Up-cycling and down-stashing

 When Felix and I moved in together, we obviously bought a lot of household stuff. That stuff is now a little over ten years old and apparently, for some stuff, that is as old as it wants to be! Over the last couple weeks, we noticed out dirty clothes hamper was starting to break down around the edge. It's basically just a big plastic vat and in the interest of reducing plastic waste I really don't want to throw it out, but everytim we had to move it we hurt our hands - it really was looking quite grim!

 I decided to try and see if I could save it. The bottom part is still quite sturdy, so I wanted to put something around the edge, and the best way to get something to fit correctly is to make it yourself - so I went stash diving and found a pretty blue yarn that I had no other use for. The yarn crafters among you might know what kind of yarn I mean - it's pretty, but artificial to such a high degree you really don't want to wear it. Perfect for some home improvement! So I did some measuring and went at it, and I was so lucky that the one skein I had made the exact right size for what I needed. Isn't that much better?!

 I know it's just a little thing, but I love repairing things and giving them a second life, and it makes me happy everytime I see it!

Lisa, the Garden Gnome

 April's section of the Magical Creature Calendar was small, but relatively dense stitching.

 It a little female garden gnome in front of her tree stump house and according to the SAL instructions, her name is Lisa. Hi, Lisa! It took  couple days to finish her but it feels good still being caught up - so far, so good! May's section is a bigger one, so I'm hoping to put some work in on the frames to set it up before then.

Things Unseen - Part 2

 It's been almost a year since I finished part 1 of the Things Unseen SAL by Lizzie Kate and vouched to work on it more...and I finally made it to finish part 2! This part was fairly chunky though, especially the house on the hill:

 Part 3 will be mostly text, so should go a fair bit quicker. I am hoping to get this piece done this year as I promised the pattern to someone and don't want to keep them waiting!

Is it a sloth, or a bear?

 On Easter weekend, we visited a friend who's having a baby soon, so I took that as an opportunity to finally finish this baby hat I had started last year, to leave it with her as a gift for the little one. Back then a group of friends all started the Bearly Bonnet by Pure Stitches, and I took entirely too long to finish it for such a quick knit!

 Here it is, modeled by my friend Simon the sloth, whose head has just the right size to pull it off. Isn't he cute? I think he quite enjoyed having visible ears for once!

March WIPocalypse

 We were visiting family for a couple days over Easter, so now I am very behind on blogging and reading again - but that's okay, I'll get caught up in time for sure! For now, let me talk about March WIPocalypse.

March was one of the one-a-day challenge months for the year, so I was working on my oldest WIP, a blue printed table cloth. I managed to finish the 3rd side and made a little start on the fourth, so this is officially over 75% done now!

 I really want to finish it this year, so, as there is only one more challenge month, I will probably have to throw in a couple addition stitches here and there, but it would feel good to get this crossed off the list.

Speaking of the list - no real progress on the WIP list in March! I had one good finish (the comfy sweater), but also a new start (the Magical Creature Calendar), so the total count is still at 55! I'm hoping for some finishes in April though, so I am not worried so far.

Last but not least, the question of the month is Which of your current WIPs do you consider your most difficult piece to stitch? Honestly, none of my current WIPs are too challenging, but if I have to pick one it'll be the Jacquie SAL, because those dragonfly wings use quite some stump work and it's my first one doing it, so it takes a long time to do neatly. 

I got a couple more posts lined up and the week off work, so hopefully, I'll see you again soon! 

Four Hats to Melt the Ice

The bag of yarn that my coworker gave me (that I made my two ponchos from) also had six balls of a different red yarn that I wasn't sure what to do with, but then I heard about the (at this point) semi-viral Melt the ICE hat from my friend Becky. The story of these hats is as follows: This design of red hat was originally worn in 1940s Norway as a sign of protest against the Nazi occupation, to the point of red hats being banned by the regime. Now people went and 'ressurected' the pattern as a protest against modern, nazi-like behaviour (hence the title). I loved the idea, and while we do not have ICE in Germany, we got plenty of wannabe nazis of our own, so it can never hurt to have a couple of anti-nazi hats at hand!

Turns out this yarn was perfect for the pattern, and I managed to make four hats in total before I ran out: One for me, one for Felix, one for my mum and one for my coworker as a thank you for gifting me with all this yarn!

 It feels nice to have used up the whole bag of yarn and made some room in my crafting corner, but there is plenty of yarn still to use, so I'll better get those needles a-clicking!

A birthday month start

 So far this year, I did a pretty good job working through my WIPs, but around my birthday this month, I suddenly felt the urge for a new start, and I think I deserved it! My choice was Cloudfactory's Magical Creature Calendar, a SAL from 2015, and I think I bought the chart about ten years ago. The fabric came from when I had a Fabric of the Month subscription with Jodyri, which was about 8 years ago I believe, and I bought some pretty overdyed floss for the border from Colourfever at Stitch Basel three years ago - so you see, this start has been a long time in the making!

I actually started a couple days before my birthday, working on the border, outlining the first four of the months, and then started  and finished - March. 

 This beautiful Phoenix is one of my favourite panels on the design and was an absolute treat to stitch, I adore him! Now the plan is to stitch one panel every month and finish in February next year, but if the mood strikes, I might put in some extra work in between to finish sooner than that, we shall see. At any rate, you should see this again soon, once I finish the April panel!