Final WIPocalypse and GG SAL update for 2015

Well, it looks like December is already over so I thought I would do a final update on all my WIPs. Since I was so busy around Christmas I didn't manage to blog for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL so here also an update on Middle Earth.

I hope all of you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas time with you family and friends. My Christmas consisted of a lot of eating and visiting family and friends and I got a few nice things as well =).


I guess this will be my last post for 2015, so here is a big update on what I accomplished this year =)

First up are my WIPs I started before 2015:

Kreimhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson:
At the beginning of 2015:

I am currently working on this one. I stitched 3 1/2 pages so far and I guess I'll finish page 20 before the year is over ;-)

Next up is Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft.
At the beginning of 2015:

I stitched only half a page on this, I'm not really happy with my progress but I somehow lost my mojo on this one =/ Maybe 2016 will be better.

Yule Angel by Anne Stokes.
At the beginning of 2015:

I managed to stitch two pages this year, on the pictures it looks like way more progress and I am really happy with my progress =)

Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart.
At the beginning of 2015:

I stitched one and a half page on this:

Starlight by David Hoffrichter:

I stitched one page this year. I hope to make more progress on it in 2016 since I really love working on this design:

The Map of Middle Earth Large (Retired)

I worked on this during the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL and did 10000 stitches ob this one. I plan to continue with this as a part of the SAL (which will hopefully be hosted in 2016) and hope to do at least 12000 stitches on it.

And I also made some progress on my non-Haeds, both are from the Dimensions Gold Collection:
Paris Market got a tiny bit of love:

 

I really hope it will grow somewhat in 2016 ;-)

I just noticed that I didn't work on Aurora Cabin at all? Well, I should change that :D
It still looks like this:

I could have sworn I worked on this,e specially since I really love this designs!

And here are my new start for 2015:
First up is Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick, which was my Jan-1st start. I stitched 1 1/3 pages on it:

QS Paddys Luck, I started this after handing in my master thesis and did 3000 stitches:

Danielle by Sarah Butcher, my big new start after handing in my master thesis :D the first page is done:

Supersized Iris Storykeeper by Josephine Wall - my first supersized pattern! I'm really happy with it, I stitched nearly two pages:

And I also started another non- haed by Dimensions called Wolf Kiss:

And last but not least, I had a finish this year! =) QS Theatre of the Absurd by Ciro Marchetti is done!
Before:

And now, in all it's glory:

So I guess those were all my stitches from this year, if I didn't miscalculate I did nearly 90,000 stitches this year which makes me more than happy =)

I hope to see all of you happy and healthy in 2016! =)

YOTA - I have a finish!!!

Well, it's finally done! I managed to finish my QS Theatre of the Absurd! I am about two years late with this since is was the 2013 SAL piece from Haed, but it's better to finish late than not finishing at all.
I am very happy that I managed to get that finish this year and I hope that I can make some progress on my Dimensions projects which I love (but I am addicted to Haed) but I haven't made much progress on them.

But here is my finished QS Theatre of the Absurd by Ciro Marchetti:

I hope there will be a YOTA SAL for 2016 since it really helped me to get my butt up and finish something =)

Back online - a ton of updates!

I am finally back in blog-land, yay!
We had a lot of chaos while moving and but now it's done and we are settled in our new place. It's a lot bigger than my old place (more than twice the size) so I have a lot of room for all my crafty stuff lol. We have a bigger couch now so both me and my boyfriend can sit on it without squeezing and there is still room for my floss boxes (and there is still room on the couch left!). So stitching here is way more comfortable then before and I feel like I made a ton of progress during the last weeks. Another reason could also be that until last Saturday we didn't have internet access here (which is also why you didn't hear from me).
But now I am back online and can share my progress with you and read all your blogs and watch flosstube and procrastinate and do many many things instead of housework :D

Since I didn't make it in time for YOTA or WIPocalypse or any updates at all during the last five weeks, this is a combined post updating on everything I did during the last weeks.

First up is what would be my YOTA update. I worked on QS Theatre of the Absurd during the last week of October and I am NEARLY done with it. I am actually missing a partial column but I will definitely finish it in this months UFO week!
Here is where I got in October:

Then, as I mentioned in my last post, I did some work on Eternal Promise. It's just two and a partial column so far but it's still 1600 stitches:

I really love this piece and will pick it up for another column or two soon. I love the contras between the blue border with those amazing flowers and the dark and green colors of the forest and it has a very nice and manageable amount of confetti =)

Michele from Heaven and Earth Designs put up two stitching challenges on facebook. Both involve doing 100 per week on a chosen WIP. One was launched in the supersize group, so the plan is to stitch on a supersize (since I only have one so far, this was an easy choice) and one was for the official Haed group and one could pick any project. I chose Das Rheingold because I haven't worked on it for ages and it needs some love and maybe I will get my mojo back to work on this. The plan is wo work on those two projects from Friday to Sunday and see how much I can get done. From Monday to Thursday I will work on a different project and I am currently planning to change that weekly. During the first week I worked on Eternal Promise and now Middle Earth is on the frame. I am unsure if I will turn to Eternal Promise for another one or two columns or pick up something else (maybe Yule Angel?).
Anyway, I did work on Das Rheingold on Friday and Saturday morning. I stitched one full column (wich makes me happy, one column is a good goal to stitch in two days and it will ensure progress on Rheingold). So another letter appeared and here is how Rheingold looks now:

On my goal list for 2015 is to finish page 5 on Rheingold and I hope this challenge will get me towards meeting that goal (apart from that I only have to finish QS Theatre of the Absurd and a few more stitches on Kreimhild).
From Saturday evening to Sunday I worked on Supersized Iris Keeper and did 300 stitches. It's not that much but I am putting my focus on Rheingold. Iris is a lot of fun to stitch but now that some confetti is coming in the progress is slowing down. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture before putting Middle Earth on the frame, so the pic to follow is new to you guys but not up to date. I finished the first 10 columns at the end of October and I originally planned to put this away for some time and work on something else because I had so much Iris in the last weeks. But now I am working on it again... Anyway, here is Iris as of the end of October with 8000 stitches complete:

I really love the colors. They are so vibrant and it's completely amazing to see how well they work together. I am very pleased with my work on Iris and it is always hard to put her down. 

And by the way, I did request the SK Wine Shelf to be supersized and it's on Micheles List :D I don't know why I like supersized SKs, but there seems to be something with them. After all, I also have SK Storykeeper as a supersize in my stash :D

And since we are already talking about supersizes, I ordered my first Haed Kit! The shipping was very expensive but I desperately wanted one of those beautiful frog swords and a laying tool and I think the kits also come with one of those nice needle threaders? And since I needed the material anyway I decided to got with a kit as a christmas present for myself =) I am sure I will also have to pay taxes, so I don't think I will order all my kits from Haed all the time but I really wanted to give this a try. 

But it's late here in Germany now and I am off to bed. I will be back in a few days with a Gifted Gorgeousness SAL update (I'm working on Middle Earth, so there will be a few stitches to show! I hope I can manage at least 1000). So I hope you haven't forgotten about me and there is someone out there reading this (and hopefully enjoying ;-)). I guess I'll update more regularly now =)

WIPocalypse September and YOTA

And again I didn't manage to do a WIPocalypse post in time and now it's Ocotober already.

This also means that things are getting busy here. I'm moving in two days time and it's pretty chaotic by now. We will get the keys later today and will paint the new place in the next days (the main color is 3770 and there are some areas in 816 - yes I picked the colors and we went to the shop and had them scanned and they could reproduce the colors lol). A lot of my stuff is now packed in boxes so we can finally move on the tenth. I am excited an nervous because things tend to go wrong these days (like my boyfriends car broke down yesterday... but maybe we can get it fixed in time). There is boxes everywhere now and there is still a lot of stuff noch yet packed (basically all my kitchen stuff but there is no room for more boxes here - we will take a few with us over the next week). But in one weeks time it will all be over and all will be fine and there will be a lot of room for me and my boyfriend and my stitching stuff :D

But as for the updates!
First was WIPocalypse:
I did a few more stitches on Iris (about 400) but it was not worth another picture. I will stitch on her for a few more days before we move (app until Tuesday?) and I pack her in a box. I fear there won't be another update before that move, but her next post will include a page finish (800 stitches to go).
Here is how she looks now:

I truly love the blue colors that are coming in now. It's so much fun to stitch, if only I had more time these days...

And I also worked on Kriemhild, I finished page 19 during the month:

Here she is as of last month:

And now:

The big plan is to stitch page 20 before the end of this year and then there will be more of my actual Kriemi to see =) I'm looking forward to that, but I need a little break from the sky...

I fear that's all I did during the last month. A lot of work and a lot of packing and organizing and I will be so happy when the move is done and I still have a few days off work and can just sit there and stitch. 

As for YOTA, I am extremely proud of my progress. I am still working on QS Theatre of the Absurd and I am finally getting something like a finishing rush. I worked a lot on it during the UFO week on facebook (another reason why Iris hasn't grown that much) and managed to stitch 1190 stitches in one week, yay me!!

Here is TOTA as of last month:

I thought that if I just finished the column I started on the first page it would be great (that was 700 stitches of confetti hell) but then I got a rush and stitched the column also on page 4. So I managed to finish the entire column! This means there is one full column left and one nearly full column. The last column doesn't have so much confetti in it. I will try and add a few stitches over the month (like 300 or so would be great) and hope for another finishing rush in UFO week. Anyway, I am very confident that there will be a finish soon!

Here is TOTA now:

I am going to do a few stitches on Iris now while my boyfriend is still asleep and the madness of painting begins :D

I hope you all enjoy a great and stitchy weekend =)

YOTA - September edition

I totally forgot to post an update for YOTA! I have quite a lot to do at university these days, so I mostly forgot about posting here. I'm not stitching that much either (but I am trying to finish page 19 on Kriemhild tonight).
Anyway, here is my update on QS Theatre of the Absurd:
Last time:

And now:

I added about 1000 stitches, so I am getting there! I will try to finish the next column by October =)

WIPocalypse and YOTA

Well, it looks like August is already here. To be correct, WIPocalypse day was yesterday which means that there were two full moons in July (the full moon appears every 28 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes or so, so this can happen from time to time)( I picked up this useful knowledge when I had to learn for an exam, lol).
Anyway, since YOTA and Wipocalypse were so close together this time, I decided to do one post for both (and since I don't have much to show for either of them, the posts won't look so empty).

Well, I somehow didn't spent a lot of time stitching during the last month. I picked up Starlight once again to stitch page 3 (my goal for this year was to add at least one page to every of my projects and I am on a good way to do so). I stitched half of the page so far. There was a lot of confetti in that brown bubble-tree-whatever-thing so stitching that took ages. But I seem to be done with it (for the first row) and stitching seems to be a bit faster now.

Here is how it looked like last time:

And now:

I plan to continue with this page for a bit longer (until I take a break to work on Middle Earth) 

Well as I said, I was very unproductive. I did 800 stitched on Yule Angel to show my new praking technique to avoid gridlines, but I didn't take a full shot. Anyway, I got from here:

To here:

And I fear that's it for WIPocalypse. I really hope next month will be better ;-) 

Ups, I forgot about this months question, which is 

What makes you pick up a long-abandoned UFO rather than beginning a new piece?

Well, those of you who follow my blog know, that I am quite good at starting new things :D But usually I can mange to not really abandon a piece. Sometimes I am making goals for myself before starting a new piece (I'm currently preparing for my first Supersize but I want to stitch a few things first: finish the current page on Starlight and stitch another page on Kreimhild and get some progress into Theatre of the Absurd). I often tell myself that I sort of treat myself with a new start when I get enough done on my old pieces but it doesn't always work :D 

I really enjoy the UFO SALs (both the one on facebook and the YOTA SAL) because they sort of force me to pick an UFO up once a month ;-)

As for YOTA, it didn't get much done either. I picked up QS Theatre of the Absurd for some 500 stitches and went from here:

To here:

I didn't really give much love to this one during the UFO week at the end of the month, so I decided to do a few more stitches (300 or so) before putting it away again. After all, I want this finished soon!

YOTA - July update

Well, here we go =) It's time for YOTA and as usual I didn't manage to post on YOTA-day (Saturday)  ;-) I haven't been at home during the weekend and had therefore no access to my computer.
We were suffering from an enormous heat wave here in Germany (we hit 40° Celsius which is due to google 104° Fahrenheit) over the weekend wich some thunderstorms in between (the weather is freaking me out right now...) so I didn't get anything done.
Saturday was the worst day, I stayed at my boyfriends house because they have a garden and the air is better there. In the morning we decided to buy a small pool (best decision we ever made, lol) and spent a few hours driving around to get one (they were sold out everywhere, but we finally got one with all the required stuff) and set it up and it was really nice to cool down ;-) The weekend is going to be sunny as well, so I guess I'll spent another few hours in the water again =)

But now for YOTA! I am still focusing on QS Theatre of the Absurd (didn't put a single stitch into Paris Market or Aurora Cabin). I am fairly happy with my progress, some 760 stitches. I am kind of speeding up with this one, so there is a good chance to get this finished this year =)

Before:

And after!

If this months progress is as good as last ones I will be truly happy. At least I am ready to face the confetti again ;-)

If you want more information on the YOTA SAL or join us, please pay a visit to Pulltheotherthreads place, she is hosting this SAL and her blog is surely worth a look or two =)

WIPocalypse and YOTA - June is here!

Well, here we go with another combined post on YOTA and WIPocalypse. My big goal for next month is to do the WIPocalypse post on WIPocalypse day and the YOTA post on YOTA-day, lol.

I'm going to start with my progress on my WIPocalypse pieces since this was first. I added my new starts to the list, so there will also be some updates on them from now on. But let's start with this months question:
Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?
Well, I guess that's summer. I spent more time knitting in winter, so I have less time for stitching ;-) I'm not sure if I really make more progress, but at least it feels like that ;-) 

I guess I haven't shown you my progress on Wolf Variant which I made some time during the month. I decided to stitch the page below the first page next instead of moving to page two. I will try and work a bigger row which will be some 200 stitches high. Otherwise I won't really see anything of the wolf while working my first row. I made a start with adding some 1600 stitches.
Before:

And after:

This a actually my biggest project (up to now) so I will try and pick it up quite often ;-) 

Next up is once again my new start "Paddys Luck":

And Danielle, on which I have worked since my last post. The first four columns are complete, the butterfly is nearly done and I really love it :) I already started the next column and will finish it before picking up something else 

You can also see the start of one of her gorgeous wings =) I am really excited about this =)

Well I guess that's it for WIPocalypse. I must say, that I am really happy with my progress for this month. I'm not sure if I will be able to, but it would be amazing to get that much done in June as well ;-) 

After Danielle I will stitch on Middle Earth for a few days so there will be an update for the gifted Gorgousness SAL in a weeks time. And after that I will take out Kreimhild once more =)

So here is my update for YOTA. I once again decided to battle the confetti on QS Theatre of the Absurd and put some 500 stitches in. Not as much as I wanted, but I really spent hours on this one! I guess it took me two hours or more to fill one tiny square.... I will continue with the started column and I am confident about being able to finish it for next time because the squares to come are not that confetti heavy. 

Before:

And after:

The flute player (or whatever he is doing there) is officially done now, there was so much confetti in him, so I really hope it will get better. Four columns and the started one to go!

Well, I see you in a few days with an update on Middle Earth and Danielle =)

WIPocalypse and YOTA - May edition!

Well, I know I am rather later with this post, but I have been so busy with my master thesis, that I didn't find the time and energy to make an entry. I fear I won't be able to do a post for the gifted gorgeousness SAL because I didn't work on any of my projects so far.

Well, as for WIPocalypse:
Last months event from the Stitch Stash and Honking Rakateers Club was to work on as many WIPs as you can, so I did my best to change between projects. Therefore I have a bunch of pictures to show =)

First up is Rheingold, which is tending to become an UFO because I really don't feel like working on it. I added just 700 stitches and made a start on page 4.
Before:

After:

Next up is Starlight. I always love to work on this one, it's full of confetti, but the result is just amazing =) I added just one column because most evenings I was to tired for the confetti, but I will surely return to this soon. I made a start on page 3 and added about 1000 stitches:

Before:

And after:

I also put a bunch of stitches into Yule Angel. It was really nice to work on something with almost no confetti and to make fast progress, so I stitched the rest of page 4 (about 3200 stitches)
Before:

 And after:

I am currently working on Wolf Variant by Bente Schlick, because this was calling to me most, so the next update will be on that one. 

So for my YOTA updates, I put some 400 stitches into QS Theatre of the Absurd. Since I will have a bit more free time soon (especially this month), I hope to get a few more stitches in for next update. Here is my lastest photo on it:

I also took out Paris Market because it is my oldest project and added a few hundred stitches. 

Before:

And after:

I also got a bunch of new charts, but I guess I will show them next time when I have some progress to show on Wolf Variant. 

I ordered some fabric and threads for a new start, so the next post might also be on that.

I am really sorry for not commenting on your blogs right now, I am just so busy. I hope to improve in the future ;-)