WIPocalypse May

Well, it's the last Sunday of the month again, so it's time fro another WIPocalypse update. I am starting this post now (in time!) but I am not sure if I will finish it today, since I need to leave for my monthly bookclub meeting in a few minutes. But I will do my best to finish this entry tonight.

Edit: Did it! And the link-up is also available now =) 

The monthly topic for May is "Where do you love to shop for stash?"
Ah, finally a good topic for me, I love to buy stash! :D

The fist shop is obvious - Heaven and Earth Designs! I love their patterns and if I didn't miscount, I have like 132 Haed patterns (oh my gosh, I didn't know that!) but these also include a bunch of freebies and patterns I got in the Christmas Raffle or from the challenges (so it's not that bad, lol). And Michele keeps releasing such wonderful patterns! Did you guys know that Thomas Kinkade signed up with them? I really love his artwork but before it was only available as cross stitch kits from I think Candamar? on 14ct and I was not happy with the amount of detail, so it was super super excited when Haed announced it!

The second company I love to buy charts from is Golden Kite. They have a lot of classical artwork and they are doing a great job charting them - unfortunately they are very expensive if you buy their charts on full price. But they have patterns on sale all the time (I think it changes every few weeks), so most of the patterns were about 50% off when I got them. In addition, if you buy 3 patterns or more, you get an additional 30% off your entire order, so if you buy 3 patterns on sale, the price is really ok ;-) I just recently got into their patterns, so I only have 9 so far :D But I only started to buy from them last year, so I am working on that.

Another shop I really like is sewandso, I buy kits and my DMC and needles from them, their shipping rates to Germany are fine and it's really fast. Their prices are reasonable (compared to German prices)  and they have a lot of items in stock, so apart from a few things (like the Eva Rosenstand kits) I order everything there ;-)

And as you may have noticed, I joined the Gecko Gold Club last year and started buying a lot of Gecko Rouge kits. They have a big amount of stunning designs, I love that they feature a lot of modern art designs. I own a bunch of their kits by now, I only started two, but I'm sure the number will increase :D

Ok, that's where I order most of my things, so let's go to this months progress! I have a lot to show =)

First up is my monthly update on Kreimhilds Revenge. I made a start on row 5 and went from here:

To here:

It's a lot of black, but also the upper part of her shield and even the tip of her spear =) I am now at 142 260 - so I am heading for the 150 000 stitches mark =)

The second project I picked up is Paris Market, I put in a few stitches and it was really fun =) I went from here:

To here:

I did some work on that giant tree and added a few stitches to the flowers =)

Next up are two new starts - but don't worry, they are smaller designs ;-) I did some sort of maynia this year, since we have four holidays here in Germany, I decided to do a new start for each of these holidays. I'm going to do a full update after the last holiday on 31st May. My new start from 10th May is featured in my GGSAL post for May, so I will not show it here.

On 1st I started a small design I bought at the Creativa this year, it from a small German company called "Liebevolle Kreuzstitchentwürfe".
I started the design to the right - Strandidylle 3:

Here is where I got:

It's a lot of fun and I think I will finish this one next month =) I am looking forward to stitching the little duck =)

On the 21st I started a kit from Alisa called "Robin". I also bought this at the Creativa, but I think it was last year. Here is what it should look like:

And here is where I am:

The colors are a bit off, I will try and get a better picture next time. Stitching this is really fun, it uses different amounts of strand and switches between half and full crosses, so it looks really pretty =) It's stitched on 16ct Aida and I am stitching this in hand, which is a nice change and I stitched this parallel to Kreimhilds Revenge, where I stitched mostly black, so in between, I stitched on something more colorful ;-)

I am going to do another start on 31st May, but I haven't decided on the design yet. A part of me wants to do another Haed (maybe Birds and Blooms Garden or Bilbo Baggins?) and a part of my wants to start another kit since I have tons of lovely kits in my stash, so many pretty Dimensions kits, so many pretty Eva Rosenstands and then there are those super pretty Geishas from Maia! Or another Gecko Rouge design! And I already have so many Haeds on the go... Ah, it's a hard decision!

So, I think that's everything for May. I will be back next month after I did some work on my new start on 31st May.

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse April

And April is already gone - how did that happen? There must be something wrong, I feel like I hardly got any stitching done as well! But then I also had some trouble with my right hand and could not stitch for a few days at all and had to stitch with my left hand only - so my rotation got messed up because I didn't feel like switching projects after putting only a couple of hundrer stitches in. But my hand is better now and I hope to improve this month.

So here is my WIPocalypse update for April. The wonderful SAL is hosted by Measi and you can find the link-up post here.
As for this months question: What projects are in your UFO pile? Ah, that's complicated. I don't have any UFOs in the sense of "I don't want to stitch that any more". I have  few projects that get less love and I sort of have t push myself a bit to work on them. Actually, I worked on three such projects this month.
The first one is my oldet WIP - a kit by Dimensions Gold called "Paris Market" - I started this in Summer 2010, I fear :D I usually fortget about this project, I don't know why... The green in the tree seems to take forever, so I always try to put in a few tree stitches and I think that works. But the flowers are really nice to stitch. Anyway, last time you saw this - at the beginning of June 2016!

And now:

I think I did quite well for only three days on this ;-)

The same "problem" occurs with my Aurora Cabin by Dimensions Gold, the last time you saw this was in May 2016! Back then, it looked like this:

And now, I finished the full stitches on the big tree and got started on the background. So pretty, why don't I work on this more often? After all, the background is only half stitches and stitches up nice and quick... By the way, this is my second oldest WIP, started at then end of 2010 I think.

The third one is one of my older Haeds, I don't know what it is, but I never seem to find my mojo to work on this... I love the design and I think the way it comes out is nice, but I just forget about this. Anywy, I went from here:

To here, I added 2 columns, 1600 stitches:

We are getting somewhere, big plan is to finish page 6 this year (and halfway through).
Well, so much for the pile of shame...

Apart from that, I worked on Starlight by David Hoffrichter. At that time my hand hurt, so it took me more than a week to stitch 2 columns (1600 stitches as well). This put me past the halfwaypoint on the first row!
I went from here:

To here:

I really love the way the colors here stitch up, so nice and calming =)

I also stiitched a few days on Kreimhilds Revenge, I added 2 1/2 columns (1925 stitches) to it. But it's only sky...
Before:

After;

The last thing I worked on was the Cloudsfactory SAL - I am still terribly behind... And we had drama... I was stitching my way through Joan of Arc from the March block on Monday and then I noticed that half the horse was wrong... I somewhere missed my count... So I frogged this on Tuesdays and didn't feel like restitching it since then...maybe at the weekend. This is my current progress:

So I added Marie Curie and Cleopatra and we have a start on Joan of Arc (which seems to be a smaller design).

Anyway, that's my progress for April. I sort of got enabled by all the lovely new starts for Maynia and since I have a bunch of smaller designs here, I am givin in to some smaller new starts this month. I already started another birdie of my BFs mother, which is nearly done!
Apart from that, I put Danielle on the frame. I don't think I'll stick with the change once a week thing, I just change when I feel like it.

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - July

So, it's the end of July already. July was a very busy and exhausting month, I had a lot of work to do at university because the semester is endig now and exams are drawing nearer and I have a lot of people asking questions and so on. Along with that, it was my boyfriends birthday last week and we decided to celebrate it with some friends yesterday. So we spent a whole week planning and preparing and I feel like we can spent another week cleaning the place :D But we had a lot of fun last night, everybody was happy and the food was great. I am still very tired, so maybe this post will be a short one ;-)
Since I started with the Haed Challenge 3 with my Map of Middle Earth, I don't have that much progress to show and the same will maybe go for next month.

First up is Danielle. Last time, very close to finishing page 2:

And now, 2 1/2 pages done:

Absolutely lovey, I love all those colors and I'ma bit sorry that you can't see the sparkles on the pictures!

Apart from that I worked on my Supersized Ride of the Yokia. Last time:

And now, I did another partial page and started to work on the 3 pages above, so stitches are now 40 stitches high and 189 across:

I want to get to some of the detail, so I started stitching the 3 pages above and will try and focus on them next. You can already see the legs of one of the ghostlike animal (?). By now, I am a great fan of the 32ct fabric, I'm looking forward to picking this up again =)

This month has two topics - one is about challenges for the olympic games and one is a half-year goal report. I'm not doing any challenges for the olympics (not really watching them a lot and since I am doing the Haed Challenge, I don't want any more and just stitch what I feel like) and I didn't really set fixed goal for 2016. So I am doing a half year progress report and compare to my thoughts from the beginning of the year (like I said "I'd like to put more work into that") and so on:

First up is Kreimhilds Revenge by H D Johnson. At the beginning of 2016 I had 20 pages done:

There is an actual goal for her - finish row 3 (or more). I did 2 additional pages, 1 full page and a partial (just some 10 or 15 columns) left to do - next time she comes to the frame that row will be done! Especially since there is only sky with way less confetti there =)

Rheingold by Kinuko Craft - didn't touch it so far, maybe I will still get my butt up to finish the page I started:

Yule Angel by Anne Stokes - didn't touch it - still 7200 stitches left to finish the first row. Gotta do that!

Starlight by David Hoffrichter - didn't touch it. It's absolutely on the list of things to go on my frame next - don't have any anticipations or plans for this one, but I really want to get some stitches into it, it's so pretty!

Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart - nope, no progress (did I stitch at all this year??) - plan is to finish the page I started - that should still be possible:

Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick - oh, I worked on it! Still 4000 stitches to go to finish the 100x160 block I started, but I stitched!
Before:

And now:

Now that I look at it, I really want to pick it up again, it stitches up so nicely =)

QS Paddys Luck by Joanna Bromley - I worked on it! I wanted to finish the first page and did that, yay me :D I even made a start on page 2 and I put it on my frame tonight (just felt like it):
Before:

And now:

Danielle by Sara Butcher, I wanted to stitch page 2 or more and I did both, I am 2 1/2 pages in (see above). But here is her at the beginning of the year:

Supersized Iris Keeper by J Wall - big plan is to stitch all of row 1 this year. I'm on a good way (I think).  Here is where we started:

And now - half way through page 3 and I crossed the halfway mark of the page - so much fun to stitch!

Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson - a new start for 2016 - I worked on it quite a lot :D You can see my progress above. No real goals for that. I said that it would be great to reach the halfwaypoint of my first row, but since I decided not only to stitch the last row of pages but also the above, this is not going to happen. But I am happy with my progress so far and I think I can put in another few xs and will be happy by the end of the year =)

QS Trapped by Melanie Delon - another new start. I wanted to stitch something I bought in 2013 (you know that - by see things, you love them, you buy them and then you don't start them :D gotta do something about that!). The dark colors are giving me trouble, but it's quite pretty: 1 1/2 pages in so far:

Apart from that I picked up my Dimensions projects
Paris Market went from here:

To here:

From an UFO to a WIP :D Love it!
And I even picked up Aurora Cabin for a few crosses, from here:

To here:

I guess I still forgot about a couple of things, but this is most of my progress so far.

Happy stitching =)

Haed challenge finished and an update on Paris Market

I finally managed to finish the Haed Challenge no 2 last night, yay! It took ages to fill in all the dark colors and I am so happy it's done ;-) I never thought that I would mind stitching dark colors so much. I still love the design, but I definitely need something different (with more colors) for a while now :D The dark colors are ok here because it's a QS with "just" 40 000 stitches, so I will finish this one, but I will keep this issue in mind for bigger projects.

But here she is, with 7600 done now:

I think her eyes look rather fine, may it was just the missing background colors that made her look funny. I did a total of 80 colors there and for some nights I just had to pick up something else, so I went for Paris Market by Dimensions Gold:

I did quite a bit on the Restaurant to the left, added a few lengths of thread to the tree and made I start on the flowers on the lower half of the project. The flowers are so much fun, I guess I will work on this more often now ;-) Since this is my oldest WIP, this would actually be quite nice :D

I haven't figured out about what to stitch next, perhaps a few stitches on Middle Earth (well that's not exactly colorful) for the GG SAL or Danielle. We will see ;-)

Happy stitching =)

Updates on Kreimhild, Trapped, Aurora Cabin and Paris Market and some new stash

I have a couple of updates to show you today. I have been working on quite a lot of different projects lately because there are a few I want to get done soon.

Kreimhilds Revenge is still on my big frame and she is coming along really nicely.

Here is what she looks like right now:

Page 22 is a bit more than halfway done and I hope to share a page finish soon =)

Progress is not as fast as usual because I am also working on QS Trapped for the Haed challenge and I stitched a good amount on the dog bookshelf piece (hasn't seen love for far to long and it's time to get it done) on which I will share an update for the GGSAL.

As for Trapped, I did 45 colors on my 1 1/2 pages so far. I still find those mysterious single missed stitches everywhere and I think I screwed up her right eye (couldn't even figure out what went wring there, I just hope it will be ok in the end). Here she is:

I did not really enjoy stitching those scattered single stitches, I have been carrying my threads over such huge distances, my backside is a true mess. I could imagine doing cross country again, but not the entire stitches on a page if they are so scattered. But I will finish this challenge no matter what ;-) There are huge blocks of color to come now. I must admit that stitching with the same color all the time is a bit boring, but at least it gives me the feeling of making progress ;-)

I also did a bit of work on my Aurora Cabin, which I haven't picked up for ages (I think I didn't work on it in all of 2015...). I did some work work on the right tree (it's really huge, but a lot of fun to stitch).

Here is my current progress:

I really don't know why I haven't worked on this for so long, I really love it, I just forgot about it... But I will try and get some progress in in 2016.

I also put a few stitches into Paris Market, I think I did a bit of work on the trees:

Not much progress, but every stitch counts, right? ;-)

Edit: Lol, I forgot about my new stash! I just couldn't resist the 50% Haed SAL and ended up with 7 (!) new charts for me and I took the chance to sent out two RAKS.
Soe here we go!
As many of you already know, Cherie Gerhardt (Mystic Moon Media) did some Harry Potter themed artwork and the four house crests and since I love Harry Potter, I had to buy them all. So here are
Bravery (Gryffindor)

Cunning (Slytherin)

Loyalty (Hufflepuff)

And Wisdom (Ravenclaw)

I also got Distant Musings by Annie Stegg, I have been eying this one for ages, but I somehow never got it. But now it's mine. Isn't it gorgeous? =)

And then I got another chart by Jane Starr Weils, I absolutely need to start one of her designs! I chose Red Poppies:

The last one I got is QS Tree Swallow by Meredith Dillman. I am truly fond of birds these days and I saw a WIP of this and just had to get it:

I'll put a few stitches into Kreimhild now. 

So, until next time,

Happy stitching =)