WIPocalypse December - End of 2018 update

First of all, I am wishing all of you a happy new year and I hope there is a lot of health, love and stitchyness in 2019 for you =) 

I just didn't have the time to set up a post yesterday, but we were invited to a party and left quite early for that. By now it's already past 6pm here and I am finally getting my butt up to post. You know, this is going to be a very long and very picture heavy post - I am going through all my WIPs and there are a lot of them! So without further ado, here we go!

First I will show you my finsihes for the year - you know me and you know that there won't be to many, so let's make this nice and short.

I managed to finish my Hydrangeas by Mill Hill in April. I carried it over from 2017 and for 2018 I started here:

So I was a bit more than halfway done with it, it's hard to say because I always leave the beading until last. But now it's all done and here is the finished piece:

And since I was already in beading mood, I started and finished another little Mill Hill kit called daffodil egg:

Stitch Maynia made my WIPlist grow, but I was able to finish one small project I started. It's called "Strandidylle 3" by Liebevolle Kreuzstichentwürfe:

It's still now framed, lol. I am so lazy when it comes to framing, I really need to kick myself to get a frame. 

Last but now least I managed to stitch two ornaments for Halloween:

The witch is still not framed - I even own the frame! But I need sew around the edges, I will take out the sewing machine in a few days and will hopefully remember to do this.

Second I am going to show you the projects on which I made some progress since November.

Number 1 is my focus piece "Kreimhild's Revenge" by Howard David Johnson from Haed. In the beginning of this year she was at 129 170 stitches:

And not only did I manage to finish the fourth row of pages (first goal), but I also hit the 150k mark (second goal). I just didn't make it to the 155 600 mark, from where is would be only 100k stitches to go, but I am still super happy with the 25 333 stitches I added. She is now at 154 503 stitches:

Number 2 is "Wolf Variant" by Bente Schlick, also from Haed. At the beginning of this year I had 20 000 stitches done:

I only did some work on this in December, it was on the frame for nearly a hole week, but as you know the weeks before Christmas are so busy, so I only managed to get 1 500 stitches in before Christmas Eve, so here are 21 500 stitches on this one:

On Christmas Eve it was time to take out Number 3 - Miss Christmas Eve by Nora Corbett! I started her for Christmas 2017 and I guess it will take a few more years for her to get done at this rate ;-) I left her here:

And I did some work on her arm, the skin (1 over 1 - takes ages but we are getting there) and her wonderful skirt. I am not counting the stitches on this one, but here is my progress:

After Christmas there were still a few days left in 2018 and since I had a bunch of projects still lacking progress, I took out number 4 - Eternal Promise by Matt Stewart from Haed. At the beginning of the year there were 19 200 stitches done:

And I managed to finish page 4 last minute, just 880 stitches, but every little cross counts, right? Here we are at 20 080 stitches:

(Remark: Why are there numbers to the projects? So I can keep track of how many things I have on the go! Guess what - I already managed to miscount: 1,2,3,5... yeah....not...)

So those where the projects I worked on in December, my progress is not overwhelming, but it was just a super busy month, so I think it's fine.

The next projects I am going to show are new starts for 2018 (except Strandidylle because it's among the finishes):

Number 5 is The Silence After by Chris Ortega from Heaven and Earth Designs - my new year start for 2018! I did 4 000 stitches on it:

Number 6 is a Gecko Rouge project - Across Winter Lake by Jo Grundy, on which I did 1 846 stitches (it's a confetti nightmare):

Number 7 was one of my Stitchmaynia starts: Geishas by Maia (my fist Maia kit!):

Number 8 is called "Robin" by Alysa - also a started for Stitchmaynia:

So plus 4 on the WIPcounter, let's move to my remaining WIPS on which I managed to make some progress:

Number 9 is "Crossing the Stream" from Golden Kite. At the beginning of the year I had two pages done, those were 6 767 stitches:

And I stitched another page this year - so it's 10 117 stitches now:

WIP number 10 is my Supersized SK Iris Keeper by Josephine Wall, another Haed. At the beginning of this year I had 20 080 stitches done:

And I managed to finish the first row of pages on her - 24 160 stitches:

Number 11 is my QS dys Luck by Joana Bromley, again a Haed. I had 8.000 stitches done at the beginning of this year:

And this year I finished page 2 and now I have 10 160 stitches done:

Number 12 - The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart, charted by Haed. I had the first page done by the beginning of this year, that's 5 200 stitches.

And finally some progress - I stitched page 2 and now I have 10 160 stitches done:

Next is Number 13 - Whispers by Melanie Delon and yet another Haed. I had 8 000 stitches done at the beginning of the year:

On this one I also finished page two, so another one with 10 160 stitches done. 10 160 really seems to be the number of the year ;-):

Time for some non-Haeds! Number 14 is by Dimensions Gold - Aurora Cabin. Since I am not counting the stitches on it, here are before

and now:

And Number 15 is also by Dimensions and called "Cliffside Beacon" I went from here:

To here:

Number 16 is a Haed - I guess you already missed them! So here is Yule Angel by Anne Stokes started with 32 000 stitches:

And gained 5 005 stitches:

Number 17 is my second Gecko Rouge project - Sloth. I didn't get much done but I went from 2 403 stitches:

to 3 393. I really need to focus on this one, it's so cute!

Number 18 is another Dimensions Gold project called Paris Market. Not a lot of progress, but at least some. From here:

To here:

Well, those are all the WIPs that got some love last year (writing this feels weird). Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stitch on everything, so here comes the list of shame:

Number 19 is Danielle by Sarah Butcher - I love this design and I don't get why I didn't work on it! I wanted to do to in summer but then summer was already over. So it stays at 13 600:

Number 20 - Das Rheingold by Kinuko Craft, the row finish is so close and yet so far! I don't know what's wrong between me and that project.... 27 200 due to my list will also be the start for 2019...

Number 21 - QS Trapped by Melanie Delon. I completely forgot about it... Still at 15 400 stitches.

Number 22 is Starlight by David Hoffrichter, a beautiful project full of confetti, I will try and work on this in early 2019, so it get's some progress. It's still at 18 400:

And finally (I think), number 23 is Supersized Ride of the Yokai by Ruth Thompson - such an amazing design, where did it hide last year? I have 10 690 stitches done and I want more!

So that's a total of 56 264 stitch on the projects above. I am featuring a few of my projects in the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL, on which I also count stitches. I did 1 600 stitches on "In the Moonlight" and 12 000 stitches on my Map of Middle Earth, so that makes a total of 69 864 stitches. Considering the fact that my stitching suffered a lot since summer because my stitchy bug learned to read (a total of 107 books this year, even if 10 of those are audiobooks) and afterwards my hand got useless, I am still happy with my progress. What I am not happy with is the fact that I didn't get to work on all of my projects this year, especially Danielle and Ride of the Yokai make me sad. I hope to improve on that in 2019, maybe I will think up some sort of rotation. 

2019 will be a busy year for me, my wedding is in September and there are still some things left to organize. We booked our honeymoon last week (we got an early bird offer, so we squeezed that in) and now we are going to live on bread and water for a few more weeks. I have an appointment for my wedding dress on Saturday and we finally made up out minds about invitations (most people already know the date, but we want to sent out the invitations during January never the less). Then we still need a cake (we have some ideas on what we want and where to order it), I need jewelry to go with my dress (but the dress is first) and we haven't chosen our rings either! And I guess there are a million more things to do for us! But I am sure it will be a wonderful party in the end!

Anyway, I hope you all made it safe and sound to the end of this post, the next one is already due on Sunday! 

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse November

Hello everyone,
I am giving myself a big kick to get this post up, I am in an absolute no-blogging-mood, maybe because I am not getting any stitching done (at least that's what I feel like).
I am getting medication for the pain in my hand now and it's working, at least a bit. The medication takes a few weeks to work properly. You start with a low amount and then you increase it after a days. The stuff makes me a bit dizzy, especially in the evenings. During the first week I fell asleep about one hour after my evening dose, but that already got better. I am seeing my doctor weekly because he wants to watch this closely (which I really appreciate, there are a lot of doctors who just leave you with this stuff and say "well you get used to it" - this might be so in a good amount of cases, but since things can go really wrong with strong pain medication, I prefer someone to double check). We plan on increasing the amount one more time, because I still have a bit of pain. The difference so far is that I even had pain when I didn't do anything with my hand and very strong pain when I was doing light work like carrying a mug or a plat or stuff in general. Those things are now painless, yay! I was also able to stitch a bit more, I did like 300 stitches yesterday! But carrying heavy things, using the hand a lot (cooking was complicated, handling knives, stirring something, carrying pot filled with water) still results in pain, so there is room for improvement.

Another good news is that I am going back to work, no teaching (can't handle that amount of writing), but I want to continue with my phd thesis and honestly - staying at home for a week or two is ok - you go like "yeah reading time" and "yeah stitching time" and "yeah netflix time", but I have been at home for four weeks and I am fed up with it by now... Therefore, I am going back by tomorrow and so I am kicking myself to get this up today.

WIPocalypse was scheduled for 25th November, so I am really late for this. At least my answer to this months question about which new stitching techniques I learned this year is short: None...

As for my progress, I decided to pick up Aurora Cabin by Dimensions Gold - I didn't know what to pick up so I chose something I haven't worked on this year. I worked on it for a few days and went from here:

To here:

I just did a bit of work on the background, but it was nice to see some progress on this. Once I got started on the background, it actually went pretty fast.

The second project I worked on is - as usual - my Kreimhilds Revenge. I went from here:

To here:

I think I added like 3 columns to her, so I have 153 040 stitches done on her. I am positive that I can get page 35 done by the end of the month, especially since a lot of the remaining stitches are black.

Since stitching has been so difficult during the last weeks, I spent a lot of time reading - I did the amazing amount of 12 books in November! Well, at the end of the month I decided to reread Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I didn't finish it so far. I forgot how long this book is - 800 pages! We watched the Harry Potter movies last month, I really like the movies, but there is so much more detail in the books, all those lovely small things that build this world, but I see why it's complicated to include all this in a movie. You know the last time I read this was about 10 years ago, maybe 11. I was pretty young then, I think this was one of the first books I read in English (apart from lectures in school). I remember that I tried to read this book in German a bit earlier, but I dropped it after about 100 pages then, but when I tried this in English, I few through it. Anyway, reading this as an adult (and with a lot more experience with English) is like a whole new experience, I am sort of impressed about how much I remember, but I completely forgot about a few things. The pages are just flying by and it is a true delight to enter this book again, it's a bit like coming home ;-)

Well, this is enough rambling, the next post is due on 30th December. Since I don't have to work between Christmas and new year, I will do my very best to post on the 30th or 31st. Until then,

Happy stitching =)

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 =)