WIPocalypse - March

It looks like March is already over, time has flown by again! I hope all of you are well and well supplied with stitching supplies.
We don't have a total lock-down here in Germany, but everyone is advised to stay home and not physically socialize as much as possible (and you are not allowed to meet with more than one person outside, unless you live with them). Me and my husband are working from home now, since the university is closed (at least until 19th April), so we are home most of the time. Lucky us, we are introverts. I am reading, stitching and working and my husband is playing computer games and working. So far, we and our family and friends are healthy (even one of our friends is being tested for corona, he works in a hospital and one of his patients has been diagnosed with corona after he treated him, but he is not showing any symptoms as of now). My mother seems to be a bit more reasonable now. She feels a bit lonely at home, but she seems to stay at home now.

Anyway, back to topic - Wipocalypse! The original posting date was two days ago, but I did the one-per-day challenge and wanted to finish the challenge, which I did =) But first a short reply to this months question. Did I ever adopt a project from someone else or give a project up for someone?
No :D That just never occurred :D
If you are interested in more updates for this month, feel free to visit this months link-up page here.

So we can start with my progress for this month. First I have my work for the one-per-day challenge. I chose to work om Crossing the Stream by Goldenkite and went from here:

To here:

I stitched page 5 and I am now at 16 817 stitches. Since I reached the width of my Qsnap now, I will move to the second row of pages next. I don't want to damage my parked threads with the Qsnap and page 6 looks pretty boring anyway. Since the olympic games have been moved to 2020, Measi is inserting another one-per-day challenge in July and I think about featuring this one in that again. This project also qualifies for my non-Haed in March ;-)

I really loved this one-per-day thing, so I think about doing another challenge in April for myself (maybe Paddys Luck? Or Cliffside Beacon?).

I worked on two more projects. First up is Danielle by Sara Butcher (Haed). I did not work on my Geishas in March because I felt an urge to take out Danielle with her lovely springish colors. I went from here:

To here:

I did 3 columns, aka 2 400 stitches, and crossed the halfway point on the first row. It really was a joy to stitch on her and I found the bird! I love the contrast between the light yellow and the more intense blue/red/green colors. All the parts that look white on the picture are actually Rainbow 000 and it's soooo sparkly. Love it!

After working on Danielle, I worked on my map of middle earth for the GG Sal, by now I managed to finish the first row of pages (I need to make a post on that). Since I think that I did a great job with that, I thought it ok to part with my plan to rotate through all my projects once and picked up a project on which I already worked this year - SSMC Once upon a Fairytale by Aimee Stewart! I just wanted to work on it and it's soooo much fun! I went from here:

To here:

The lantern took ages to stitch, but it was still a lot of fun and I am so happy with the result =) I did 2 rows, so another 1 300 stitches. Since it is only two more rows to finish page one, I will stitch with this one for a few more days.

I hope you and your loved once stay healthy and (as) happy (as possible right now).
Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - July

It looks like July is already over and it's time for another WIPocalypse update. I was doing the one-per-day-challenge last month, so I decided to wait until the end of the month to share my final update on that. The good news is that I met my goal for that challenge, at least stitch-wise. Unfortunately I did not manage to stitch every day on Crossing the Stream by Golden Kite, but on most. I think there might be like 5 days on which I didn't work on this, but overall, I am really happy.
You know I already shared a tiny update (like 300 stitches) on this at the beginning of the month, but I am sharing the official starting point for July again:

And I managed to stitch page 4, which is 3 350 stitches:

So we do have 13 467 stitches done now. I definitely putting this away for a while now, working on the 32ct was a bit exhausting and I need to make up my mind on whether I should continue with page 5 or go down and start row 2. The point is that I am working on this on my Qsnap and I don't want to damage my parked threads by moving the Qsnap over them. Another page might just fit, but maybe I will just go down.

The bad news for this month is, that I hardly stitched on anything else. I did two columns on Kriemhild and a bit on my Middle Earth and that's it. I mean the amount of stitches I did is fine, but I missed working on different projects and some days I really struggled because I wanted to get my daily stitches into CTS, but also stitch on something else. I really wanted to get more done on Kriemhild, I did those 2 columns at the beginning of the month and then the month was suddenly over.
I went from here:

To here:

I must add that I also participated in a readathon this month and putting a stitching-challenge and a readathon into the same month is definitely not for me. I had a few days where I didn't get around to stitch because I was busy reading and I still felt like I was not getting enough reading done to meet my goals. A book that definitely kept me from stitching was "The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon:

First I must say how amazing this cover is! You can see that it's really shiny and the colors are super rich and pretty. I love the way the artist did the dragon, it looks really impressive and alive and the contrast to the background is amazing. I would definitely stitch it.

The story follows a lot of different characters. The story is set in different locations and follows different characters, but what connects all of them is the fear of the nameless one, an evil dragon (called wyrm) that tried to destroy the world a thousand years ago, but he and his wyrms were defeated and banned into the abyss. Legend has it, that as long as the house of Berethnet rules the queendome of Inys in the West, the nameless one cannot return. So we follow Ead at queen Sabran the Ninths court in the west, who tries to protect the queen from assassins who try to end her line, but her survival and the survival of her bloodline is essential for the worlds safety. While the people in the west fear all wyrms, people in the east distinguish between dragons (good) and firebreathers (bad) and we meet young Tane, who trained all her life to become one of the legendary dragon riders. The conflict between east and west runs deep, but when the nameless one begins to stir, they need to unite to defeate him.

I must say that this is a longer book, it's over 800 pages, but they just flew by. Samantha Shannon did a masterpiece with this one, such rich world building and a lot of background story. You know there are a few books that just follow a red line and everything the characters do is just to get to the final battle and that's it. But here have a world build around the story, we have twists and turns, a lot of character development, you even need to read a few hundred pages until you get what the priory is that is mentioned in the title. The story and the world are really complex and I am really happy that the author decided to write a longer book to develop all the ideas. This is a standalone, but on goodreads Samantha wrote that the world has more tales to tell and she would love to return to it, I really hope she does! 

Well, one of the best books I read this year, if not the best book and just needed to talk about this. If you like high fantasy and/or dragons, give it a try ;-)

The last thing left for this month is to answer this months question: How do you get yourself out of a stitching drought? Ah, good question. I don't get worried if I don't feel like stitching for a few days and especially if I just feel like doing something else (like read Priory...), I just do that and don't try to push me to much. If I am in a real slump, I try getting inspiration from blogs or Instagram or flosstube or something like that that and then I try to do something like "half an hour a day of stitching and if I really don't like it, I do something else" and that usually does the trick.

Last but not least (this post in longer then I thought) I am sharing this/last months link-up with you, so you can see how everyone else did in July.

And plans for August... Well, a few last things are left to do for my wedding in September, we are currently learning to dance (works better than we expected) and we still need to pick up a few things. As for my health, I am officially done with my medication, it has been over a week since I last took the pain killers. I still have a bit of pain sometimes, but it's getting better every day =)

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse June

Hello lovely fellow stitchers,
I didn't make it to post on Sunday and then we were out of internet for two days, so I am making this post today. But you have to look at the positive side of things - I have an additional update for you because I am doing the One-per-day-challenge and already worked on this challenge for two days.

This being the June update means that we are to take a look at our goals for the year and see how we are doing. I honestly don't really want to take a look, I fear I am far from accomplishing anything this year. But if I remember correctly, I didn't put my goals to high. Anyway, let's have a look.

First up is my Kriemhild, she is (as every year) my focus piece and I try to work on her every month and that's what I did (even if I missed one WIPocalypse, I still worked on her). My plan is to finish the 5th row of pages and make a start on row 6. I am not yet done with the row, but on a good way. I also made some progress on her during the last month. Last time I was at the end of page 37:

Which I finished earlier:

And I made a tiny start on page 38:

And she is also still on my frame and I think I will add another column or two before switching to something else. Since January I did 10 083 stitches on her, so we are on a good way. I am joining the next Haed challenge on Facebook, which is to put in 10k stitches between now and 24th December, to finish the 5th row on pages would be 10 010 stitches. If I do about half a page per month, I should have this done by the end of November.

Next up is QS Paddys Luck, which you recently saw. My goal was to finish the first row of pages and that's what I did in June. Last time you saw Paddy:

And now, the first row in all it's glory:

I did a total of 5 440 stitches on Paddy this year and I am very much looking forward to start the next row because I can get back to stitching the rainbow again.

The next one is QS Trapped, on which I didn't work at all. I think this would be a good project for another one-stich-a-day challenge, but I still have a few months to try that (maybe in August or October?)

Next up is my Golden Kite called "Crossing the Stream". I have 3 pages done and want to stitch at least two pages this year. I have chose this project for the one-per-day challenge, which means that I want to work on this daily and stitch one square (at least). If work on this through the month, I should be able to stitch (at least) one page. I already worked on this twice and went from here:

To here:

Indeed I stitched two squares today because I loved working with the greens so much. So a total of 270 stitches done with a lot more to come =) I will share some updates on this one on my Instagram (@lady_stitchalot), not on a daily basis (I guess everyone would be sick of this after a week), but I will share a picture every few days. If I remember, I will also update on Facebook and maybe do a midmonth update here as well.

My second Supersize project is also on the list. I want to get Ride of the Yokai past the 15 000 stitches mark. I already did a bit of work on this one and I have now 12 550 stitches done, so I added 1 860 stitches to it. Another round of working on this should do the trick.

Last but not least there is a project I want to finish, which I actually "want to finish this year" for like 3 year now, which is since I started it. You see how well it works. I am talking about Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petite collection. I went from here:

To here:

I just forget about this project all the time, but I vow to put a few stitches into this in July!

That's all the goals I posted at the beginning of the year. Another "plan" was to stitch from my stash this year (which is huge), well this didn't work out. As mentioned last month, I got a new pattern called "Garden Gate" by Dona Gelsinger and I started it =) I wanted to give the Haed challenge a try, but I didn't have a chance to stitch a full page by the end of June, but I still got half a page in:

I still have a long way ahead of me until it will look like this:

I am stitching on light green 32ct Murano, 1 over 1, full cross. All the confetti takes ages to stitch, but the result is so lovely and a real joy to stitch! I did 2 400 stitches on this one so far =)

As for my stitch count, I am currently at 31 633 (including my work on Middle Earth, which I share for the GGSAL and not counting my work on my Dimensions projects) and I worked on 11 different projects so far, if my count is correct I have 26 projects in total running, so still a way to go!

So all that is left for me to do is to share this months link-up with you, so you can check out more lovely projects!

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 - November

Guess what - I am in time for WIPocalypse this month! Yay me! And there is a good chance that I might be on time next month as well, since I have a few days off around new year ;-)
This wonderful SAL is hosted by Measi and you can find the link-up here.

This months question is about finishing techniques, but since I hardly finish anything, I don't really have a lot to say about this. Mostly I finish Mill Hill ornaments, which I just finish by gluing some felt to the back and making a hanger. Apart from that I finish smaller designs and frame them, so nothing special there. I plan on maybe stitching a cushion, so this would be a new way of finishing for me ;-)

I am not entirely happy with my progress this month. I worked on three projects this month, but with two of them I was thinking that I wanted to get more done. Also, I wanted get some work done on my Mill Hill project Hydrangeas, but what I have is not even worth showing...

But for the projects I did get some work done on:
First up is my Golden Kite project Crossing the Stream. I did some work on it last month and finished the second page this month. I went from here:

To here:

I had some drama with the fabric, it was torn. Fortunately it was not anywhere near the stitching, so I sewed some fabric to prevent further damage (as you can see in the picture)- I don't pull the tension to tight, but it works. I think the trees and the leaves on this piece look absolutely amazing and I am looking forward to getting back to this =)

The second project I worked on is my Supersized SK Storykeeper by Josephine Wall, I stitched two more columns and I am colose to finishing page 4 - one of the things I didn't get done this month... new try for next month...
I went from here:

To here:
The butterfly is full of confetti and it took ages to stitch it, but I think it is soooo pretty! I hope to show more of it next month =)

The third project I worked on is my Kreimhilds Revenge - as every month. I stitched two columns, I wanted to get another one done to finish the page, but I just didn't have enough stitching time

I went from here:

To here:

The stitchcount is now 128 400, so I am officially past the halfway point on her - yay! The next goal is to finish the fourth row of pages - 15 columns to go. I won't be able to do that this year, but it should not take to long to do that =)

I think that's all I did for this month. Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - October

Considering how late I usually am for my monthly SALs, I am nearly on time when I am only two days late :D This wonderful SAL is hosted by Measi and you can find the link-up for this month here.

This months question is: How did you begin stitching?
I guess there are two answers for that. I first came across stitching in elementary school, I remember that we had to stitch bookmarks, just a few simple crosses and straight stitches in two or three colors. I created a small bookmark and liked it, but my teacher insisted, that it wasn't finished and forced me to add more things to it. It messed up the "proportions" of my bookmark (in my view) and I didn't (and still don't) like when people tell me when something that I created is not done (had some trouble with some art teachers). It's a bit like "I am doing this for me and I like it and I don't want to change it the way you like it unless it's something I do" or something like that. Anyway, the lady forced me to "ruin" my bookmark, so I didn't pick up the needle again (very consequent girl - I think I was 7).
When I was 18 I was searching the internet for some knitting blogs and I found one blog that also featured some stitching. A lady did the Woodland Enchantress by Dimensions Gold and it was like the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! So I started to look up some stitchy stuff, I cam across the Dimensions kits and Haed and many many more. I found an old cross stitch kit in my mums cupboard and stitched this  (it was horrible - twisted crosses, not centered, the backstitching was awful) and then I bought my first Dimensions Gold kit (Paris Market - go big or go home) and a few months later my first Haed - and now I am here ;-)
Funny thing: I bought the Dimensions kit for Woodland Enchantress this spring and I think I will start das one next year - I just feel like I should stitch her because I owe her that because she was my introduction to this fabulous hobby ;-)


Ok, now for my progress, I really feel like I got a bunch of things done!
First up is an update on my Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson. I finished the partial page I started and decided to add another row.
I went from here:

To here:

I added some 1890 stitches. The crosses are so tiny on 32ct, I always take some time to get used to it.

The next one I worked on is my Kreimhilds Revenge - as every month. I started page 29 and stitches half of it. I went from here:

To here:

So this is another 2230 stiches added to her, next month I will meet the halfway point! Yay!

The next huge project I took out is Crossing the Stream by Golden Kite. It is currently on my frame and I will share another picture next month.
I went from here:

To here:

I added some 1100 stitches so far, it's the getting used to 32ct thing again... but I am fine with it by now and will work on this for a few more days.

I also stitched a small Just Nan design . it's a cute little Halloween Mouse!

It's a bit complicated to take a picture of her, but she is really cute =) It was my first Just Nan kit and it was so much fun, I'm glad I have a few more in my stash ;-)

The last project I worked on is my Mill Hill design called Hydrangeas. I finished all the cross stitching for the blossoms and now I am stitching the leaves. I went from here:

To here:

I hope my November progress will be as good as my October progress, maybe I can finish the leaves and start beading in December, I love beading! =)

I think that's all I have for now! I am well over 5 000 stitches for this month, so I am truly happy =)

Happy stitching =)