WIPocalypse January

It's the evening of the 26th, so I am on time for this post - yay me! Be sure to check out this months link-up, there is going to be a lot of action in the next days when all the people check in for the month =)

Just like last year, there is a monthly question and just like last year, the first one is about which SALs I am participating this year. And just like last year, it's only this SAL and the GG SAL, where we are working on projects that were a gift or are meant to be a gift. My last post was my entry post for 2020 for that and I already did a great start with my map of middle earth ( 2 500 stitches!).

Since I speant quite a lot of time on Middle Earth, I did not get as much done on my other projects, but I am still happy with what I did.
First I stitches another row on Supersized Maxcolor Once upon a Fairytale, which is a lot of fun, but full of confetti. So last time:

And now:

So during this month I did 2 600 stitches, since the project has nearly 714 000 stitches, I am nearly done...not...

The second project I worked on is one of my non-haeds! You all know I love my haeds and I work on them a lot. But I also own a big bunch of projects by Gecko Rouge, Dimensions and lately Tilton crafts (they released a bunch of great Lord of the Rings charts lately), but for my taste I am not working on them enough. Therefore I will try to work on (at least) one project every month that is not a haed. For this month I chose a design by Gecko Rouge called "Across Winter Lake". The artist is Jo Grundy and she did a lot of lovely winter and nature designs. I started this project in 2018 (I think) and then it disappeared in my cupboard until last week. I remember that the confetti really put me off and I must say that this project is going quite slow. But the part of the chart I am working on is just full of confetti and it definitely gets better.
Any way, a long long time ago, Across Winter Lake started to look like this:

And now I finished page 1 and it looks like this:

I added 2 016 stitches and I am now at 3 888 stitches done. I am currently undecided if I should continue to work across (more trees and confetti) or start to work down (then I would stitch a part of the lake with less confetti). Since I am going to switch projects again, I have a bit of time to decide on this matter (I just hope it won't be another 2 years until I work on it again).

I also did some more work on that Christmas ornament. I was in the middle of writing an extra long paragraph telling you that I did the beading, but hate backstitching and seriously need to get my butt up to do it when i decided that I could just give is a try. And now, I am done with the backstitching! I must say that I am no good when it comes to french knots, so my rabbit look a bit stoned....

So that's actually a tiny finish for this year! Don't get used to it ;-)

I am off to bed (and a nice book) now, so happy stitching to all of you =)

WIPocalypse - October

Well, it looks like October has been renamed to Octover by now (pun-alert, sorry...) and I haven't posted for WIPocalypse by now. I don't know, time just flies by and I really have to kick myself to post at all (most of the time I feel like I don't have much to show anyway...). I'm pretty busy with my work right now and the issues with my hand are quite unnerving. I am going to hospital tomorrow and I sort of hope that they can finally figure out what's wrong, running from one doctor to another and everyone is telling me that I am perfectly healthy (except for annoying pain in my hand that doesn't let me sleep at night that is) is truly unnerving by now...
But back to business. I read 9 books during the last month, but I still managed to get a few stitches in as well. I have two bigger projects and two mini finishes to show (can't believe it myself!). But first, I would like to answer this months question:
Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time?

Well, I guess that's easy. I rotate my projects. If it's a really small design (like my two finished this months) I finish them in one go, but that go also takes one or two evenings. But apart from that, I rotate my projects and I can't think of any other way for me. Those who watch this place know that I love BAPs, I do a lot of Haeds and they usually have like 250k+ stitches. I think I would go crazy otherwise. If I have enough time and I am in the mood, I do about 1500 stitches per week (I am picking rough numbers to make the calculations easier). So a project with 300 000 stitches would take 200 weeks to finish, that's nearly 4 years! I truly can't imagine working on just one project for 4 years! I have my two focus projects (Kreimhild and Middle Earth) and I am doing my best to work on them every month and even that is sometimes exhausting me. So there is clearly no way that I am stitching one project at a time.

Since I already mentioned two smaller projects, here they are! I stitched two mini Halloween designs, they seem to go by the name of "Make me for Halloween". They are small, cute and pretty cheap, so I ordered three (so I need to stitch one more) of them last month. I chose some hand dyed fabric from a grab bag that I got from Polstitches. Unfortunately, I don't know the name, but it's a nice and light purple/blue/green shading. Also, the colors don't really show in the picture:

I also got some small frames and I already frames the pumpkin and still need to do this with the witch. The third design I have is a little spider and I think about getting a fourth one since I still have some fabric for another design. 

Apart from that I worked on two of my Haeds. The first one I chose is Whispers by Melanie Delon, my New Year start from 2017. I decided to finish page 2 and went from here:

To here:

The red bubble still looks pretty strange to me, but I guess it will get better once I am starting on page, I think this is going to be another flower. I always love to work on this in autumn/winter. The colors are dark and gloomy in the back, but the flowers are warm and I absolutely love red! I am torn between taking this out again this month or working on another project that hasn't gotten any love this year (like Starlight or Rheingold of Wolf Variant). Since I am currently into audiobooks (currently listening to Steven Kings It) again, I sort of hope to squeeze in a few more projects in a month. 

The second Haed I worked on is - as every month - Kreimhilds Revenge. I managed to make a start on page 35, not much but enough to get me past the 150k mark, yay! I am at 150 730 stitches now, so I met another goal for this month. I went from here:

To here:

The colors are a bit boring, I mean there is some confetti spice things up, but it's all black and brown and I fear it's going to stay like this. As far as I can see, we are going to encounter some of her dress in the middle of page 36, I am not sure if I will get there this year, but definitely early next year. I am keeping her on the frame for a few more days, so I can hopefully finish page 35 this year. 

Since it is already November, I am starting to think about next year. I usually do a new start for New Year, but during the last months, my focus turned from stitching to reading and so I am unsure bout ne new start. I currently feel like I am not getting as much done on my current projects and maybe I shouldn't start something new. But then it is also a kind of tradition for me and I always enjoyed them. I usually have a few days off after New Year, so there is enough time for stitching. Maybe I will watch out for a few Black Friday deals for threads and kit something up. I think I will go through my stash or maybe buy something new. I currently have my eye on "Memories of Venice" by Alex Levin:

As I said - I love read and I absolutely love the golden embroidery! But I also have a few nice things in my stash, maybe I will just do another post on this matter. 

This blog post turned out longer than I thought. You can find all other entries at this months link-up here. Measi just announced that WIPocalypse is also going to continue in 2019, that is already going to be the 7th year! 

Anyway, that's all I have for this months WIPocalypse, I guess I will really do a post on my new year start thoughts ;-) 

Happy stitching =)

Two finishes and an ornament

Yes, the title is correct. I actually finished something. Well, actually, I finished the stitching last year around Christmas, but I didn't take a picture or finish the whole project until last Sunday.

Since my boyfriend enjoy playing pen and paper role play games and has a small obsession for dices (all colors, all sizes, all numbers of sides....) he was in need of a new bag for them. So I thought it would be nice to combine this with his obsession for Starwars and make him a bag! So I spent some time searching on easy for patterns and found some in the end. I picked black cashel linen (28ct) for this project and stitched 2 over 2. I stitched one motif on each side and then just sewed it together into a bag (problem is I hate sewing... can't motivate myself to do so...).
 I am sorry for the bad pictures, the thing needs another ironing after I sewed it.
The first design is this cute Darth Vader holding a cookie. I once saw it on someones blog a long time ago and I always wanted to stitch ist. Since I was working on black, I left out the black stitches und added a white outline (I hadn't thought about this problem until the other side was done...). I got the pattern from dorkstitchs etsy shop.

The other side has this Darth Vader on it. This was the reason why I started on black fabric (it's horrible to stitch on... I first planned on going 1 over 1, but that wasn't possible...) I also got this pattern on easy, the shop/designer is called Kaplio

I will hopefully remember to take better pictures after ironing and before giving this away.

As of my recent stitching, there is not much to show on Eternal Promise yet. I stitched one column, but I guess I will stitch another one before showing it here, so there is something to see. The reason why I got so little on it done is, that I started stitching an ornament and wasn't able to put it down. I bought this Dimensions Gold kit more than a year ago and never found the chance t start it. 

I started the Ornament in the last row, right side in Febuary, stitches a few stitches and then put it down again. But last week(or the week before?) I suddenly felt the urge to stitch on this, so here we go

I think I made fairly good progress. It's completely different from what I usually stitch, it's small, it's on Aida, it uses different numbers of strands and varies between full and half crosses. Maybe that's the reason why I enjoy stitching it so much. I need to stitch the roof and the trees, then there is the sky, but that's all half crosses so it is done in no time. And then - backstitching! I haven't done this is ages :D I am sort of looking forward to it ;-) 

Anyway, I think this will provide me with a finish soon, that's motivating.