WIPocalypse August (and July...)

 Ah it has been a while, I was in absolutely no mood to blog in July, so this is my update for July and August and I am even late for August. I am still buried in work, but I decided to get my butt up and write a bit here. Despite all my work I got a lot of stitching done. A good deal has been done in the second half of July, where I had two weeks off from work (and I really needed them). Since the beginning of July I am using Pattern keeper and I am really happy with it. I tried a different PDF reader some years ago and was very unhappy, so I continued to use paper charts. But int he beginning of July I finally decided to dig out my extra-old tablet and give Pattern Keeper a try. After I reset my tablet (it kept crushing when I tried to access my dropbox where I stash my digital patterns), things went rather well and in August I did not only purchase the full version of Pattern Keeper, but also a new tablet (one that has a battery that lasts longer then 3 hours and doesn't take 6 to reload...) and now I am only using the app. So far I imported patterns from Haed, Tilton and Goldenkite and it seems to work well. Unfortunately my Gecko Rouge patterns are all printed charts, so I need to look into that and see if I can get digital copies (at least for the charts that are still available) - especially since Gecko Rouge doesn't have overlapping pages and it's quite annoying to switch between pages.... Anyway, enough rambling, prepare for pictures!

The first thing I want to show is my now framed Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petites collection. I am really not that good at framing, but it could be worse:

In July I did another one-per-day challenge, I did not manage to work on my Sloth (Gecko Rouge) every day, but I still got a lot done. I went from here:

To here

And I am at 7 743 out of 23 986 stitches now, so nearly 1/3 done now and added 4 350 stitches!

In early July I picked up Garden Gate by Dona Gelsinger (I had my nails done in lavender [dmc 26 to be precise] then and the color just reminded me of the hydrangeas in this piece...) and I stitched two columns on it. I went from here:

To here:

The second project I worked on Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft - a project that I started some ages ago and did not work on for ages. But I love the design and hope it won't take another 3 years for me to pick it up again. I went form here:

To here:

I got 4 842 stitches done in July and I am more then happy with that =) I hope to get the first row done soon and that my mojo to work in this is back for good =)

Next I did some work on my Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick. I didn't work on it for a long while, I don't know why because it stitches up in no time and I love the purple colors. I went from here:

To here:

As you can see, a lot has changed. When I started this, I didn't zig-zag my edges (to avoid gridlines) and it has bothered me for a while now with this project. In the beginning I wanted to stitch 100 stitches across and then down (jut for a little change) and then I didn't want to start zig-zaging in the middle of the column, because I am weird. But not I just decided to add another column and now I have a proper zig-zag edge there. On top of that, I also filled in the gap and now I have a nice 110x250  stitches block done. That's quite a bit, but the design is huge and so there is still no sign of the wolf. The whole design has 409 500 stitches, so the 5 800 (!!) stitches didn't really move the percentage on Pattern Keeper ;-) but I thing the progress is more then visible.

After that I decided to work on Kriemhild again, I went from here:

To here:

I am now a bit more then halfway through page 42 and I plan to finish that page in September (and make a start on page 43). I did less then 10 000 stitches on her this year and want to focus on her a bit more. By the way, I did not only encounter the first flowers (very pretty), but I also found her helmet. I have been stitching on it for a while, but it was only in the full shot that I could recognize it (the typical haed-effect). 

Now this brings me to my current WIP, Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson. Once again I must say how much I love Pattern Keeper, it just makes my stitching more organized and there are less ninja stitches now. Since I am working on 32ct here, organized stitching and starting/ending threads is important to me here. I went from here:

To here:

Since I no longer need to stick to my pages, I decided to stitch 50 stitches high and the current block is 333, so exactly 1/3, across. I already did a good deal on the next row and plan to finish this block before I switch to something else.

This brings me to future plans! I have 5 more Haeds on which I last worked in 2019, so I am on a good way there. Among those are Yule Angel and Noble Spirit, which are typical winter motifs for me, so I guess I will work on them in November/ December. QS Trapped and Whispers are a bit gloomy, so they really fit in autumn and then there is Starlight, which also fits the gloomy time of the year. Then I have 6 more other projects, which did not get any love this year (one is my Christmas Eve, she will come out for Christmas as usual and one was only used to show a friend how to stitch, so it's not really started). After all, I am very confident that I can get some love into all my projects this year. In September I definitely plan to pick up QS Trapped, I might  do some sort of one-per-day challenge on it (maybe not for a whole month, but 2 or 3 weeks also add up). I plan to do a bit of work on Kriemhild and then I will see what I pick up next.

I also have a new start coming! I decided to join the Pandemic by Longdog samplers stitchers! You maybe know that the pattern was available for free at the end of June, I then ordered some fabric (40ct Newcastle Linen by Zweigart in creme) and a couple of threads for teststitching. I decided to try the threads from a German company called Vaupel&Heilenbeck, they have hand dyed cotton and silk. Since the thread is expensive, I wanted to be sure with my choice.

The colors are really hard to catch, in real live they are really vivid. The smaller skeins are silk and the two bigger skeins are cotton.

In the first row you can see the two cotton colors, the others are silk. I am stitching over 2, so it is like 20ct. The cotton thread is a bit thicker and has a slightly better coverage. I was really torn between the red cotton (no 1, row 1) and the re silk (no 2, row 2). The cotton was a bit fresher, the colors reminded me of berries and it has a bit more variation, so in the end I went for that (I did a bit more test stitching with smaller designs from the pattern, but I did not take a picture of that). Testing the threads already was a lot of fun, so I guess this won't be my last time working with these threads. The silk was a bit easier to work with , it's very smooth and shiny. But the red silk varies a bit into brown (very good for autumn) and I decided that a pandemic a tragic enough, so I wanted to stitch the design with happier colors =) The whole process of ordering the threads took ages, but today I got an email that the rest of my threads finally shipped and they will arrive soon =)

Last but not least, if you want to see more updated for August, just take a look at this months (ah well last months) link-up page, where you can find all other entries and information regarding the SAL.

Happy stitching =)