WIPocalypse February

Time for another WIPocalypse update and I seem to be sort of in time (by accident). I thought I messed this up again. On Friday I noticed that the last Sunday of the month would have been the 23rd, so I wanted to make a post. Then I was confused, that there was no link-up, until I remembered that we had a leap-day check-in this month, so I was actually a day to early and decided to do my post on Saturday, but then I was busy helping a friend move and I was invited to a birthday party, so Saturday was suddenly over and now I am a day late for the check-in. But here we go ;-) You can find all the other entries at this months link-up page. 

I had a super productive month, I stitched a lot and I read a lot (nearly 4200 pages and on top of that 2 full audiobooks and a partial one), so I am overall very happy.

As for this months topic, it's about the "leaps" we made in stitching. I don't really know how to answer this question. A big leap for me was to start my first Heaven and Earth Designs, we all know how big those are. Also I was still a student and living on my pocket money at that time, so kitting the supplies up for this was a huge expanse for me (and not an easy decision) . Maybe another leap was my first supersize project (Ride of the Yokai), I never did such a huge project before and I needed to work on 32ct because (at that time) this would have been the only way to fit the project on my frame. But I must say that I got used to the 32ct pretty soon and I am now very happy I made that leap.
A leap that is still before me is to start a Golden Kite with blenden threads. I have a few GK in my stash and I would love to start one of them. The problem is that he projects are not only quite big (and since I would need to stitch with two threads, I would use a 22ct or lower count fabric), but the amount of blended colors is huge. The total color count is around 200 and more than 100 are blended, I am still thinking about how to organize this and kitting such a project up would be quite expensive as well. If I make my leap here, you will learn about it here ;-)

But let's get to this months progress, I am eager to show you what I did =)
First I worked on The Silence After by Chris Ortega (Haed). This was my new year start in 2018, after I bought chart and material pack pretty soon after the release. I did 4 000 stitches and then this sat in my wip pile, so it was time to work on it again. Here is the last update you saw (in Febrary 2018):

And here is where I got to:

I stitched 4 columns, so 3 200 stitches and I am very happy with this. Stitching the tree was a bit dull, but I loved working on the sky behind the tree. There was a nice amount of confetti and I love how the smaller trees in the back turned out.

The second project I worked on was Supersized SK Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall (Haed). When I started this in 2015 I stitched on this regularly and made good progress, but then it disappeared in my wip pile as well. So it was more than time to take this out again and I went from here:

To here:

I did 4 columns on the second row, so a bite more than 3 000 stitches and I loved stitching this lovely swirl on color there =).

Last but not least, I worked on a project that is not a Heaven and Earth Designs again (still going strong on that plan). I originally wanted to work on Aurora Cabin, but when I went to my cupboard to take it out, I came across "Geishas" from the Maia collection (Anchor) and I just wanted to work on it. I started this for Stitchmaynia in 2018, but I didn't stitch more than one of the Geishas heads then. Last time:

And now:

So I started dressing that Geisha in her lovey yellow kimono and I love how this turns out. Compared to a haed there are only a few colors, but I love the shading they create. The project is still on my frame and I am not sure if I feel like switching projects yet, so I think I will work on this for a additional day or two.

So this is all the progress I made in February, as I said before: I am super happy =)
Since today is 1st March, this means the start for the first WIPocalypse challenge in 2020. It's another 1 per day challenge, I participated in them last year and had a lot of fun. For March I am going to work on my Golden Kite project "Crossing the Stream" (I already did that last year) and again, I plan to stitch one square (so about 100 stitches) per day. I am going to post regular updates (about twice per week) on my Instagram (@lady_stitchalot), so feel free to follow me there, but I hope to my a mid month update on this here as well.

I hope you all had a productive month as well.
Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - June

Ah I have been sort of surprised by this WIPocalypse, in my head there were 31 days in June and I thought it the WIPocalypse posting would be due for the upcoming Sunday. Well, here we go.... As always, I am including this months link-up here and since I am late, a few people have already liked up there =)

This months question is about our ideal stitching retreat. I must confess, that I didn't think about the issue to much since I am currently not feeling like going on a retreat - I'm sure they are fun, but right now my weeks are really packed with things and during the weekend I am just glad to be home and without other people, lol. During the week there are so many people around, everything is hectic and during the weekend I enjoy the silence :D But going on a retreat, I would love a nice location, maybe a chance to sit outside as well, some nice people, good food and in the evening, a glass of wine ;-)

The topic for next month is a half year recap, so far I am not doing that well for my goals, so I hope to get some more done for next month. I will have a few weeks off during in July, so there is still hope. There is not too much hope, since I am still glued to my books and not getting any stitching done... So this months progress is not to impressive... But here we go:

First up is my last Maynia start - I did my fourth start on 31st May and it my first Maia/Anchor kit called "Geishas" and this is where I got:

And here is the design:

You can see, I started with the sitting Geishas face and I absolutely love it so far =) 

I also have a small finish to show. On 1st May I started one of the two designs from Liebevolle Kreuzstichentwürfe, here is where I left off last month:

And here is the finished piece:

The backstitching really adds a lot to it, the duck and the seagull are so cute! But the grass was horrible to stitch, it took ages to do all those longstitches... But I really love the result =) And I am definitely going to stitch the second design this year =)

Next I decided to pick up my Gecko Rouge design called "Sloth". I don't know what it is with this one, but it just takes ages to stitch- my usual progress on this one is about 200 stitches per night... Maybe it's because I am doing 2 over 1 and using my laying tool.... Well, I only got one column done, so 890 stitches on top... I went from here:

To here:

Since I really want to stitch the first quarter of this in 2018, I plan on stitching another column in July =)

Another project that didn't get to much love (but is currently on my frame and getting more love) is my Kreimhilds Revenge. I added one column since you last saw her and went from here:

To here:

Stitching all that black is a bit dull, but you can now see the tip of her spear =) It's just 770 stitches so far, but I was planning on doing my post next Sunday and thought I would have more time to work on her :D She will definitely get more love this month, I plan on working on her at least until the end of June and will do my best to get a page finish =)

Last but not least, since finishing my Hadrangeas in April, I was looking for another smaller project I could focus on. First I wanted to finish the lighthouse from my Maynia start, which I did, and now I have chose "Cliffside Beacon" by Dimensions Gold. I am already more than halfway done and it's a beautiful summer design. I am adding a few stitches then and again (getting along nicely while stitching all the black on Kreimhild). Here is where you last saw it:

And here is where I am now, just a hand full of stitches added, but every stitch counts, right?

Well, this is truly all I have for this month... And I am off to bed now, along with a nice book and one or two hours of reading ;D

Happy stitching =)

Mayyyyyyniaaaa =)

In my previous posts I mentioned that I did some sort of Maynia this year - don't ask me why I decided to join this year, it was a very spontaneous idea because I felt like making a few new starts. You know that I usually go for bigger projects and so there was now way for me to start 15 projects in 15 days, especially since I prefer to work on a project for more than one day. So I decided to do 4 new starts during the month. In Germany (at least in the part where I live) we had 4 holidays in May, so 4 additional free days, yay! And since a free day means a lot of stitching time, I decided to do my starts on those days.

Since the dates where sat, I faced the next task: Choice of projects! 

Two of those were easy - I really wanted to stitch one of the small designs from Liebevolle Kreuzstichentwürfe and I wanted to restart my In the Moonlight by Tilton Crafts, which makes a really small design and a medium sized project (I think 112.500 stitches in total?). I thought about starting another Haed - you know I love them and I have a ton of gorgeous designs I want/need to start. But then I also have a ton of kits in my stash, kits I really love but most of the time I start a Haed instead of a kit . So I decided that the remaining two new starts should also be non-Haeds. But without further ado, here are my new starts!

The first new start was on 1st May and I went for a design from "Liebevolle Kreuzstitchentwürfe" called "Strandidylle 3". I bought it at the Creativa this year and it's design on the right:

This was my first time stitching one of their designs, it's stitched on Linen (I think it's 32ct), 2 over 2, there is no information on the used threads, but it's cotton and I guess it's DMC or Anchor. I already showed you an update for WIPocalypse, but I made some more progress since then, I even finished it!

Isn't it cute? It looks even better then I expected, the picture doesn't do it justice! I absolutely plan on stitching the second design this year and getting some patterns next year.  =) Stitching this was fun, but I hated stitching all the gras, but it looks so pretty now =) And I really love the duck and the seagull =)

This brings us to my second new start, that was on 10th May. On that day I decided to do my restart for In the Moonlight by Cindy Grundsten (Tilton). You remember, last year I had the fabric orientation wrong, but this time I checked it thrice!

Here is the design:

For me it's a smaller design, just 300 by 375 stitches, lol. And here is where I got, some background:

The beginning is a bit dull, mainly 5 shades of grey and oh yes - I stitched this before... This one is again stitched on 28ct grey Lugana, 1 over 1.

My next new start was on 21st and I went for a smaller design - a kit from Alisa, which is a Russian company, and simply called "Robin".

The design uses half and full crosses and between 1 and 3 threads, which gives a nice 3d effect. I started in the upper left corner and stitched one of the flowers and some sky:

I am stitching this one in hand, the Aida (I think 14ct) is quite stiff, so it works well. 

And then there is my 4th new start, I made it on 31st May and haven't shown it before. I decided to go for the Geishas by Maia. I bought this one in March, but since it is soooo pretty, I am happy to show it again here:

It is worked on 18ct Aida and I am amazed by the quality, this is the softest Aida I ever used! This is also my first time using Anchor threads and so far I am happy with them. I decided to start in the middle with the sitting Geishas face:

Isn't she pretty? and just imagine how beautiful she will looks with the backstitching! She is a real joy to stitch and I am happy that I started this project =) 

This project is bigger than I expected, I think the stitch count is over 60 000, but this means that I will enjoy this for a long time, which is also something nice =)

Well, those are all my new starts! I guess I have enough new start for some time now :D