know it's my birthday on the 20th and my whishlist consists only of books :D I got Kindle Unlimited, there was an offer where you could get 3 months for just 1,99 and so I gave it a try. To ensure further book supply, I friend unhauled books (like 550) and I picked up a few (like 30), I have a ton of Elizabeth George now and the first books on the Wheel of time, so I am going to be busy ;-)

Well, I guess these are all the tings I have to share with you this time! There is going to be another post at the end of this month and an update on the GGSAL to come =)

Happy stitching

WIPocalypse December - End of 2018 update

First of all, I am wishing all of you a happy new year and I hope there is a lot of health, love and stitchyness in 2019 for you =) 

I just didn't have the time to set up a post yesterday, but we were invited to a party and left quite early for that. By now it's already past 6pm here and I am finally getting my butt up to post. You know, this is going to be a very long and very picture heavy post - I am going through all my WIPs and there are a lot of them! So without further ado, here we go!

First I will show you my finsihes for the year - you know me and you know that there won't be to many, so let's make this nice and short.

I managed to finish my Hydrangeas by Mill Hill in April. I carried it over from 2017 and for 2018 I started here:

So I was a bit more than halfway done with it, it's hard to say because I always leave the beading until last. But now it's all done and here is the finished piece:

And since I was already in beading mood, I started and finished another little Mill Hill kit called daffodil egg:

Stitch Maynia made my WIPlist grow, but I was able to finish one small project I started. It's called "Strandidylle 3" by Liebevolle Kreuzstichentwürfe:

It's still now framed, lol. I am so lazy when it comes to framing, I really need to kick myself to get a frame. 

Last but now least I managed to stitch two ornaments for Halloween:

The witch is still not framed - I even own the frame! But I need sew around the edges, I will take out the sewing machine in a few days and will hopefully remember to do this.

Second I am going to show you the projects on which I made some progress since November.

Number 1 is my focus piece "Kreimhild's Revenge" by Howard David Johnson from Haed. In the beginning of this year she was at 129 170 stitches:

And not only did I manage to finish the fourth row of pages (first goal), but I also hit the 150k mark (second goal). I just didn't make it to the 155 600 mark, from where is would be only 100k stitches to go, but I am still super happy with the 25 333 stitches I added. She is now at 154 503 stitches:

Number 2 is "Wolf Variant" by Bente Schlick, also from Haed. At the beginning of this year I had 20 000 stitches done:

I only did some work on this in December, it was on the frame for nearly a hole week, but as you know the weeks before Christmas are so busy, so I only managed to get 1 500 stitches in before Christmas Eve, so here are 21 500 stitches on this one:

On Christmas Eve it was time to take out Number 3 - Miss Christmas Eve by Nora Corbett! I started her for Christmas 2017 and I guess it will take a few more years for her to get done at this rate ;-) I left her here:

And I did some work on her arm, the skin (1 over 1 - takes ages but we are getting there) and her wonderful skirt. I am not counting the stitches on this one, but here is my progress:

After Christmas there were still a few days left in 2018 and since I had a bunch of projects still lacking progress, I took out number 4 - Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart from Haed. At the beginning of the year there were 19 200 stitches done:

And I managed to finish page 4 last minute, just 880 stitches, but every little cross counts, right? Here we are at 20 080 stitches:

(Remark: Why are there numbers to the projects? So I can keep track of how many things I have on the go! Guess what - I already managed to miscount: 1,2,3,5... yeah....not...)

So those where the projects I worked on in December, my progress is not overwhelming, but it was just a super busy month, so I think it's fine.

The next projects I am going to show are new starts for 2018 (except Strandidylle because it's among the finishes):

Number 5 is The Silence After by Chris Ortega from Heaven and Earth Designs - my new year start for 2018! I did 4 000 stitches on it:

Number 6 is a Gecko Rouge project - Across Winter Lake by Jo Grundy, on which I did 1 846 stitches (it's a confetti nightmare):

Number 7 was one of my Stitchmaynia starts: Geishas by Maia (my fist Maia kit!):

Number 8 is called "Robin" by Alysa - also a started for Stitchmaynia:

So plus 4 on the WIPcounter, let's move to my remaining WIPS on which I managed to make some progress:

Number 9 is "Crossing the Stream" from Golden Kite. At the beginning of the year I had two pages done, those were 6 767 stitches:

And I stitched another page this year - so it's 10 117 stitches now:

WIP number 10 is my Supersized SK Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall, another Haed. At the beginning of this year I had 20 080 stitches done:

And I managed to finish the first row of pages on her - 24 160 stitches:

Number 11 is my QS dys Luck by Joana Bromley, again a Haed. I had 8.000 stitches done at the beginning of this year:

And this year I finished page 2 and now I have 10 160 stitches done:

Number 12 - The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart, charted by Haed. I had the first page done by the beginning of this year, that's 5 200 stitches.

And finally some progress - I stitched page 2 and now I have 10 160 stitches done:

Next is Number 13 - Whispers by Melanie Delon and yet another Haed. I had 8 000 stitches done at the beginning of the year:

On this one I also finished page two, so another one with 10 160 stitches done. 10 160 really seems to be the number of the year ;-):

Time for some non-Haeds! Number 14 is by Dimensions Gold - Aurora Cabin. Since I am not counting the stitches on it, here are before

and now:

And Number 15 is also by Dimensions and called "Cliffside Beacon" I went from here:

To here:

Number 16 is a Haed - I guess you already missed them! So here is Yule Angel by Anne Stokes started with 32 000 stitches:

And gained 5 005 stitches:

Number 17 is my second Gecko Rouge project - Sloth. I didn't get much done but I went from 2 403 stitches:

to 3 393. I really need to focus on this one, it's so cute!

Number 18 is another Dimensions Gold project called Paris Market. Not a lot of progress, but at least some. From here:

To here:

Well, those are all the WIPs that got some love last year (writing this feels weird). Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stitch on everything, so here comes the list of shame:

Number 19 is Danielle by Sarah Butcher - I love this design and I don't get why I didn't work on it! I wanted to do to in summer but then summer was already over. So it stays at 13 600:

Number 20 - Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft, the row finish is so close and yet so far! I don't know what's wrong between me and that project.... 27 200 due to my list will also be the start for 2019...

Number 21 - QS Trapped by Melanie Delon. I completely forgot about it... Still at 15 400 stitches.

Number 22 is Starlight by David Hoffrichter, a beautiful project full of confetti, I will try and work on this in early 2019, so it get's some progress. It's still at 18 400:

And finally (I think), number 23 is Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson - such an amazing design, where did it hide last year? I have 10 690 stitches done and I want more!

So that's a total of 56 264 stitch on the projects above. I am featuring a few of my projects in the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL, on which I also count stitches. I did 1 600 stitches on "In the Moonlight" and 12 000 stitches on my Map of Middle Earth, so that makes a total of 69 864 stitches. Considering the fact that my stitching suffered a lot since summer because my stitchy bug learned to read (a total of 107 books this year, even if 10 of those are audiobooks) and afterwards my hand got useless, I am still happy with my progress. What I am not happy with is the fact that I didn't get to work on all of my projects this year, especially Danielle and Ride of the Yokai make me sad. I hope to improve on that in 2019, maybe I will think up some sort of rotation. 

2019 will be a busy year for me, my wedding is in September and there are still some things left to organize. We booked our honeymoon last week (we got an early bird offer, so we squeezed that in) and now we are going to live on bread and water for a few more weeks. I have an appointment for my wedding dress on Saturday and we finally made up out minds about invitations (most people already know the date, but we want to sent out the invitations during January never the less). Then we still need a cake (we have some ideas on what we want and where to order it), I need jewelry to go with my dress (but the dress is first) and we haven't chosen our rings either! And I guess there are a million more things to do for us! But I am sure it will be a wonderful party in the end!

Anyway, I hope you all made it safe and sound to the end of this post, the next one is already due on Sunday! 

Happy stitching =)