July Gifted Gorgeousness

And as promised, it's Gifted Gorgeousness time, the wonderful SAL held by our wonderful hostess Jo! This SAL is super easy for me at the moment, as I seem to work on hardly anything that is NOT a gift. Also, I'm not going to annoy you with a hundred pictures from the longest Day SAL yet again, but only show what I've worked on since then :)

As you might have expected, I've been working on 99...I didn't quite make it to a full finish yet, but I only have a little over four bottles left to go, so I should finally get there this week!

I've also pulled out an older WIP, this fluffy cat a friend asked me to knit for her. I recently realised that I hadn't worked on it in over a year, so I decided to settle down and really get her done now. I already finished the head and body and most of her face - I have two ears left to knit, an arm to attach, and the second arm, two legs, and tail left to knit, but it's going well.

Then I had a small new start - a little freebie by Maria Brovko and my contribution to a charity quilt project. I have until mid August to complete this, but the sooner the better :) The little crogy is almost ready for back stitching now.

And last but not least, I've been working a little bit on The Mermaid and added a bit of the next blue. This really needs a lot of more attention...and I hope she will get just that once 99 is done.

Carla's and Leo's Halloween SAL 2018

I know, I know, I've been bad at blogging (but not at stitching this month), and I will be back later today or tomorrow with my Gifted Gorgeousness checkin, but first, I want to tell you about Carla's and mine yearly Halloween SAL that kicks off one month from now - I'm super excited and can't wait to get started, but there is still plenty of time for you to join in!

This is our 4ths year, and after patterns from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, Cloudsfactory and Satsuma Street in the last three years, we have something really special for you this time. Firstly, we have two artists and a total of seven patterns avaiable:

First, there is Pippa from LuckyStarStitches on Etsy. She has a six Halloween patterns currently avaiable, and they are all really small and fun!

   

   

    

And theeeen my dear friend Ashley aka PinkyThePink joined forces with some of her amazing artists to create our very own pattern for the SAL! We'd been throwing around ideas for a while and there was some seriously creative juices flowing, and I am super pleased with the end result now:

 

So if you want to join us in stitching one or more of these patterns for Halloween this year, please do! We do have a facebook group as well as posting progress on blogs and/or dA, and anyone can join. Our kickoff day is August 15th and while we try to finish by Halloween, we are more than happy to see progress pictures after that as well - finishing up all the stitching has been more of a year long effort for some of us!

June WIPocalypse

As usual, I'm sqeaking in veeery late for this SAL - what it the last Sunday of the month doing on the 24th anyway?! I couldn't post there, I was busy stitching! But the way I see it, that posting date is more of a suggestion anyways, it's still June, so let's just pretend I'm right in time ;)

The question of the month is Tell us what you think the ideal stitching retreat would include.
I've never been to a stitching retreat as I don't think they are offered in my country a lot (although I have seen some people go to knitting retreats, so there is hope!), but I think ideally there would be some, if not all, of my online stitching friends, lots of time to stitch, a place to sit outside during the day and inside with decent light at night, and lots of good food (maybe even something you can snack on while stitching without getting your fingers greasy). I don't need anything fancy, I'd just enjoy sitting and chatting with likeminded people while stitching.

Because of the Longest Day SAL last weekend, I got to work on a lot of my 18 in '18 projects this month (not all of them though, since some are new starts and I didn't do my knitting/crochet WIPs for the SAL).

1) Fire and Ember SAL

Obviously I worked on this for the LDSAL, but I also focused on it for a week or so and actually had a page finish! Five more pages to go, so I'm still once page behind schedule, but that's okay.

2) The Puppeteer

I was a bit behind on this one too when I last showed it, but I'm all caught up again now. I finished three(!) pages in June, but as you can see, they didn't have a lot of black to begin with. I'm also getting close to a row finish (one and a half pages left to go), but since the remaining space is almost entirely black, I think I won't get there until August.

3) Snow White

Snow White got a little love last weekend, starting the next shade of yellow, but at this point I think it's safe to say I won't be catching up on her anytime soon! I'd still love to get back on her for some serious yellow-ing sometime.

4) 99

99 had a page finish in June, and I made a start on the 6ths and last weekend. This will be my focus now until it is done - 15 bottles left to go!

5) The Mermaid

I'm still slowly working on adding more blue to the border - there are so many different shades!

6) Cut Thru Cottage

Cut Thru Cottage also saw the light of day again last weekend...this one is just a little over a page from being finished, so I'm thinking of making it a focus once 99 is done.

7) Wacky Witches in Stitches

Another one that was untouched for way too long...I'd love to say I'll get it done before Halloween this year, but with how busy August and September are going to be around here, I really don't see it happening.

13) Fans of the Far East

Another one that could use way more love...but isn't it pretty?

14) Lizzie Wallet SAL

I also added some green on my Lizzie Wallet SAL...I don't think this one would take too long to finish, the side I've been working on has the most stitching by far.

15) Lady and the Tramp

I'm running out of stuff to say. I just love all these projects so much and wish I had more time to work on them all!

16) Ornaments of the Month

Not as much  progress on these this month, but at least the first June ornament has a back now. I still have three June and one December ornament to stitch up, and plenty of finish-finishing left to do, but they're coming along.

18) Blackwork Waterlilies

Those had been living at my grandparents' house for a while, but I never got any stitching done there lately, so I took them home with me. Hopefully they will see some more progress now; they do stitch up pretty quickly once I set my mind to it.

Next month, I am sure to work on less of these projects, but with any luck I'll be able to finish one or two, which is also nice - see you then!

Zodiac SAL - Gemini

Tell me again, why am I always doing these on the very last days of the month? So again, I managed to stitch a backside for the June ornament (for one of the June ornaments...there are three more I still need to stitch up!), but I'm falling behind on the finish-finishing again. I had plans to do one each weekend, but was distracted by weekends away, hospital visits and the Longest Day SAL. Maybe I'll get back to it this week.

So...I don't think I know any Gemini people in my immediate environment, so it's going to be a really really short update today. I'm almost ready for WIPocalypse though, which will make up for that!

The Longest Day Weekend SAL

Jo, our queen of SALs and bloghops, was having her famous Longest Day SAL last Friday, where she stitches on all of her WIP in just one day, and she invested everyone to join her. Since I am less ambitious (and I hadn't really been keeping track of my WIPs, so I wasn't quite sure how many there would be!), I decided to take three days to stitch along. I set out totally unprepared with the goal to stitch at least one length of thread on each of them, and I did quite well!

Here is the total list of projects I worked on - I wanted to add a little bit of info about each of them, but seeing this post now, that would really be too much...but if you want to know about any of them, just let me know.

On Friday I stitched on:

1) The Puppeteer (UnconventionalXStitch)
2) Fire and Ember (UnconventionalXStitch)
3) Charming (Dimensions Gold Collection Petits)
4) Twin Geometric (Magical 525)
5) Lizzie Stitching Wallet (Faby Reilly Designs)
6) Whacky Witches in Stitches (cloudsfactory)
7) Sophie Sheep (Mill Hill/Jim Shore)

On Saturday, I worked on:
 
8) Kitsune (UnconventionalXStitch)
9) Steotchalong 2017
10) Game of Thrones Bookmarks (black lupin)
11) Lady and the Tramp (Disney Dreams by Thomas Kinkade)
12) Dark Forces (Tilton Crafts)
13) Ornaments of the Month - June (Magical 525)
14) Blackwork Water Lily (Bothy Threads)

And then on Sunday, I went through the rest of it:

15) 99 (Ink Circles)
16) Winter Sampler (Janlynn)
17) Cutthru' Cottage (Bothy Threads)
18) Red Velvet Cake (Glendon Place)
19) Fans of the Far East (Joan Elliott)
20) Peacock Tapestry (Teresa Wentzler)
21) Angel of Cross Stitch (Joan Elliott)
22) Snowwhite (Pinkythepink)
23) Things Unseen (Lizzie Kate)
24) Fob of the Month - March (Magical 525)
25) The Mermaid - Teresa Wentzler

And here's the cleanup waiting to be done on Sunday evening (don't worry, it's all safe and more tidy than it was before now):

I didn't work on my three tableclothes as I couldn't find the patterns/cover pictures, but adding these, there are 28 stitching WIPs right now, and then a quick count of everything else (knitting, crochet, beading...) gets me up to 41 - and I'm sure I forgot a few that are hiding off somewhere! I know that number is just peanuts for some people, but for me, right now, it seems like entirely too much. So now that I have everything together and organized, I'll have to make and effort to reduce it. We'll see how that goes, but at least I will be trying! At least, doing the Longest Day SAL showed me that I still love and enjoy all of my WIPs, so it shouldn't be too hard finishing a few of them, right?

June Gifted Gorgeousness & IHSW

I already had a few thing s ready to show for GG last Friday, but then stuff started happening (grandpa had to go to he hospital because his kidneys were close to failing and his blood count dangerously low...four days and a blood transfusion later, he's back home and improving, but it made for an interesting weekend) so I decided to keep stitching over IHSW and give you the results together - and that contributed even more to GG as well, so I guess it was not a bad decision. Anyways, let's get to the beautiful stitching in chronological order!

The weekend before IHSW, we were visiting Felix' parents, and I had this pair of socks I wanted to give to his dad for Christmas and then lost interest in after missing the deadline. Over the last few weeks, I had slowly been working on them again, and finally finshed them to give them to my almost-FiL on the Saturday. Here they are modelled by Felix, who wears the same size:

Then I was working on my monogram bookmark - there was a little delay in announcing exchange partners and I had to hurry to get it done. I did the monogram and the first bit of finish-finishing on the weekend, then added the backing fabric just in time to send it out by the deadline. It hasn't arrived at it's destination yet, so I can't show you who it's for!

In case you want to stitch one of these for yourself - I'm giving away the pattern and leftover floss! Some colours might even have enough to stitch another full bookmark, others should at least be enough for colour matching against your stash. The pattern comes with a full alphabet of monograms too. If you want to be entered in the giveaway, please let me know in a comment until the 30th and I will do a drawing then.

With the bookmark out of the way, I focused on 99 again. I think I had about three bottles left to go on the page on Friday, and got to celebrate a page finish by Sunday. Only 15 bottles left to go, but I think I'll try and finish a page on Fire and Ember before I get back to them.

I also worked on The Mermaid a little, finishing the third blue in the inside of the border. I'm kind of torn between wanting more time to work on this, and being scared that the border will get boring once I do!

Aaand last but not least, I worked on the Ambarussa loop a bit (in the car, in the hospital, whenever I had some time to do so) and finally finished it on Monday! I love the colours, and Felix is very happy with it, so full success, yay!

So here you go - lots of working on gifts lately! I do hope to have a full finish on 99 by the next GG checkin.

May WIPocalypse

Two posts in one day...but I really wanted to get the WIPocalypse post out while it is still May! Can you belive half the year is almost gone already?
The question of the mont is "Where do you love to shop for stash?". Since we don't have any needle work stores around here (we do have some nice yarn stores, though!), I do most of my stash shopping online. I used to love sewandso for their huge selection, but lately, I feel like their customer service isn't quite up to par anymore and the shipping cost to Europa have increased quite a bit (actually, I think they just stopped offering untracked shipping...but tracked shipping is just so expensive when you're just ordering something small!) and at the same time, lakeside has started extending their selection and their customer service is so amazing and fast, so I think they will become my default go-to for a lot of things. I also love looking for needlework stores when I'm traveling!
(And then there are a ton of smaller online shops for patterns and hand dyed floss/fabric, but I think I've mentioned those a few times already).

Now, for my 18 in '18 projects, I worked on five of them this month:

1) Fire and Ember SAL

I finished the April page, so I am officially one page behind. But that also meant a full row finish, and isn't he pretty? I can't wait to have him done and framed and up on my wall!


2) The Puppeteer

I'm still a bit behind on this one, but I'm getting closer - and I had another page finish and it looks awesome! The next three pages don't have as much black, so this one should move quicker for a little while now.

4) 99

I finished the current shelf and right now, I am very motivated to work on it too. I'm hoping for at least a page, maybe even a full finish in June.

5) The Mermaid

A little earlier than planned, I had a start on the Mermaid, and finished the outer edge of the border. Now I'm slowly working through it one colour at a time. No hurry on this one yet :)


16) Ornaments of the Month

 I finished the May ornament, and finished finish the February one!