More progress!

Another regular progress update without any SALs to cater to...I'm so proad of myself! Joke aside, I have a few things to share, including a finish, a start and a planned start, so I hope you are as excited as I am :)

But first, for the regular progress - I continued working on the grandchildren project, and have now finished the first page (aside from a few motifs that overlap with the upper page which is actually only a half page). So I am about 2/3 done now - at least with the cross stitch, there will be a ton of backstitch and the costomization to go after that!

Now to the starts and finish. On friday I was feeling a bit down, so I allowed myself a new start to pick myself up - the Strawberry Sampler I won from Jo's GGG (Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway) a while back. I'm planning to finish this as my entry in the Stitching Pirates Ye Olde Sampler contest, so I have until the end of August to get it done. I'm stitching this on a bit of linen I got from a grab back, I think it's a 36ct, and I'm doing another experiment with a (small) rotating frame. This time I'm using masking tape and now the tension is just perfect - I'm going to experiment with a larger frame again soon, maybe I can get that to work as well.

The finish I want to show you I actually finished a few weeks back already - but it was a birthday present for a friend and she only got it this week. It's my first Mill Hill kit, Kiwi the owl. Certainly not my last, I really loved stitching this - the perforated paper, the coverage of 3 over 1, and of course so tons of beads! So much fun, and such a cute owl. I backed it with green felt.

And lastly, what I am most excited about - Jody from Unceonventional XStitch is holding a SAL with the very pretty Fire and Ember design. The startdate is on July 2nd, so it's not to late to join in - I certainly could not resist and I am fully prepared, just waiting for the matching needle minder to arrive. I can't wait to get started, just one more week! You can find the details here if you are interested.

June IHSW/WIPocalypse

Double SAL checkin time! We have IHSW just behind us, which I actually spent a nice amount of time stitching on, and it's also time for this month's WIPocalypse-checkin. It's still going to be a rather short post, since I'm trying to focus on stuff, and focusing means more progress, but less pictures - oh well.
The June question for WIPocalyse was Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?. I'm pretty sure the same question has already been asked last year, but without looking at my answer from back then I can now say that it's definitly winter these past few years. I'm not actually a summer-loving person, so I really like to lay around lazyly when it's hot - great conditions for stitching, right? Well, I'd still love to do that, but for the last two years or so I've been finding myself way to busy during the summertime, so winter is the better time for stitching now.

Now for progress, I stitched exclusivly on the Grandchildren project, and finished the lower right corner - a lovely little birdy with his nest - so I'm more than halfway done with the cross stitch now. I also started charting the customized parts, so I can hopefully get right to stitching those once I reach the area.

I also had a bit of knitting time last week during lectures, so I got a fair bit of the watermelon socks done. I'm just about the start working the heel now, so almost halfway done on the second sock. My goal is to have those done by July 29th, Sysstem Admin Appreciation Day, as the guy I'm making these for happens to be out sys admin at work - I think that goal is quite achievable :)

June Gifted Gorgeousness

I know, I'm technically a day early for Gifted Gorgeousness, but just as I set out to post I realized the date and didn't want to put it off for another day - so I hope it's okay to just post now ;) Also, I happend to just check the view numbers on my blog, and they are kind of EXPLODING these days with more than a thousand views a day, basically doubling my total view over the last month or so - what's going on here?! Not that I don't like it, it's just really unexpected and strange and I don't really think it's for real, unless I've become some new kind of meme without my knowledge?
But as we're probably not going to solve this mystery right here and now, let's just get on with my current progress...I've kept working on the grandchildren project, of course. Only a small bit of progress now, but this was the best place to do a picture before the next, a bit bigger section starts, and I will do my best to actually have that ready by next week. Just some more flowers and leaves for the time being:

I've also done another ten eleven this time! rows on the Baby blanket, including this lovely wave stitch that I've been trying to figure out for ages and now I know how it's done ^_^ 61 rows now in total.

I've also done a bit more knitting on Snowflake Party - this one is not a gift, I'm sorry, but I still wanted to show my progress - another three repetitions of the first base pattern for a total of 9 now (goal is 15 before starting the next one).

And that's it again! I'm sorry if I'm a bit boring at the moment, but I'm really trying to focus on a few projects to actually finish them eventually, and I don't have a lot of intersting stuff to talk about otherwise. I have a massive gaming-bug going on that does cut in my stitching time, and I never seem to get enough time for either stitching or gaming, but still making steady progress on everything.

June already? - Progress

I often find myself wondering these days...where the heck did May go? Wasn't is just my birthday in March? Time is running and flying, but at least my needle is doing the same and I have some nice progress to show (nice transition there, eh?). So, let me show you where my current WIPs are at:

I'm still focusing my stitching time on the Grandchildren Sampler - I couldn't resist joining another SAL starting in July (not telling what it is yet!), and the next round of our Halloween SAL is starting in August (you can read about that one on Carla's dA here), so I need to hurry and focus a bit on that one. And I made some nice progress, finishing the lower left corner, so I suppose I am about one third done with the whole thing (minus the customization, which I will need to do some re-charting for).

I also managed do do another 10 rows on the baby blanket CAL, so it's a total of 50 rows now. The new stitch this time was a so-called bubble stitch, which was a lot of fun to do and is even more fun to touch. What a lovely idea to include stitches that feel all differently in a blanket for a baby, with the colours and the different sensations a little one can have a lot of fun with this blanket I suppose!

And on top of everything, I even found some time for knitting. I finally finished the first of my Melon socks and started the ribbing section on the second one, and I started a new project as well - last christmas, I decided to treat myself to the StrickMich! knitting club, where you get yarn and a pattern four times a year. The first one arrived in February, and after the second package got here in May I finally wanted to start the first one! The pattern is called Snowflake Party, which is not very fitting for the season, but the yarn is so lovely to knit with even when it's hot out - sock yarn weight, 50% merino and 50% silk, so light and so, so soft! The pattern is great as well, featuring a border of lovely snowflake/flower structures, and a lot of easy plain knitting. Such fun! I'm at 6 (of 14) repeats of the basic pattern now, and of course the shawl is growing at each repetition.