January WIPocalypse

 ...and I went and disappeared from my blog again for two weeks. Sorry about that! I missed IHWS (well, I didn't really miss-miss it, but I didn't feel all that stitchty that weekend, didn't get a lot done and just skipped the blogging) and there are just not that many checkins in the second half of the month. There is WIPocalypse though (to which I am a couple days late because I caught some nasty stomach bug last weekend), so here we go!

The question for the month one of my favourites - What SALs are you participating in this year? This year, I have three year-long actually-stitching-along SALs (on top of our yearly Halloween SAL, that runs from August to October and that I will tell you more about once we decided on a pattern) as well as a couple of low-effort, blogging SALs.

You already know the first of my stitching SALs - Hetti's Temperature SAL. I seem to be working on this roughly once a week to stitch the squares for the last few days, and I'm actually caught up to last Sunday. We had a bit of a cold spell (average temperatures below freezing), which brought a pretty new purple, and than an uncharacteristically warm day, which brought that one green heart, but I think we are back to a typical southern German January for now. I'm very glad to not life in the mid US right now, with all that arctic cold incoming, and hope everyone who does live there will be safe!

The other two SALs are hosted by my friend Magical525 and are released in monthly parts on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, respectively (she does have SALs on the first and second Tuesday too, but I only have so much time). The first his her Mamluk SAL, which is actually really cool. Magical does a lot of pattern inspired by old manuscripts, or her Weavers Band SAL that was very popular last year (and is back this year for a second installment), and this one is designed after a scrap of stitched fabric that was found in Egypt and is supposed to be up to 800 years old! I played with the colours a bit, choosing white on blue instead of brown on beige, and I'm thinking a nice rich darker blue was the secondary colour...although I still need to pick that one! I stitched part one as it was released - the shapes of some months are a little odd to even out the stitch count:

The second is her Blackwork SAL. For this one, she gave a colour scheme that I decided to follow (for now) and after finishing the basic shape, filling in each month will be way quick. I really don't know why I don't do more blackwork, and this way I'll at least do a little each month.

For blogging SAL, I'm mostly doing the usual suspects:

• WIPocalypse ('duh),
• Gifted Gorgeousness,
• Jo's 'The People's Choice' SAL,
• IHSW (sometimes),
• the returning 'Finish it in 2019' SAL,
• and, a newcomer, Rachel's 'Fully Finished Gallery SAL'

Hope I didn't forget anything!

Of course I'm also doing my own '-19 in '19' this year, and that's been going...not so well, this far. Small wonder, though, with three new starts for the three SALs alone! It's all good, though, as those will all be finished within the year, right? I also started the Valentine's stitch I had you vote for in my last post (elephants won).

I also finished the NYA SAL - stitched up the back and turned it into this cute little (not very little, though) biscornu:

I also finished Smooth Sailor, a vest/shawl/loop/versatile thing from the 2016(?) StrichMich! Club. I completed the knitting in December and only had to weave in the loose ends and wash/dry it, and it's lovely! The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Marina in the special colour 'Martina's Berry Pie' and it's incredibly soft and light, only 100g/800m. I'm sure I'll use it again in the future.

The Little Monkey was finished as well. I used Chiara's DMC conversion and while I mostly loved how it came out, I'm not super pleased with the banana. The yellows she picked are lighter than the ones included with the kit, so the contrast to the orange is much greater...I'm not sure if I like the effect that has or if I might go back and replace it. What do you think? Otherwise, I really like how the little guy turned out!

Last but not least, I've been working on my Rainbow Baby Blanket. This has more than doubled in size since the beginning of the year! I really enjoy working on it. Technically, it's finished (well, apart from adding the border), but I'm not satisfied with the size yet. It was supposed to be 60x90cm, but for some reason mine turned out a little wieder (about 65cm) and a lot shorter (just below 70cm!). So I'll add a little more to it, I think about 30 or 40 rows should do. I'm still on the first ball of yarn for some colours, and barely started the second ball for the others, so there's plenty of yarn to go!

In total, that brings me to 50 WIPs, or +1. That's the magical number I swore myself not to cross, so I'll have to bring it down a little before the next check in!