February Gifted Gorgeousness

I love signing up for SALs, but I also have my own personal crafting goals to accomplish - so I've been trying to pick the ones that don't interfere, or go really well with my usual stitching. And over the last couple years, I've become quite good at it...maybe too good, because these days, I feel like I'm posting everything I do at least twice for the different checkins! So, to not bore you, I'll try to avoid that in this post, and just link to what I already showed instead, and only talk about the new stuff. Let's see, gift stuff...since the last GG, I finished The Little Monkey, which was a traveling pattern from Chiara (which reminds me, I need to check the tracking info to see if it has reached the next stitcher yet). I also finished another Baby Surprise Jacket and, more importantly, my Baby Blanket CAL! And last but not least, I stitched a Valentine's Card for my husband.

No, my focus is back to what will probably my biggest gift project of the year: The Mermaid by Theresa Wentzler. I should finish it before July for my dad's 60th birthday...I'm not sure if that is still possible with how much I got sidetracked, but I'll certainly try my best! Over the last week, I finally managed to finished the section of sea I've been working on:

If you know the pattern, you might have realized that there actually is another bit of sea beneath her arm, and yet more at the very bottom. I'lle get to that later. For know, I will more or less work my way down, that is, stitch her hair, then start on the rock...but even before all that, I will work on the border a bit, filling in all the blue-ish/green-ish stitches outside the sea shells. That's only three colours, so I pulled them out and I think this part will actually be going pretty fast - I hope to stitch hair by next weekend!

February IHSW

I did IHSW this month, before/after pictures and all! I made plans, and then I stuck to some of them, and abandoned others, but I guess that's just how it goes with plans.

My plans were to quickly catch up on my SALs, then stitch a ton on The Mermaid. Well...the SAL part went alright. First I picked up the Temperature SAL - I've gotten into the habit of working on this every weekend and adding the seven symbols of the current week. Here it is before and after:

Next I picked up The Mamluk SAL as part 2 had just come out a week ago. This was a little more to stitch, but still went quickly. I got to pick the second colour, and I'm more than happy with my choice so far!

So now it was time for the Mermaid...but then I had Whacky Witches in Stitches out, since I have declared it a focus project in the 'Finish it in...' SAL, I had been working on it a bit. It's one of the few projects I'm stitching on scroll bars, and as it's quite bulky, it kept getting in the way. I was really close to finishing the next block, too...so finally I broke down and just finished it:

The Mermaid only saw a couple dozen stitches in the end, but now (without the distraction of those witches) I've been working on it for a few days and I'm getting back into the flow. I'll have progress to show soon!

Fully Finished Gallery - February

There's a new SAL in town this year...and I'm already late for it on the first go! That's okay though, I'm actually a few chackins behind but as always, I will get caught up! Rachel from The Ten Hour Stitcher is hosting this one to encourage all off us to a little more finihs-finishing done. I have been good the past few years and finished off most of what I've stitched, but there still are a few stragglers lurking aroung, and I also need to keep my game up and hope to finish some new ways of finishing too!




For this first month I didn't get any of the old ones done, but I fully finished two pieces I newly stitched. You're already seen both of them - one was the Valentine's elephants, that I gave a really quick finish by attaching it to a card (using double sided tape) and the other one is the NYE Mystery SAL, that I finished in a biscornu. Nothing super exciting this far, but maybe I can get something else done for March!

The People's Choice SAL: Hearts

For the February edition of Jo's 'The People Chose' SAL, the pattern was hearts - I had to wait until to day to post mine since the thing I stitched was also my picture for the Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop, so I wanted to see that posted first :) I still need to go hunting see who got it, though! For the last few years, I've been stitching from a collection by Angela Poole, and I had people on my blog vote on which one to stitch this year. The choice fell on these adorable elephants:

And look - three hearts! How approriate.

Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day full of love and chocolate with your special someone(s), but just in case you don't (or just want a little extra stitching love in your live today), Jo is hosting her Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop again this year! Please follow the link in the last sentence if you have no idea what I'm talking about, but if you do (or just came back from clicking that link), look at what my Valentine send me this year:

Two sweet hearts with Nordic patterns in lovely blues! I wonder who sent them? I'll go out hopping and looking for my own picture later in the day or tomorrow, when most of the participants will have their posts up.

January Stitchy Pie

Oh boy, oh boy...like that white rabbit, I am very, very late! The good thing about that is that every project I'm going to talk about, you've already seen, so I'll have a much easier time explaining. 

As you can see, I've mostly worked on the usual suspects...I'm glad to see how little time my three new SALs have been eating! The Blackwork SAL will be even quicker every month now that the outer border is done. That means I get to work on them and still put the majority of my time into finishing stuff off. And don't ask my how I managed to work on the Noose for just five minutes...it's never going to go anywhere at this rate!
My total time of the month shows that, while I'm being a big couch potato recently, I'm also still in a passionate gaming phase. Still, I got a lot done and don't think 80 hours is too bad all together :)

Finish it in 2019 - February Check-In

Oh boy...the first month of my 'finish all the things' journey is already over! Can't say I'm disappointed, though. I think I did quite well! In January, I picked 7 projects to work on. Let's see where those seven stand today:

1. The Bunny Blanket - the only one that hasn't been touched so far. I'll make up for that soon, promise!
2. Smooth Sailor is finished, see my WIPocalypse update
3. Early Morning Santa - finished the stitching, started the beading (picture below)
4. Baby Surprise Jacket - just finished this today! (picture below) Our local beads and buttons store closed down in January, and in their closing sale I scored these super cute dolphin buttons.
5. NYE Mystery SAL - finished, see my WIPocalypse update
6. Rainbow Baby Blanket - a big finish! I'm super excited, this went that much faster than expected. Final measurements are 65x90cm (without the border which adds another 3cm or so in each direction).
7. The Mermaid - is back in the hoop and I did a few stitches, but nothing exciting yet.

  

So with my list down to three, it's time to pick another couple of projects to focus on! Of course The Mermaid is going to see a lot more action now (once I finish my Valentine's Day stitching), but there's still room for a couple other things, namely:

4) The Half Granny Shawl - it's already huge ond cuddly and only needs a liiiittle bit of work to be huge, comfy and finished
5) The Reindeer amigurumi - started shortly before christmas and I only worked on the body so far
6) Remember that cat I made last year? I have a dog from the same series, which was a birthday present. Maybe I can get him done before my next birthday.
7) I'd really like to finally finish Whacky Witches in Stitches by cloudsfactory! I have six (of nine) parts left to do...maybe I can manage one a month?