Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - August

 I know, I didn't make a post for July, but I was just super busy and didn't feel like blogging.

The last semester was very stressful (teaching online was a lot of chaos, especially since the person who was supposed to organize things prefers to "let people decide on their own" and that results in chaos... ah well... I'm glad it's over now). Apart from that I have been working on my phd thesis, I started to write all my stuff down, so I can hopefully hand the thing in this autumn. I had two week off at the end of July and I dearly needed them, I was really completely done, so I spent my days tidying up the house, stitching, audio books and reading. Hubby is currently writing his master thesis, he has until the middle of November, so there are two stressed out people in this house and the place is a mess. We decided that it*s completely ok to have more take-away food (expensive and usually unhealthy) in the next weeks, sometimes we just don't have the nerve/energy/time to cook and clean... And then we have a heat wave, I am melting and feel sticky all day and that doesn't help at all... 

Anyway, today I got my butt up to do a small update for the GG SAL here. I even have two projects to show you! A few people already signed up for August, so head over to Jo and take a look at this months link-up.

First I want to show you my progress on Middle Earth. You know I finished the first row of pages earlier this year and now I made a start on the second row of pages and did my first 2000 stitches (I am again stitching 10-block columns, so I technically made a small start on row 3 here). I went from here

To here:

Not much to see, but in terms of this project there was a lot of confetti in the second column ;-) I think I will pick this up in September or October again and hope to get a bit more done =)

What I am currently stitching on is my Candy Cane Santa stocking, I think by now my hubby forgot that I am stitching this for him because I am so slow with this :D I went form here:

To here:

Not terribly much, but I just started working on it and since I didn't stitch on this for like two years, this is a start after all. I am working on this for a few more days, so this will appear again in September (when I will hopefully also make a post).

I fear this is all I have to show for this SAL. I also skipped the last WIPocalypse, but I hope to make a post for it this month. Also I decided to join the masses stitching Pandemic by Longdog samplers (my first one). I got my fabric (40ct Newcastle linen in creme) and a couple of threads (hand dyed cotton and silk) for test stitching and decided on a color. I now ordered a ton of hand dyed cotton from a German manufacture called Vaupel und Heilenbeck  (it was very expensive but is pretty), but it will take 2 to 3 weeks to arrive. Apart from that, not much is going on here.

I hope you are all healthy, please sty safe and positive!

Happy stitching =)