WIPocalypse November

After being on time last moth, I really needed a break and decided to mess it up again for November. I somehow thought November had  31 days, so I thought that I had an additional week and today would be the official WIPocalypse day... Ah well... I am not really ready for December yet. I am not in a Christmas mood (even though I went to a Christmas market last Friday and spent a ridiculous amount of money on food and drinks) and yesterday we bought a last-minute advent wreath (there were not so many left, but we found a pretty one). We don't have any decoration up yet, but we lit the first candle for breakfast and it was pretty festive =)  I started to collect the first presents for Christmas, so I am making progress!

But back to topic, this is supposed to be about stitching ;-) I made a fair amount of progress since last month, looks like the end of the year in sight makes me speed up! I worked on three projects.

First I still hast QS Trapped on my Qsnap, since I started late with the one-per-day-challenge, my challenge ran until the 6th November and I kept my pace of one square per day. I was pretty close to finishing the first row, I think like 1 600 stitches, so I decided to do those in November as well. So I went from here:

To here:

So I did 2 880 stitches on this one in November, even more than in October =) I am super happy that I finished this row, I originally wanted to finish the next page on the second row as well for this year, but I think I am trying to work on a few more of my other projects instead. I did over 5 000 stitches on Trapped and I think that's a good amount of progress.

The next project I worked on it Whispers by Melanie Delon. It has been quietly sitting on my WIP-pile for ages now and when I took it out and started to stitch on it, I just couldn't stop. So I stitched a full page in just 10 days! I went from here:

To here:

I still had trouble putting this down, but I had to do a bit of work on my Map of Middle Earth for the GGSAL and afterwards I put Kriemhild back on the frame, so I put it away after one page. But I plan to work on it again early next year.

The third project was - as mentioned above - Kriemhild by Howard David Johnson. I still have a row to finish there and did a fair bit towards that already. I went from here:

To here:

I did 3 columns, which means that I still have 3 columns left to stitch. I am using this project for the current Haed-challenge, so I need to finish those three columns until Christmas, which should not be a problem.

So I did a total of 10 150 stitches in November, oh my! This might explain why I only read 5 books :D Well, I listened to a lot of audiobooks (mainly the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Institute by Stephen King), so it's more like 7 or 8 books for the month ;-)

Last but not least there is this months question, about which new techniques I learned in 2019: eh.... none :D
But maybe someone else picked up something new, only one way to find out: Check out this months link-up to see all the other updates!

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - October

Guess what? I am on time for Octobers WIPocalypse! So far only two people signed up for this month, so I really am an early bird ;-)
This months question is again an easy one - rotation or one project at a time? Well, as you can see/read, definitely rotation! I do have a few focus pieces (currently Kriemhild and Middle Earth), but in between I rotate my other project on an irregular basis, it just seems to be the best for me. I guess I will try a rotation plan again next year to swipe through all my projects and we will see how that goes (last time I managed to stick to this plan for like 5 months).

As for my progress for this month, I have two projects to show.
First up is my work on the One-per-day challenge. Since I started late on this, I will continue for a few more days. So far I went from here:

To here:

I finished page 3 and did a total of 2320 stitches so far and I am pretty happy with that. There are about 2800 to finish the next page and finish the row and I hope to do this for my November update. Since there is a lot of background here, this stitches up really quickly and it's pretty easy to do my 100 stitches a day. And by the way, since it's October I am super happy to use that extra cute needle minder! I don't remember where I got it, but it so adorable =)

The next project, that is also still on my frame, it - as always - Kriemhild. I went from here:

To here:

There are only 15 stitches across, but they took quite long. Her hand was pure confetti, but at least it is finished now and I think the confetti is getting better now. There are 60 stitches across to finish the row and I really want to do this before the year ends. But looking at this picture, I must say that I am once again overwhelmed by the detail in this chart, the rock looks so real!

So that's all I have for this month. My plans for next month are to finish the row on QS Trapped and add at least 3 columns to Kriemhild, who will stay on my frame for a few more days. I want to change projects towards the weekend and maybe work on Whispers for a few days, it's such a perfect project for gloomy days.

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 - March

After being so much in time for the GGSAL, I thought it would be good to be a day late for WIPocalypse :D If youare interested to see what everybody else did, you can take a look over here.

I find this months question very difficult - it's about the stitchy blogs, groups and flosstubes we follow. I follow quite a lot of blogs, but if I start naming them here, I guess I will miss quite a lot of them :D There are so many lovely people out there with so many lovely projects. I read blogs to gather inspiration for new projects, motivation to finish my current projects and sometimes it's nice to watch someone who has a lot of projects on the go, so I don't feel bad for my number of WIPs :D

I enjoy watching flosstube (currently not as much, I seem to be addicted to audiobooks these days...), it's nice to hear what people have to say about their projects, I usually stitch when I watch flosstube  ;-) I especially love the videos where people stitch with some music in the background, it's nice and calming =)

I joined some stitchy groups on facebook - Stitch Maynia, the official Haed stitchers group, the Joan Elliot group and I also joined the Gecko Rouge group (did I mention that I joined the Gold club recently? I did and bought another ton of stash there... I'll live on bread and water for a month or so). Since I am having computer issues I am not spending a lot of time at the computer, so I am not that active right now ;-)

Anyway, here we go with this months progress.
The beginning of the month was a bit chaotic, because I messed up my rotation. But I got back on track!
First I want to share my first finish for 2017 - Sheep in the Meadow by Country Cottage Needleworks!

Oh, they are so cute and working with the Weekse Dyewors was so much fun =)

After this, I picked up Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petite, another project I want to finish this year. I started this last summer when I was on holiday and I am working on the sky, which is nearly finished.
Here is my Beacon as of last time:

And here is it now:

When I went to the crafts fair, they had this one finished in display and it looked awesome with all the back stitching and french knot flowers look fantastic =)

Then I got back on track and worked on Kriemhild for a week and managed to finish page 25.
I went from here:

To here and since we have a page finish, I took a full shot =)

My new start for March was "In the Moonlight" by Cindy Grundsten charted by Tolton crafts. It's also one of my GG SAL projects, but I thought you might like to take a look at it. Here is the finished design:

I only worked on it for five days because I was quite busy. But this one stitches up in like no time and therefore I am already 3 500 stitches in!

The pattern is "small" for my standards, just 25 pages (16 full, 9 partial) and 112 500 stitches. The plan for this year is to stitch a bit more than half of the first page, 160 stitches across would mean 12 800 stitches and less than 100 000 to go :D since the background stitches up so fast, this should work =)

After this one, I took out my Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson. I did not get so much done, I started another page on the bottom row and added 1 280.
I went from here:

To here:

Did I mention that I love the colors on this project? So many lovely green colors! =)

The last Haed I worked on is QS Trapped. I worked on this one for the Haed challenge on Facebook and I managed to finish the challenge on Sunday. So this means another 2 900 stitches on this one.
I went from here:

To here:

Actually, I didn't realize what I was stitching until I took a photograph. She has hands, yay! I'm so happy I am done with the challenge, the last part was really confetti heavy and I was so sick of stitching on her every day... Now I will take a break. The challenge runs for a few more days and then there will (I assume) be some time before the next one starts.

I also worked a bit on the cloudsfactory SAL, but I am so much behind... But working on to many different projects on one day is not for me... But progress is progress, right?

WIPocalypse - Febuary

Well, it looks like it's that time of the month again! Take a look over at Measis place to see what everybody else did this month =)
I had a small surgery last Friday and I am still recovering from it (taking a lot of pain killers and antibiotics) and so stitching has been a bit chaotic since Friday and I am late for WIPocalypse. I am a few days off (like 2) with my rotation, but plan to be back on track in a week or so.

This months question is about our favorite stitch - up to now I am only doing patterns featuring full or half crosses. Now and then I do a few french knots or some back stitching, but I wouldn't say that I have a favorite speciality stitch or so.

As for this months progress - I have lot's to show because I was so bad at blogging this month.

The first thing I want to show is my new start - which is also my first Golden Kite project!
It's called "Crossing the Stream" and it's huge - 990 by 707 stitches (funny thing, I was about to start this and I was sure it was 770 stitches high, so I panicked because of cause I thought that I had cut the fabric to small - and I didn't have any other fabric big enough... Well, in the end I noticed that the pattern was only 707 high, so I have a nice 3-inch-border left!). I am stitching this on 32ct murano evenweave in platin.
This is what the pattern is going to look like:

And here is what I did so far:

The pages on Golden Kite patterns are smaller than the Haed large format - they are 50x66 stitches (so 3300) and this means the pattern has 220 pages, oh my! But I already stitched most of page one (the end of the feathering is the end of page 1) and I did 3417 stitches. This was really fun and I think it looks great already =)

The second week was again dedicated to Kreimhild, I managed to catch up and got from here:

To here:

I added another 1750 stitches to this and now I will get to stitching some more sky... I'm so happy it's the last page of sky... but at least the sky stitches up quickly ;-) Maybe I'll even be able to finish the page in March =)

Next up in my rotation (and this is where I began to screw it up) was Yule Angel by Anne Stokes. I was so close to finishing the first row of pages, I just couldn't stop! So I added an additional day to my week (I was only some 300 stitches short). So I went from here:

To here - first row is done (4000 stitches added!)

In the next row, we will finally see something of the Angel, I think the top of her wings will be visible on the second page of row 2 =)

Right now I am working on my Map of Middle Earth and change projects again tomorrow. I'm going to take out my Sheep in the Meadow with the intention of finishing it =)

I also continued to stitch on QS Trapped for the Haed challenge - I am 300 stitches behind on this but I think it's not a big problem. I thill have 7 weeks for 2700 stitches. I went from here:

To here:

I am quite close to finishing page one and then I will stitch half of the page below to finish the challenge. I managed to add 2900 stitches since you last saw her.

I can only say that I am more than happy with my progress for February, but maybe I will slow down a bit in March. I didn't work on the Cloudsfactory SAL this month, but I will pick it up this week and try and finish the block for February on it.

Anyway, that's all I have to far and I hope to be back in a few days with a finish on Sheep in the Meadow (and some new stash I bought).

Happy stitching! =)

WIPocalypse - January

And here we go with the next WIPocalypse, hosted by Measi and here is the link to the linkup page. Thanks to my rotation, I have quite a bit to show and I think January worked out really well!

But first I want to answer this months question: What SALs are you participating in this year?
The answer to this is quite short - I am doing the Fabulous Women in History SAL by Cloudsfactory.
The idea of this is really nice, I just hope that there will be a few scientists there, too (like Marie Curie or Mageret Hamilton, I would also love to see Emmy Noether as well, but I don't think she'll turn up).
So far we got Eleanore Roosevelt (in my eyes a very extraordinary women) and Coco Chanel (I'm not really into fashoin and could have done without her, but she's there and it's ok).
Unfortunately I got quite irritated by the little black arrows on the pattern and thought they would indicate the middle of the designs, but they were only for the middle of the block. Anyway, I had to change the position of Coco and Eleanore and I think this should work out now:

I am sorry, but the fabric color is really hard to catch, especially with artificial light in here.

As for monthly SALs, I am joining the gifted gorgeousness SAL hosted by Jo, where I show my work on pieces that were gifted to me or are meant as a gift for someone.  For further information on the SAL or in case you want to join the ride, you can sign up here.

Next step, WIPs!
First up is my new start Whispers by Melanie Delon, I did 4000 stitches (new start enthusiasm I guess):

Doesn't this flower look pretty! I was so close to screwing over my rotation (after week one...) to continue with this, but I forced myself to go on!

Then I spent 5 days working on Kreimhilds Revenge, I did I think like 1300 or 1400, I just hope that these stitches will add up over the months. I am aiming for 2 columns per month (1 560 stitches) and hope to catch up soon. I went from here:

To here:

There actually was quite a lot of confetti there, even if it doesn't look like it. but I think it looks very pretty and I am looking forward to picking her up again in February.

I picked up my Supersized Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall, not a lot of progress, but 1600 stitches is still more than no stitches. I went from here:

To here:

I am at 17 600 stitches in total now, I will do my best to finish the first row (that would be 24 000 in total)!

The nest Haed I worked on is my The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart. A stunning design, but I am not sure if I ever stitched so much confetti in my life! I love the outcome and I really spent a lot of time on this one, but it just takes a while to stitch up. I went from here:

To here:

When I bought this, I was quite tempted to go for the Max color version, but considering the amount of confetti, I am pretty happy I went for the normal version. There were so many color changes in that small bit of sky there! But this doesn't bury my plans of doing a max color one day (I saw someone work on Aimees Birds and Blossoms in MC and that looked stunning and then that is also one of her "smaller" designs). I managed to add 1400 stitches in the week I worked on this.

Last but not least I have been working on the Haed Challenge, I am doing about 100 stitches a day (at least that's the plan) and since I started a bit late on it, I am at 2000 stitchs now. The section I picked is 7 800 in total, so I have a way to go, but this will also mean that QS Trapped will gain a bunch of stitches. I went from here:

To here:

That funny thing next to her head had some confetti, but I think the outcome looks quite nice. I hope to finish page 1 by the end of february (3200 stitches to go) and then do the half page underneath in march (2600 stitches).

Ok, that's it for this month,

Happy stitching!