November WIPocalypse & Gifted Gorgeousness

Just ten days since my last post, and I feel like I already have a ton to write about - and there are two SALs to check in as well! Let's start with WIPocalypse. as the checkin was a day earlier. The question of the month is What pattern (or designer) is on your must-try-to-stitch bucket list? and oh my, where even to start for a question like that? There are, of course, a ton of designs I want to stitch, so I'll focus on designs of designers I haven't worked on yet. So for one, I, like many other stitchers want to do a Chatelaine some day - I haven't decided which one, although I really like the Japanese Garden. I also have been wanting to stitch Joan Elliott's three Oriental Graces for some time now,  and Electra from Nora Corbett's Bewitching Pixies. And of course all the Mucha Princess patterns by my friend Ashley!

Now for my progress, I've been working on a lot of things, three of which don't qualify for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - for one, I finished the 5th page of the Fire and Ember SAL. I loved this page, those bright red, orange and yellow colours where so much fun to work with, and they look stunning now!

Then, my friend Carla joined a crochet-a-day challenge on dA, where she attempts to do one small motif every day. She's using some very pretty perle yarn for hers, and they looked so pretty that I couldn't resist joining in as well - more with a corchet a week-ish thing, but let's see how it works out. Instead of the awesome book Carla is using, I'm using the patterns from a 'Crochet for your purse' box my grandma gave me a while back, and also some yarn I got for Easter this year. I'm planning to do most of this in the same two colours and join them together into some kind of wallhanging later.

As Felix is on a bussiness trip this week, I used his room to get my blocking mats out and finally finish-finish my snowflake party shawl I had finished knitting in August. It's more than two meters in length now, and sooo snuggly and soft with the 50% merion, 50% silk yarn. I have to admit, I'm very happy with this pattern and yarn and very proud of the result.

Of course, I also worked more on my list for Gifted Gorgeousness. For the two hats I finished knitting, I bought a plastic pompom maker (which was like 5€ for three different sizes) which was much easier to handle than the paper ones, and I made two nice and round pompoms with which I was finally able to finish-finish the hats. I've been wearing mine every day since then and my grandma loved hers as well. Now just two more to go!

I also finish-finished the puprle baby jacket. I had a few problems with the buttons I wanted to use - I originally wanted to use some cute caterpillars together with the butterflies, but they couldn't be attached safely enought for me to be comfortable with gifting it to someone. So I went to my stash and found some neutral ones that went well with the colours, and I really like the result as well. I will have to increase my button stash eventually, though.

So my new update on my to-do list is as follows:

1. Two toddler-scarfes 'Sharky-Pie' - beginning of one is pictures in blue - as christmas presents for a friend's twins
2. Two One more small Mill Hill kits as christmas presents for friends/coworkers of ours
3. Shawl Lestrona for my grandma- a little over ten rows to go!
4. One pair of socks for Felix' dad - one sock done up to the heel
5. One BSJ for a soon-to-be-a-dad coworkers of mine - due in December
6. One pair of Baby Booties and one Toddler sized purse for the kids of a friend - due in December
7. One pair of Baby Booties for a coworker - due in October
8. Two gifts for the kids of another coworker - plans are being made - due in January
9. Cut Thru' Cottage as a housewarming gift for Felix sister- two more pages to go! - due whenever
10. Four Three Two more hats for my grandparents, Felix and myself
11. 'Elevenses' by fiddlesticksau as a birthday present for Felix' brother - Due in January - 2/7 done

So a fair bit of progress, but still quite a bit to go as well. I still think it can be done, though! Next up I'm trying to finish Lestrona for my grandma, and another two lines on Elevenses.