March WIPocalypse

Here we go for the March installment of Measi's long running WIPocalypse SAL. I'm a little late this month but we are going to ignore that and jump right in! 

The question if the month is Which are your favorite three designers? It's so hard to pick just three! There are so many great designers out there. Some everyone knows, and I do have a fondness for the 'big ones', like Teresa Wentzler, Joan Eliott, Mirabilia or Durene Jones. I constantly discover new ones too. But I think this time for my favourite, I will pick designers that not only do gorgeous design work, but I've also had great personal interactions with!

In third place, there is Jody Ellis from UnconventionalXStitch. She dropped to third place only because I pretty much reached saturation on how many full coverage patterns I own, but she is by far still the best designer I know for these, and a lovely person too! She's still rebuilding her physical inventory after a fire last year, so if you are in the market for some great full coverage patterns, go check her out.

In second place, a newer addition to the list, is Olena from LivingOnTheRainbow. She does very fun and cute patterns, often with interesting 3D finishing constructions - probably best known are her little books of stuff, but she also does mittens, little caravans, houses, potion bottles...really fun! I don't know her as well as the others either, but I've had some interactions with her on Instagram and she seems like a lovely person.

Top of my list, for various reasons, has to by my good friend Ashley from Make It Pink! We've been friends for years, she does such amazingly detailed patterns. Best known for her Hannah Alexander Much-Style princesses, she's recently gained some traction and signed up a couple more artists, newest and most exciting being Karen Hallion. She also just started a Flosstube if anyone is interested in checking that out!

Now to my own stitching, coincidentally, not by any of those designers, haha! Every month I share my progress on The Loneliness of Autumn by Love Thy Thread. It felt like I didn't make a lot of progress in March, but I did go from 89.35% to 90.55%, which means I must have added about 1400 stitches! I also had another page finish, and while this one is being confetti-y, I'm getting close!

 

March was also the first one-a-day challenge of the year, and I picked my blue tablecloth, currently my oldest WIP. After not really feeling it in the beginning of the month, it went really well after a while, adding a full length or more most days. I managed to finish one of the four sides, and made a little start on the next one. This might not be finished this year, but if I can pick it up for the other four challenges this year, I should at least to the halfway point! It will be good to get this one out of the stash eventually.

 

March Smalls SAL

This month, I am linking up to the Smalls SAL, hosted by Rachel, with a piece that was driving me crazy for months, before I even started it! So story time first.

Edelweiss Forever was one of the kits we received as part of our goodie bags for Stitch Basel 2023. This and another kit share the same special dyed silk floss from xJu Design. I didn't start them right away, but some people did, and I started hearing from people who ran out of the special colour way. So I messaged Jucus (the dyer) and she was amazing to offer to send me another floss set for free! Problem solved! Except the whole process of messaging her and her mailing the floss fom Hungary took a while, and when I went to put the extra floss with the original kit...I couldn't find it. It wasn't with my other Stitch Basel stuff, or in my box of kits, or with the patterns. I reorganized half my stash looking for it, but nothing! It was driving me crazy. Until, just over a week ago, inspiration struck and I checked my back travel backback I hadn't used in some time, and there it was. Apparently I had packed this as an 'emergency start' for some trip or other, but just never unpacked it! The pattern got a little wrinkly in the process, but I don't care. I had to start this right away (it was my birthday start, in fact) and have since finished the front of this biscornu pattern:

 This is 'Edelweiss Forever' by Vintage Tulip designs, stitched on the kitted floss (the special Stitch Basel Color and Blanc silk) and fabric (Rustic Driftwood) by xJu Design. This is the front, the back will have similar motifs, but is a lot simpler, so I hope I can get this fully stitched and finished soon. It's super pretty and very fun to stitch, and I think it was worth all the hassle of looking for it. Freshly sorted stash is a bonus, too!

Japanese Moss Garden - 10 Hours

To celebrate successfully defending my thesis last November, I treated myself (well, and my grandma sponsored me) by kitting up my first Chatelaine, something I've wanted to do for years! I had decided on a pattern a long time ago - Japanese Moss Garden. So I bought the pattern, I made good use of a Black Friday sale at Casa Cenia to order most of the specialty floss at 25% off, and I commissioned a a big enough piece of hand dyed fabric from xJu Design. It took a while for everything to get here, and then I was intimidated for a bit, but in mid February I finally bit the bullet and started stitching! 

I'm working on this very slowly, but really enjoying it - trying to get in a couple stitches every weekend. Ten hours in, I finished the inner-most medaillon (except for beads, which will cover all the blank spaces) and outlined the next layer. I hope to finish part 1 this year, but if I don't, I don't - no set schedule on this one! 

March Gifted Gorgeousness

It's time for one of my favourite SALs again, hosted by the wonderful Jo and focused on all things gifted and giftee! 

I am, once again, busy making gifts for all the babies in my life. I haven't managed to finish any recently, but two new starts to report progress on!

One is a blanket I started for my new niece, born to Felix' brother and his wife, just over a week ago. It's a simple reversible knitting pattern (so it looks good from both sides) in 'sage green' - the yarn looks very gray most of the time but in this picture I was, apparently, able to capture it in the perfect light to show it's actually green-ish. This is just 1 1/2 of a total of 8 1/2 repeats of the pattern, so plenty left to go!

 

The other one is Lupo the Lamb from lalylala for the newest of Felix' cousins babies (who turns one in May - I better hurry up!). I did Fibi Fox by the same designer for her sister a couple of years ago.

I only finished the main part - that is legs, body and head - so far, so he's still missing his arms and the hood with the ears. I'm trying to get him done by Easter, so plenty of time!

 

Red Riding Hood - 10 Hours

I know it looks like I'm having a lot of new starts lately, but this one was actually started last September, I just didn't work on it a lot back then! I was meeting up with my friends Sam and Giselle for the Stitch Basel retreat, and we were talking about having a new start together, but we couldn't settle on a pattern - until The Witchy Stitcher came out with the Red Riding Hood pattern and we all fell in love with her! I bought a new piece of fabric from xJu Design, a gorgeous 40ct Evenleave. I think the colour is called 'Old Linen'. It's a big piece, so when there are any more releases in the Grim Fairytales series that I like, I'll be ready!

So my first ten hours of stitching were mostly focused on the big bad wolf, so LOTS of black! But it stitches up quickly and I'm already more than 23% done.

 As it's a 40ct, I'm stitching with one thread of DMC, and the coverage on the black isn't perfect, but it actually looks better in person than in pictures, and I'm happy with it. I think next time I pick it up, I'm going to work a bit on Red herself!

March Fully Finished Gallery

This month for Rachel's Fully Finished Gallery, I finished stitching, then finish-finished Hetty the Hedgehog that I introduced in my last smalls post.

After finishing stitching the second side, I deviated a little from the finishing instructions in the magazine. I didn't want to draw on the fabric, so I freehanded her face, which worked...let's say half decent. Her nose/snout turned out a little more pointy than intended, but then I also didn't have quite as much fabric to work with as I wanted (the instructions said to leave 1cm of a seam edge all around her...well...even though I almost perfectly centered my stitching on the fabric, there wasn't even quite 1cm of empty fabric arond her nose and backside!).

Either way, I ended up redoing her face a couple times until I was content, then I stuffed her and sewed the green felt to the bottom - that part, although free handed as well, turned out really nicely! The little beady nose and those darling leaf pins were a great detail to add, and overall, for a free kit that came with a magazone, I can't complain about this one!

 

SAGA - 30 Hours

It's been a while since I showed my progress on Long Dog Sampler's SAGA which I started at stitch Basel last September, although for much of last winter, I was pretty obsessed with it. I had that grand plan that I'd only show it here whenever I finished one of the arches, but the one I am currently working on already took me almost 20 hours - and this is the second smallest size! It is almost done now, but if I waited until the next one is done, I probably wouldn't be able to show another updates this year - so switching to ten hours chunks of stitching it is!

The arch itself is only the half-arch with the house, the second arch with the column/tower/?? is part of the 'grid' that is repeating for all the arches in one row. The next arch down the side is one of my favourites, but it's also where the sampler is supposed to be dated - and even though the pattern already reads '2027', I don't dare put that in yet! So I'll have to get creative about leaving it out and remembering to fill it in later.

 This is just 4.64% of the design, but already over 4.8k stitches!