SAGA - 40 Hours

 Hello, my lovelies! I am sorry for being awol the last couple weeks and very absent even before that - life has been busy, and not been helped at all by a nasty flu Felix and I both caught in early December! I got a lot to show you from the last months, and there are some posts coming up as I get caught up with both reading and writing, but I wanted to wish you a happy new year first and also try to get my current things posted, even if that might mean things get out of order. You know, perfect being the enemy of good an all that.

So for the last couple days I have been working on Long Dog Sampler's Stories Amongst Graceful Arches, SAGA for short, and made it to 40 hours of progress total. Which, of course, is a very small amount of work for a project of this size! In fact, I just reached 6% of total progress on this. There is so much more to do, but I enjoy it a lot and think I might keep going on this project for a couple more days!

 

November WIPocalypse

Wow, I'm so far behind everything - I thought I was on top of things this year, but as usual, times have been crazy, and then at the start of the month we got a nasty cold/flu/whatever, and while it's hit Felix much harder than me, it has still derailed all my December plans thus far!

I'll try to catch up with some posting over Christmas break, probably, but wanted to at least get WIPocalypse in, even if it's two weeks late. The question this month is Which specialty stitches do you find easy? Which ones do you find extremely difficult or are too nervous to try? I don't have a problem with any counted surface stitches - eyelets, rhodes, lazy daisies, it's all fair game to me! I am *extremely* intimidated with hardanger and any other form of cutwork, though, and have only slightly dipped my toes into stumpwork, so that is still a bit hard to me as well.

So, in exciting news - I am well on track to finish The Loneliness of Autumn this year! I started with 'If I can just do 50 stitches every day' and by now I did so many extra I'm down to 19. 19! That is extremely doable.

By the end of November, I had added 1629 stitches, finishing 3 full and 3 partial pages, and just a little over 1% left to go. I also got to move the hoop for the last time on this project:

 So now I can just finish off colours - those will be the first 0s since I stopped going extreme cross country on this project, can you imagine? Every single colour this project uses is present in these last 2 and something pages!

So, next time you see this, it will be full finished. Good stuff. I'm also working on some Christmas gift that I am hoping to show you, we'll see when I get to those! 

October WIPocalypse

Hey there, friends! I've been AWOL for over a month, without a good excuse. October has just been a generally busy month and while I'vebeen crafting a bit to keep my grounded, blogging (as well as some other things) have gone by the wayside. Don't worry, everything is alright, just the way life sometimes gets crazy!

So, here we are for October WIPocalypse, over a week into November, but that's alright, that's how we roll now. The question of the month is What retreats or stitching events would you love to attend someday? and I have to say I am actually quite happy with our yearly StitchBasel retreat - it's a nice size and not too crowded. I do love the idea of classes and/or workshops for different techniques though, and we don't have those here (yet), so I guess that's my answer!

 Now in terms of stitching news - I am still working on The Loneliness of Autumn, and finally feel like I am really moving toward the end. I actually finished the last page (and a partial) in the current row, so now there is only one full row (and a row of partials) left to go!

I actually really put a lot of work into it this month, added almost 2000 stitches, and my new totals are 97.53% or 115862/118800 stitches done! So with just under 3000 stitches left, I did the Math, and if I just do 50 stitches a day, I'll finish by the end of the year! So that's the new goal. So far, it's going well, we'll see if I can keep up.

The other thing in October was the One-a-Day challenge, for which I pulled out my oldest WIP, a stamped table cloth. I am now about halfway through the 3rd of four sides, and hoping for a finish next year, which would be a super big step for me - the last WIP that is older than my blog!

 So that's it from me, I will try and be a little more active in November, but no promises - see you, at the very latest, for the next WIPocalypse check in!

September WIPocalypse

I'm a little late for WIPocalypse this month, but sometimes life just be like that - can't be on top of everything!

The question this month was Do you have any sort of record for your finished pieces? Tell us how you record their information. I got a little notebook (well, two in fact, as one has gotten full) where I record all my WIPs, including start (and eventual finish) date, the time it took me, pattern and material used, etc. I'm a little behind in keeping this up to date, but I'm working on it!

 Now for my WIPocalypse progress, I am still working on The Loneliness of Autumn, trying to get it finished this year. I feel like it is getting more and more unlikely because this section is *really* confetti heavy and every time I check the stitch count, it seems to remain the same.  

In fact, I seem to have added just about 800 stitches in September which still leaves me with 5000 stitches to do, and just three months to do them! So...we'll see how that goes. If I don't finish this year, it won't be the end of the world, it will still be done soon. Still, I'm at 95.87% now...it feels so close!

Also, October will be the next WIPocalypse 'One a day' challenge and I want to try and make some more progress on my blue tablecloth. I'm just over half way done so hopefully will make a nice dent into the third side:

 

 

 

 

Japanese Moss Garden - 30 Hours

I've been good and pulled my Chatelaine out almost every weekend lately. Usually, I try to add at least 200 stitches, which can go quickly or take a little more time, depending on the type of stitching I have to do. I have now reached 30 hours of progress total, but I am still working on the second 'layer' of part 1!

 So I have finished the cross stitching within the the green-ish border - most of it was overdied perle and silk threads, there is very little DMC in this section. Now I started filling in the specialty stitches - there are a ton of rhodes stitches but also some eyelets and rice stitches. After that, I will move on to the corner sections.

I'm taking this at a very leisurely pace, but it's lot of fun! 

Cup-ybara - Finished!

I'm trying to establish a tradition for StitchBasel where I start a thing while at the retreat, but also finish one. So far, so good - I've started things all three years of the retreat so far, and had finished the last two. This year, I was determined to finish my Capybara in a Teacup, or Cup-ybara, by Needlelotdesigns. In fact, I had just reached 30 hours on this the day I was supposed to leave for the retreat:

 

With just over 1k stitches left, I was optimistic that I could finish this during the three day retreat. Although I did not do full days at the retreat (I decided to commute, which was about 90 mins of travel each day, so I usually showed up a little later in the mornings) I did about 400 stitches on Friday and Saturday each, which left me with just a little bit of work to do on Sunday, when I finished him at just over 37 hours:

 That's him up on the wall at the retreat! I know need to pick out a frame and put him up on my wall, as I really like him and want to put him on proud display. 

September Gifted Gorgeousness

It is once again time for one of my most favourite SALs of the month, Jo's brain child, the one stop for all things gifted and giftee - the Gifted Gorgeousness!

Since most of my gifted projects are yarn work these days, and a do a lot of those in my lunch breaks at work, AND I had two weeks off this month, my progress has been a little less - but still worth showing!

So my big gift progress is the 'A Spicier Life' blanket I am working on for my third nibbling, scheduled to arrive in October. I'm about halfway through the third part now:

 It's growing nicely and I am really pleased with the colours I picked!

As a little bonus, I made this dino for my grandma. He reminded me a lot of a toy I had as a child that she and I used to play with all the time together, so I thought she like him, and she did!

 Isn't he cute?!