WIPocalypse - June

Hello lovely people =) Time for another WIPocalypse-update. The original posting date was on Sunday, but I did the one-per-day-challenge and so I wanted to wait with my update until the end of June to show my final update. So if you head over to the link-up page for June now, there are already a lot of entries there =)
I only have like one goal for this year - work on all of my projects! And I dare say, that I am on a very good way there =)
I even bothered to make a list with all my Wips by now, because I tend to forget some of them and indeed, I added a few to the list that I forgot about. So I am now keeping an excel sheet up to date with information like how far along I am and when I last worked on the project. Let's see how long I can keep this up to date ;-)
What I really wanted to say is that I have 31 WIPs on my list now, counting Cliffside Beacon (which I finished last month) I have 32 projects for the year and I worked on 15 of those (including Cliffside Beacon), so I guess that's a good quote. My stitch count so far is 46 142 and I am super happy with that as well =)

But let us now look at some pretty pictures because my stitching month was (somehow) very productive.
First I continued my work on The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart. As of last month, I was halfway through page 3:

And I finished that page in June:

This is really one of the projects where I can't stop stitching, the colors, the little motifs, the whole design - I just love everything about it =) Even now I am so eager to pick this up again, but thinking of my rotation made me put this down and work on something else ;-)

I also did a bit of work on Kriemhild by Howard David Johnson. I went from here:

And I finished page 41, this also means that you are getting a full shot:

Oh I love her so much and we are getting closer and closer to a finish here! There was an awful lot of confetti in her shield and the thing looked pretty weird when I stitched it, but taking a look from afar, the shield looks perfect to me =)

And now the biggest update for this month! I did the one-per-day-challenge in June. I picked QS Paddys Luck by Joanna Bromley and my plan was to stitch one square per day.
Unfortunately, especially during the beginning of the month I really messed this up. No matter how hard I tried - and I did try everything from setting a fixed time to work on this to working on this for something like 30 minutes or so - I was not able to do this. I had no choice.... So here is my starting point again and I was hoping to get 4 columns done:

And then things just escalated and I could not stop stitching, that rainbow just stitched up in now time and so ended up with stitching all of page 5 - a total of 5005 stitches ;-)

So say hi to our new friend ladybird and Paddy is also getting his favorite shamrock now ;-)

So these are all the projects for June. Measi is suggesting to do another one-per-day-challenge for July and since my June was so successful, I am on for another round. I picked a new project to work further on my rotation plan. So it is well beyond time that I worked on one of my Gecko Rouge projects, so I took out Sloth by Eya Claire:

I really love the design because I love sloths (I even have a Slotherin t-shirt with a sloth on a broom....), but somehow I am struggling with this projects. I am not sure if this is the 18ct or if I just never really got into it. To investigate the last thought, I am doing this one-per-day and I started yesterday with my first square =)

So that's it for this month, I hope you are all safe and healthy,
Happy stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - June

Somehow we flew to the middle of June and it's time for another  GGSAL update. I did some work on Wolf Kiss by Dimensions and went from here:

To here:

 While I work on this, I don't feel like I am making a lot of progress, but then I look at the before and after pictures and it looks like I did get something done after all. Also I love how the fur is turning out =)

For more updates, head over to this months link-up page here =)

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse May and a bit of stash

Welcome to June and the WIPocalypse update that should have happened two days ago :D But this means that you are going to see two more projects here ;-)
10 people already signed up for last months update, you can find all the links here .

June is already the start of another of the monthly challenges for WIPocalypse. I had a lot of fun and got a lot done during the last challenges, so I am joining in again. For this month I want to work on QS Paddys Luck by Joanna Bromley this month, it's such a lovely and colorful project! Unfortunately I completely forgot that this challenge was scheduled for this month, so I am currently one day behind, but I will just make that up today. I am doing my usual thing, one square per day. Here is my starting point:

I am starting a new row of pages here, so my daily stitch count is 77 or 100 and I hope to get 4 columns done (meaning that I have to do 2 extra squares during the month).

As for this months question, we are to talk about a project on which me love to stitch. This is a hard question for me, because there are so many projects on which I love to stitch. I really enjoy working on the Mill Hill Buttons and Beads kits (reminds me that I should start another one soon... I think I have a companion piece to the Hydrangeas design I did a few years ago).

This reminds me that I should really get this framed, I actually found like 5 frames with a matching size (I think) when I tidied up the living room :D
I am currently working on The Potting Shed by Aimee Stewart and it's one of those projects where I can't stop working on. I love gardening, so I really love the design and working with all those colors is a pure joy. I especially love the designs by Aimee Stewart, they are so full of small details, I can't wait to get to all those lovely flowers on the potting shed:

So far I am in the middle of page 3, so I still have a way to go. This month I went from here:

To here:

The yellow thing seems to be a lamp and I found the first window, I am so much looking forward to stitching the ornaments there. I did 3 and a partial column so far (2640 stitches) and I already made a start on the next column. Since I can't put this down, I am staying with this project until the third page is done =)

Apart from this, I worked on two more projects this month.

First up is another column on Kriemhild, I wanted to return to her by the end of last month, but I was unable to put the potting shed down. So I only did one column, which is still better then none. But I hope to have a page finish by the end of this month. I went from here:

To here:

The red thing there is a flower by the way! And there are more to come =)

The third project I worked on is Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold Petites collection, I went from here:

To here!

I am done! Yay me! I am really no good at french knots, but some of them don't look so bad. The backstitching on the fence also took ages, but it adds so much to the design and I am happy with my result. I already ironed this and I ordered a frame for it, so I will hopefully have this framed for the next update.

While I was looking for a frame for Cliffside Beacon, I found a frame for another project! Some years ago I finished Gwen by Nora Corbett and since then she lay in my cupboard. So I took the chance to iron her, to frame her and to put her on my wall:

So I am very happy with my progress for May and hope to have another ffo the next WIPocalypse =) 

I wanted to do a stash update earlier in May, but as usual I just forgot about it, so I am going to show my new charts now =) I think it has been a while since I did an update on my new purchases, so this might be a lot now.

First up are a few charts I bought from Tilton Crafts. Shelly does a lot of limited editions, where she only gets a licencing for a small amount of charts (I think around 35). So I got

Hedwig (I love Harry Potter!)

One of the Mandalorian designs, because I love baby Yoda:

And I bought four of the Lord of the Rings charts:

And last but not least, I bought two WonderWoman designs (by Daniel Kordek)

Then I won a giveaway in Nene Thomas crossstitch group on Facebook (some of you know that after she left Haed, she did her own crosstitch charts). I think she still does the giveaways every few weeks (and one right now, until the 12th) and you can pick any chart from her site, so maybe some of you are interested in that. The group is called "Nene Thomas Art in Crossstitch" (you can also see a few of the stitched designs there, they look quite good). Anyway, I took the chance to pick one of her epic designs (the big ones, what else?). I chose Sekkerostoya:

I think it's amazing, but it's also huge (550x895), so I need to plan this before starting it :D 

And yes, I also got a few new Haed charts during their last sale =)

Here is QS Patchwork Quilt Room by Ciro Marchetti, I love the flowers, the color and that tea set!

 Gardeners Paradise by Dona Gelsinger (max color). I guess I don't need to explain this...

 And Ladybird in the Meadow by Lucy Pittaway, it's so cute!

So I think these are my new charts for now, I love them all! I don't even know which one to start next. I am drawn to the Patchwork Quilt, but I also love the second Wonderwoman or the Arwen&Aragorn  chart... Gardeners Paradise is great, but I am already stitching the companion piece (Garden Gate)...  Ah, we will see! I am trying not to start them all at once ;-)

I think this is all I have to show for now =)

Happy Stitching =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - May

It looks like we already hit the middle of May, so here is my tiny update for the GG SAL. I only worked on one project, but I am fairly happy with my progress. Since Middle Earth is taking a small break, I will rotate through my other projects.
As every month, there is a link-up page where you can see every ones progress.
For this month I picked "In the Moonlight" by Cindy Grundsten (Tilton Crafts).
I went from here:

To here:

And that's a total of 2 400 stitches and also, this is the first page! The grey stitches up quite fast, I did this in one week and I am super happy with what I did. Also, this is now officially well past the point where I had to restart this (due to wrong fabric orientation... due to stupidity...) and since I am making some "new" progress on this, I feel better working on it. I already made something like a plan how to stitch another page on this during the year.
As you can't really see anything in this picture and the chart seems to be retired, here is a picture of the original artwork:

First I thought that there might me the tip of an ear on the next page (looks like something pointy in the lower right corner), but looking at the picture, I fear the first row will be only grey background.

As for my further stitching plans... I have 3 bigger projects I stitch on my frame: Middle Earth, Wolf Kiss and In the Moonlight. I will either work on Middle Earth bimonthly and rotate between the two wolf projects in the other months, or I will rotate through them in a 3-month cycle. As for my Christmas stocking, I will try to work on it for a few days every month. This way I hope to make some progress on all my projects =)

And since I made such a great plan wo cope with all my projects, I have another chart to show, which I bought because my hubby is a huge Star Wars fan and I think he would love it:

This is "Star Wars - Past and Present" by Daniel Kordeck. The chart is available from Tilton Crafts. Shelly (the owner) is a bit in need, even thinking about closing her business, so I thought I might support her by buying a few new charts ;-) I bought two more, but I will show them in a separate post next week =)

Happy stitching =)

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 =)

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - April

Oh wow, even for my standards - I am really late this month. And it's even worse because all the stitching I have to show for this month happened last month!
So how is everyone doing with the lock-down? Lucky us, we all stocked up on crafty projects years ago! I also have like 500 unread books, so I can keep myself occupied for a long time.
But I am not getting done much anyway, I am currently buried in work. The semester started this week and we are doing everything online, this is completely new for us. We have two people at the faculty that concentrate on "developing ideas and strategies" for digital teaching, but honestly, most of the work is still up to us. I spent countless hours researching and trying different programs and equipment until I could start making videos for my students the way I want to (the lecture I am working with it about 800 students and hour "small exercise groups" are still about 50 people, so we can't do this via zoom) or simply gave up (I tried to add text to my videos because I wrote "5/4" instead of "5/2" once and wanted to correct it... I tried like 10 programs in 3 hours and then decided to just write a text about it to go with the text to the video...). The whole issue was pretty frustrating, but I think I figured everything out now and hope that this will get better during the next weeks.
The second reason why I get zero stuff done is because I started to play Skyrim. My husband gifted me this and I seem to be obsessed with it, lol.

But I have a tiny update for you people. I managed to finish the first row of pages on Middle Earth! I added the final 1 000 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Yay me! I can't believe I reached this milestone! But I am also happy to leave this project for a while now, I really worked a lot on it during this year (8 000 stitches in 3 months). But Middle Earth will surely return later this year. I plan to work on my other projects for the GG SAL now, so they get some love as well and maybe I will even squeeze in a new start ;-)

So this is it, I hope to be back soon with another post. Wipocalypse would be tomorrow, but I am not sure if I will post tomorrow or in a few days, depends on Skyrim, lol. Last but not least I am sharing the link-up page for this month, be sure to visit it, there is lots to see!

Happy stitching =)

WIPocalypse - March

It looks like March is already over, time has flown by again! I hope all of you are well and well supplied with stitching supplies.
We don't have a total lock-down here in Germany, but everyone is advised to stay home and not physically socialize as much as possible (and you are not allowed to meet with more than one person outside, unless you live with them). Me and my husband are working from home now, since the university is closed (at least until 19th April), so we are home most of the time. Lucky us, we are introverts. I am reading, stitching and working and my husband is playing computer games and working. So far, we and our family and friends are healthy (even one of our friends is being tested for corona, he works in a hospital and one of his patients has been diagnosed with corona after he treated him, but he is not showing any symptoms as of now). My mother seems to be a bit more reasonable now. She feels a bit lonely at home, but she seems to stay at home now.

Anyway, back to topic - Wipocalypse! The original posting date was two days ago, but I did the one-per-day challenge and wanted to finish the challenge, which I did =) But first a short reply to this months question. Did I ever adopt a project from someone else or give a project up for someone?
No :D That just never occurred :D
If you are interested in more updates for this month, feel free to visit this months link-up page here.

So we can start with my progress for this month. First I have my work for the one-per-day challenge. I chose to work om Crossing the Stream by Goldenkite and went from here:

To here:

I stitched page 5 and I am now at 16 817 stitches. Since I reached the width of my Qsnap now, I will move to the second row of pages next. I don't want to damage my parked threads with the Qsnap and page 6 looks pretty boring anyway. Since the olympic games have been moved to 2020, Measi is inserting another one-per-day challenge in July and I think about featuring this one in that again. This project also qualifies for my non-Haed in March ;-)

I really loved this one-per-day thing, so I think about doing another challenge in April for myself (maybe Paddys Luck? Or Cliffside Beacon?).

I worked on two more projects. First up is Danielle by Sara Butcher (Haed). I did not work on my Geishas in March because I felt an urge to take out Danielle with her lovely springish colors. I went from here:

To here:

I did 3 columns, aka 2 400 stitches, and crossed the halfway point on the first row. It really was a joy to stitch on her and I found the bird! I love the contrast between the light yellow and the more intense blue/red/green colors. All the parts that look white on the picture are actually Rainbow 000 and it's soooo sparkly. Love it!

After working on Danielle, I worked on my map of middle earth for the GG Sal, by now I managed to finish the first row of pages (I need to make a post on that). Since I think that I did a great job with that, I thought it ok to part with my plan to rotate through all my projects once and picked up a project on which I already worked this year - SSMC Once upon a Fairytale by Aimee Stewart! I just wanted to work on it and it's soooo much fun! I went from here:

To here:

The lantern took ages to stitch, but it was still a lot of fun and I am so happy with the result =) I did 2 rows, so another 1 300 stitches. Since it is only two more rows to finish page one, I will stitch with this one for a few more days.

I hope you and your loved once stay healthy and (as) happy (as possible right now).
Happy stitching =)