WIPocalypse April

Welcome to May and this years edition of "WIPocalypse April", lol. As predicted (when I made my entry for the GGSAL on Saturday), I am late again.
Unfortunately, I started to play Skyrim and so I am not getting anything done during the weekend, which includes stitching and blogging. The week once again flew by (still working a lot) and now it's Friday afternoon. But better late then never.

This months topic is about our longest running WIP or UFO. I guess my longest running project is "Aurora Cabin", which is somewhere in my cupboard and it's hovering between UFO and WIP. Most of the time I just forget it exists. My longest running WIP is easier, it's my very first Heaven and Earth Design and it's an ongoing journey since 2011. You know I took a small break from her when I finished the 5th row of pages in December, but now she is back and I am so in love and so motivated!
I went from here:

To here:

That's 3 columns in just one week! I still use printed copies, on which I also mark where I park my threads, so I always print the row I am working on and the next row. So this was my time to print the pages of row 7 and that's the last row of full pages! I am soooo excited about that =) Also, whenever I start a new row and finish the first column, I take a look the original artwork to see which things will appear in that row:

So I am working on her shield now and we are clearly going to find that helmet and also a few of the flowers. In the lower right corner on column 3, there are a few read crosses and those might belong to the flowers! Only one way to find out ;-)

But I actually started the month of April with some work on my supersized "Once upon a Fairytale" and finished page 1, so I went from here:

To here:

I may just be 1 300 stitches, but with all the color changes, things just take longer to stitch and since the result looks great to me, I am fine with it =) By now I decided, that I will stitch the page below next. I want to stitch this shelf by shelf, I think the first shelf is about 180 or 190 stitches high, so it's about 2,5 pages in large format.

I also wanted to do another 1-per-day challenge to get some work done on one of my dimensions projects. I picked "Cliffside Beacon" and went from here:

To here:

My plan was to stitch on this for 30 minutes a day and my big wish (which seemed realistic at the beginning of the month) was to finish the stitching. Unfortunately, I did not stick to my plan. There were a couple of days where I was just to exhausted to stitch on anything, but I still think I did a lot stitching and I really enjoyed it. Since there is a lot of free space in the lower right area, there actually not to much missing, so I will try to work on this in May and maybe I have a chance to finish it this month (and then it will sit in a corner until I get my butt up to do the backstiching, after which this will sit in a corner until I get my butt up to frame it).

I even have a fourth project to show (this is starting to feel like I did get something done after all...), I worked on "The Eternal Promise" by Matt Stewart for a few days and went from here:

To here:

Once again, this is just 2 columns worth 1 600 stitches together, but it's still better then no progress at all and I just felt like it. Actually, I am feeling like working on this again, but I am forcing myself to rotate a bit more to spread my stitchy love as far as possible (there are also my Garden Gate and my The potting Shed, both a great projects for spring). At least I crossed the halfway point on the first row =) 

So this is all my stitching progress for this year, to follow are a few words on my other hobbies. If you would rather read about more stitching, feel free to hopp over to this months link-up to see more updates!

First I want to show you that gorgeous new bird feeding house thing (however you call them in English) I bought!

Isn't it pretty? This was taken a few weeks ago, when our fake cherry was in full bloom (it blooms like a cherry, but it doesn't bear fruit - at least none that I know of and none that you should eat, but the bees love it). Gardening season has begun, I bought a ton of stuff for the garden yesterday (we are not leaving the house to often, even though the shops reopened. So my husband I decided to go to a gardening center once this month and so I just bought all the stuff I need during the next weeks... Maybe a few more flowers towards the end of the month or the beginning of June). The weather is not to nice (well it's supposed to rain today, there are dark grey clouds outside, so I am sitting inside but there is no rain....), but it's supposed to be better on Sunday, so I will work in the Garden on Sunday.

 My reading has also suffered, but I decided to join a readathon in May and hope to get back on track, I have so many lovely books here and want to read them all. Just in case anybody is also into books or just likes to look at huge piles of books - the readathon is called "medievalathon" and you can follow that hashtag on twitter or instagram to see a lot of entries. The basic idea is to increase my nobility rank by reading a lot of books (7 to become Empress) and then there different criteria for the books to earn you different prompts such as outfits, weapons and pets...
So here is my super ambitious TBR for the medievalathon:

I plan on receiving two outfits, one demands a shiny book (I picked my edition of Nevermoor, it has a lot of gold foil detail and an extra shiny hidden cover) and the other for a book with green on the cover ("Die Elbenstifte"). I want to get three "weapons", for a pair of twin daggers I need to start or finish a duology (I want to read Shadow and Flame to finish one), for an axe I need to read a heavy book ("Die Elfen" has over 1000 pages) and to get a shield I need to read something for which I have high expectations ("Das Erbe der Elfen" - the first part of the longer witcher story, part three if you count the short stories as part 1 and 2, or part 4 if you count the first book of short stories, then the novel "Season of storms" and then the second book of short stories... Which is still not totally the right order, but quite close... anyway, I'm reading that witcher-mainstory-book-thing, because it has been on my tbr for years now). As for the pets, I want a chicken, so I need to read a scary book ("Ada - Die vergessenen Kreaturen") and a goat, so need to read something that is high up on my bookshelf (My throne of glass books are on top of my shelves, so I picked the next unread book from the series: "Crown of Midnight").
As you notice, I am including a lot of German books this year. The first three books are by German authors, so it seems natural to read them in German and since the witcher books are translated anyway and I got them for Christmas some years ago, I am reading them in German. The books have been republished last year and the new editions look really good, but then I have the complete series in the "old design", so I guess I will stick with then... But the new ones look really good and I am a bit jealous.
I already started with "Ada" to arm myself with a chicken. My current rank is "Prisoner", but I hope to break free with the help of my mighty chicken soon (the chicken has super-powers, it attacks people with mathematical formulas because it's a mathemachicken).

So this is what goes on here right now, I am now torn about what to do with the rest of the day. Read? Stitch? SKYRIM??

Happy stitching =)

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 2020 - Introduction

Happy new year, I hope you all made a good start for 2020!
We had a lovely celebration with our friends on the 31st. I think we are getting old by now. Back in the days we felt ill at the end of new years even due to to much alcohol and party and now we feel ill at the end of the day due to to much food :D We ate like a ton of raclette and potatoes and muffins. We stayed overnight at our friends house and since we had so many left overs, we had raclette again for "breakfast" (more like brunch) and I think I am done with cheese for a few weeks now ;-)

But for the first WIPocalypse post a short introduction is in order. Well, I am Johanna and by now 28 years old and I live in Germany. I studied mathematics and I am currently doing my phd (which I hope to finish this year). I live with my husband and he is studying computer science (about to start his master thesis now). Apart from stitching I love to read and when I stitch I usually have an audiobook playing (or booktube). I also know how to knit and crotchet, but I enjoy stitching a lot more.
I started blogging in 2011 and joined the WIPocalypse in 2012, I think took part nearly every year and hope the SAL will continue for the next years. Most of my projects (and stash) are from Heaven and Earth Designs, but I also own a bunch of charts and kits from Dimensions and Gecko Rouge. I prefer the bigger designs, but I also own a ton of Mill Hill beaded kits and ornaments. I fear I am really bad at blogging these days, but I update my instagram far more often (feel free to follow me @lady_stitchalot ). I always plan to post here more often and I also plan that for this year, I am just not sure of this will work out ;-)

Well, this is all I have to say about myself now. So what did I do in the last week?
On the non-stitchy side I read a lot, I dug out my Kindle again and have been glued to it since Christmas (I think I read like 5 books since then). Apart from that I had a first try at making my own soap (yesterday), it definitely looks very promising so far, but the soap needs to rest about 4 to 6 weeks until you can use it. I will keep you up to date ;-)

On the stitchy side there is my new year start =) I decided to join the crowd who stitches some version of Aimee Stewarts Once upon a fairy tale! I decided to go for the supersize max colors version, so it's 999x714 stitches and 239 colors, oh my! I decided to go for 25ct lugana because I fear there is going to be a lot of confetti (and I had a suitable piece of fabric in my stash). Here is what this will (hopefully) one day look like:

And here is where I currently am:

I decided to stitch this in rows (I sometimes just need a little change) and so far I stitched 3 rows or 1950 crosses. I am stitching this 1 over 1 as usual. There definitely is a lot of confetti, but I really enjoy it and plan to continue with this project for a few more days.
I also finished the first package of beads on my Mill Hill ornament and plan on finishing this in the nest days (just can't put down my fairytale).

This brings me to the plans for 2020... Ah plans usually don't work out for me. The thing about 2019 that made me most unhappy was that I did not work on all of my projects. So I think this will be my goal for 2020, work on all of them. I will try and rotate my projects more often and therefore I will now have a focus piece for the next months, at least not for the WIPocalypse SAL. I plan on concentrating on my map of middle earth for the GGSAL to finish the first row, after I am done with that I will probably decide for another focus piece for this SAL.

So that's all I have for this time. The link-up for this month is already up, since I am a lot more on time than usual, it's not that crowded yet, but I am sure this will change soon ;-)

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 - 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!

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 =)