SAGA - 2rd Arch finished

 Some time ago, I finished the third arch (first in the third row, too) on SAGA (Long Dog Sampler Stories Amidst Graceful Arches), and while this is a little bit early for 60 hours, I still wanted to show you and update!

 So this is almost exactly half the height of the complete design, which feels kind of significant. As each row gets a bit higher than the last, there are just two more to go to reach the bottom (but they take longer to stitch, too, especially the bottom row has some chonky motifs!). This arch is one of my favourites in the design, with the little octopus and owl. Funnily enough, this is the second octopus I stitched this year! 

The backstory is fun too, about a short-sighted octopus falling in love with a submarine. Oh dear, she's in for a rude awakening...

If anyone is wondering about that empty spot on the submarine - this is where the date goes on this sampler, and as you can see, I didn't date commit to more than the century! 

Stitch Basel - Haul & Exchange

 Tell me, how exactly is October almost over already? Where has the month *gone*? I've been very busy so far, spending time with family and friends, and time just flew by! So here I am and have yet to tell you about most of what I've been up to in September.

September 18th to 20th, I was at Stitch Basel, the yearly European cross stitch retreat in Switzerland. I had a lot of fun, catching up with friends, looking at everyone's amazing projects, stitching...and shopping, of course! Here is my haul, mostly fabrics and floss by xJuDesign, but also two from Frau Eule and a couple patterns.

 There also was a smalls exchange again, and this year I stitched up the Lost Flower Blade Bookmark from Needlelot Design. I stitched it all on white plastic canvas, than put felt on the back and cut it out. Really happy with the result - there is a companion piece, the Lost Vine Blade, that I am going to stitch for myself eventually!

 In exchange, I got this cute little bird stand, plus the accompanying goodies, from my exchange partner. I was very happy over all and it was a very successful retreat!

 

Beaky

 My D&D (Dungeons and Dragons, a Pen and Paper role playing game) recently adopted an owl bear cub. Owl Bears are ferocious creatures with the strength of a bear but the grace and dexterity of an own...and while they are small, the are absolutely adorable! So while our ingame cub is being spoilt by his four mamas and learning to vanquish our foes (and hopefully not eat out fingers), I made my very own owl bear cub to snuggle with. His name (just as the one in game) is Beaky - short for Beakless, like Toothless, the dragon.

 He's from the same book as the Mimic I made some time ago (Dungeons & Dragons Crochet - A Book of Many Patterns) and surely won't be the last I make, that book has so many adorable patterns!

August WIPocalypse

 It's a good thing I am not apologizing for being late on these posts anymore, because in three days it'll be the checkin for September already! My life feels a little crazy lately - not crazy-crazy, just a *little* busy, and even though I've been off work for a week now, things still haven't really calmed done - I got high hope for next week, though!

Anyways, I'm very behind on both blog reading and posting myself, which seems to become my default, but that's okay, we'll roll with it as we always do. You'll get updates on everything I worked in due time, today we'll take care of logistics. 

Question of the month - Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time? I haven't been a "One project at a time"-stitcher since about age 7! I don't really have a formalized rotation either, though. I got a lot of WIPs and will often change them rapidly (doing 300 stitches for a quest here, finishing a motif there), and then I'll get stuck on something and keep at it for lots of progress or even push for a finish. It works and for the most part I'm happy with it, and when I'm not anymore, I'll think of something else!

WIP count - now since we are way past the end of August, but I can reconstruct where I stood then - during the month, I decided to scrap an old crochet project that I don't think I've shown here, because I didn't really like it in the yarn I chose. I might restart it one day, we'll see. I also made some progress on the crochet front, and ended the month on 52 WIPs. Am I still there? No, but that'll be a discussion for the September-check in. Will that be in three days? Probably not, but again, we will just roll with it!

A Beary Special Glowup

 Some time ago, my mum asked me to make her childhood teddy some new clothes since he started to look his age, and I was happy to help out. After some looking around online, I finally found a pattern that I liked, then proceeded to change a lot of details about it to actually fit this particular bear. But I am very pleased with the final outcame, and also to have used up some of that multi coloured yarn that I found deep, deep in my stash. Honestly, what else could you use this particular colourway for than some teddy pants?

    

Yoshi is back (an purple this time)

 A couple years back, I crocheted a blue Yoshi for a friend, and another friend asked for a purple version of him. As the pattern has a lot of small parts and was a bit of a chore to put together, I needed a break before tackling that, which turned into a pretty extended break, but I finally got back around to it. I think I have matured in my tolerance for many-pared amigurumi in the last three years, because this time, it didn't feel too bad!

So I actually really like how he turned out, even though he's not perfect, but he's very cute. I am kind of on a crochet-creature-trip at the moment, so you will be seeing a couple more in the coming weeks and months! 

 

When your dice have been naughty...

 ...you put them into solitary confinement, as to not give the other dice any ideas! A friend knit one of these solitary confinement dice bags for me some time ago, and I loved the idea, so I made some for two very close, P&P crazy friends. And then I loved the pattern and made six more for my whole role playing group! 

 I had these little 10g sample balls of Scheepjes Riverwashed in cute colours and these were the perfect projects to finally use them! But I think I'll need to get some more of some of those colours, they are so pretty...