January IHSW and more

According to my calculations, last weekend was January IHSW, and while it didn't work out quite like I had planned (Moana had to be watched and Trails of Cold Steel had to be played!), I did my very best to hermit and stitch and I did make some progress, both on the weekend itself and in the week before too. Anyways, I have quite a bit to show of that stuff that I consider exciting, so here we go!

First and most excitingly, my first finish of the year - the hobbit meal plan is all done (isn't that green pretty?!). Such a fun project, such fun floss, and also one down from my list. Just need to find a frame and it's good to go for the next time we meet Felix' brother.

Next I started working on the next page of the Fire and Ember SAL - page 7 is what I should get done in January, so I better focus on that for a bit. As you might remember, I had a bit of an accident here and held the fabric the wrong way around and now it won't be wide enough. I decided to fix that by cutting the excess fabric from the bottom and stitch over the overlap, and so far it's working out okay. It actually looks stronger in the picture than it does in real life, and I hope it will turn out to be one of those things you don't notice unless you know it's there. I have one of two main colours done, so almost half the page is down.

I also worked some more on my Joan Elliott new year start and added all the leafes around that pretty flower. Next up are some small white flowers and after that there definitly won't be any more hiding which design this is going to be!

There have also been a few new starts. This one I've been experimenting with for a bit, but now it's finally going in the right direction - it's a crocodile stitch mermaid tail blanket for a friend of ours. I think it's probably the biggest crochet project I've done so far, but it's fun with the scales and I'm doing little patches of silver and gold sparkle as randomly as I can. This is one skein of Drops Nepal (65% wool/35% alpaca, 75m to 50g and so so soft!) on the scaly section, and also my third or fourth try to get that tail fin right - I'm still not content, but maybe the next try will be the one. I have no idea how much yarn I will need for this, I bought 30 skeins in two colours and I'll see how far that will take me.

Also, I didn't have any socks in my on-the-go knitting back, so I had to change that by starting a new pair for Felix. Just plain socks without a pattern, but pretty yarn in summer-y colours, just the right thing for that cold and dark and wet weather!

And last but not least, a fun 'little' project I have planned for a bit now. I bought the pattern 'Puppeteer' from Unconventional X Stitch as a Christmas present for myself (please remind me to put a picture up in the side bar if I forget) and I was a bit shocked to see that it requires 240m of black - but I also saw the opportunity to finally get a cone of DMC 310, so I did, and I also bought fabric and now I cut 1m pieces off that cone and I want to stitch one length of that each day. I'm strangely excited to stitch such a ton of black, but at this speed it should only take me about 4 years (plus whatever time I need to finish the other colours), hahaha :D