September WIPocalypse

With September almost out, the weather is turning noticeably towards autumn and I feel more and more like hermiting and hibernating. Does that mean there will be more crafting for the remainder of the year? Who knows, but it's certainly a possibility! For now, it's time for the September WIPocalypse, so let's get started!

The question of the month is List five projects you have unstarted in your stash that you’d like to start something in the (relatively) near future. and that's a tough one! I have sooo many pretty unstarted things in my stash. So this is very much an incomplete list of pretty things I'd like to start soon.

1) Bellatrix by Bella Filipina

Have you stitched anything by Bella Filipina yet? She's relatively new, but there are so many of her patterns I am absolutely in love with. A couple friends had planned to start Bellatrix this year for Halloween (in different conversions and colour schemes, it's going to be very fun!) but non of us were quite ready, so we moved her up to next year. I still need to get some fabric, with all the beads it's highly recommended to stitch her on 28ct and I only have a matching colour in 32ct.

2) This Pirate Lady by PinkyThePink

This is a custom chart I had made a couple of years ago and, to my great shame, still not started! And I have all supplies and the PERFECT fabric too. What a shame. I really hope I can get around to her some time soon!

3) Endangered Young'Uns by Gloria & Pat:

I've owned the pdf with all of these patterns for at least five years and I think there are more than 30 of them. If I want to get them all done in my lifetime, I really should get started, shouldn't I?!

4) The Enchanter by Teresa Wentzler:

Another one I've had kitted up since about 2015. I think I already talked about how it came to be I never started it, but I still love this pattern and I'm really looking forward to stitching it!

5) Japanese Garden by Dimensions

I have more of these Dimensions Gold Kits than is probably good for me, but I just love them! This one was a birthday present a couple years ago, and I'd really like to put it up on my wall.

So, that's five - five rather big ones, I have to admit! I hope to get at least one or two started within the next year. 

Now to my current progress on my WIPocalypse project - that's The Loneliness of Autumn, which I am SALing with Rachel, who is currently catching up after a couple crazy month. I have, so far, managed to keep on top of this, which for me means stitching one length of thread every day (or frantically stitching ten a day at the end of the month to get this post up in time!). Anyways, last month I was at 46,609 stitches or 39.23% done and working on 815, my 8th colour:

That colour was finished around the 20th:

Colour #9 is not quite as exciting - 780 is a nice golden brown, but it's spread out a LOT so it doesn't show up very well so far. 2422 stitches in total, of which I have 1835 left to go (it's going slowly because I have to jump around so much). So my new total is 48,568 stitches or 40.88% done:

 I will probably manage to finish the 780 in October, but with how spread out it is, I'm not sure it will be early enough to see any noticeable amount of colour#10 after that!

October is also the last One-a-Month challenge of 2021, so I will be taken the Puppeteer out again and hope to make a dent into the remaining black stitches. A bit over 7k to go right now and while I probably won't manage to get them all done this year, but maybe get down to 5k?

September Gifted Gorgeousness

 Apologies to Jo for shamelessly abusing her kindness of keeping this link-up open for me until the end of the month - I did better for a while, but she and I both know that never lasts! I do have a lot of gifts going on though, and getting closer to Christmas, they are only multiplying. So without further ado, let's get started!

The first gift you've already seen as I'm going a little anti-chronological her, but it's a double match so I had to post it again - it's the little Christmas Owl I posted in my FFG post. Last year, I made Christmas ornaments for my husband's mother, sister, and grandma, and they were a huge hit, so I'm doing it again this year - only this year, I was determined to start early, so that's why the first one is already done and dusted! It's a little freebie pattern by Holly's Hobbies that I had probably saved for a few years, and now was it's time to shine! Not sure if I will give this to my MiL or SiL yet, depends on what else I find.

It's not easy to make out in the pictures as it's really subtle, but that fabric is not white - it's one of the Fabric Flair samples Rachel sent me when I won her blogaversary competition earlier this year. If I am not mistaken, it's called Shades of Winter and it's a really nice green, just a light touch of colour. Perfect for Christmas stitching! I really enjoyed the type of fabric too. 

Next up we have Ubuntu, my big birthday gift blanket this year that I am working on every month. I'm still making my way through the half diamonds - last month I had one finished and another one half done, now we have three completed and one almost done. So hopefully next month I'll be done with these, I've started to memorize the pattern and looking forward to getting to the next fun part of this blanket!

There were two more new starts that are still on the go. One was early this month, another baby gift, another fox, but this time it's one of the ragdolls I've been making a lot of lately. Since I had a lot of other stuff come up then, I only finished the head, one ear, and a bit of the body so far:

And then just this week, I started a Christmas present for my grandma - I wanted to make her a shawl that is soft enough to snuggle in, and after some deliberation I had the perfect yarn in my stash - it's called Aurora Borealis, and the colours really show - and a suitable pattern too (it's called Bruinen and is a free design by Morben Designs)! I just made a little start so far, but with plenty of time until Christmas, a little here and there should see this done well in time.

So that's it for this month - of course I've also been working more on Fans of the Far East, but I think you see that one often enough already! I also started a wedding sampler, but that is semi-secret for now, and I'll show you at a later date. Until the next checkin, I plan to continue working on Ubuntu, Bruinen, and the wedding sampler, and also start another ornament or two. Lots going on here, as you can see!

Fans of the Far East - 7th Rotation

 I don't know what it is about this piece - not only do I never seem to tire of it, but also, every time I try to make a prediction on how much I can get done within a ten hour slot, I'm totally off in either direction! This time, I got a lot more done than I though, but let's take a step back first. Not the last rotation, but the last time I worked on the border, got me to here:

My plan was to continue working along the lower border, but I predicted I wouldn't quite make it to the corner. Well.

By the time I made it to the corner, I still had an hour left on my rotation, so I worked a little on the top border, as well!

 Now, logically, the next ten hours on the border should bring me to the top right corner, maybe make a little start on the right side border. But who knows?! For now I am back to working on the left fan, let's see where that'll get me!

September Fully Finished Gallery

Well, back to my usual ways of slipping in at the very last minute - and it's only half my fault! I asked Felix to frame something for me a while ago, but he's been very busy otherwise, so instead, I had to emergency start, stitch, and finish my first Christmas ornament this week. Phew! I'm actually kind of proud that I managed. I picked out this cute Christmas Owl, a freebie that I saved ages ago, and finished it with Rachel's very own ornament tutorial!

This will have to make another entrance for the Gifted Gorgeousness in a couple of days, so I don't have a lot more to say about it right now, but for something I had to quickly throw together, I'm quite happy with how it came out!

The August SALs

I can't believe I almost forgot this one, after I was frantically stitching on the Temperature SAL just two weeks ago! But you know how it is, never enough time for all the things we want to do! 

So, Temperature SAL. August was a little less hot than July, but still plenty of warm days. The way September is behaving so far, that's about to change! In more exciting news, I finished the border (except for the parts I can only fill in once I have all the temperatures), so from now on I only have the monthly parts to stitch! I wonder if that will mean I have more time for other things?

This month at least, I did not have a lot of time for the Jacquie SAL. I started off strong with part 2 (the cross stitch in this section) and mad a valiant start on part 3 (the first half of the back stitch - there's still some more to come in part 4), but then I put it aside to catch up on my other projects and...well, haven't picked it up since. I'll get there, though, I'm really enjoying this one. The most current part brings some stumpwork and other specialty stitches I am really excited to try my hand on!

The People Chose: Sewing

Well, well, well - I knew me being on time for all my SALs for a month or two had to have been a fluke, because here I go again, slinking in a week late! I don't even have a good excuse, I had a week off work to relax but decided to only do what I feel like, and I didn't feel much like blogging. I'm sure I'll get everything up to date eventually though, I always do.

So today I want to sign in with Jo's wonderful all-purpose SAL, and this month's topic is 'Sewing'. I don't have a lot of sewing themed projects except for this traveling SAL by the sorely missed G. French from Stitcher's Anon:

Some actual sewing I did is a shirt from a couple years back, a wall hanging I finished last year, and my first attempt at paper piecing, this lovely pin cushion/paper weight! As I was telling Pamela earlier, I need more sewing in my life, but how to find the time?!

Fans of the Far East - 6th Rotation

 After a couple of busy days and weeks, I finally managed to sit down for a good stitching session or three this weekend, and finished off the next ten hours on Fans of the Far East! Last time I showed this project, it was here:

This time, I went back to working on the left fan. Last time, it felt like progress on these flowers was quite slow, but this time I ploughed right through. Comparing the pictures, it's actually pretty amazing how much progress I made, wouldn't you agree?

For the next rotation, it's back to the border, seeing if I can hit that lower right corner. My current bet is I'll get close, but not quite make it - we'll see about that! There's some crochet on the agenda first, though.