April WIPocalypse

I had a crazy month in April - first our vacation, not being at home for three weeks, and ever since we've come back I've been very busy trying to catch up with everything - and no I've finally made it, caught up on blogging (well, almost), blog reading and all my SALs, and I'm here for the WIPocalypse nearly on time!

The question or prompt this month is Talk to us about your longest-running WIP or UFO. My oldest UFO are still those three table cloths are started more than a decade ago - no surpises there! - but I don't really feel like talking about them. Instead, I'm going to talk about my longest running WIP, as in the WIP I've worked on on the most seperate days, and that is my Puppeteer. I've been stitching one length (1m, folded in half for a loop start) almost every day since January 23rd, 2017! When I didn't get to work on it one day, I did two length the following day (or caught up on multiple days at once). In fact, I still haven't fully caught up for our vacation on this one, but still, that's a lot of days! I've used up the equivalent of 15 skeins of black floss by now (but I bought a cone) and I'm just barely over the halfway mark, namely here:

Actually, I reached an even bigger hallmark than 'halfway point' recently - no more boring pages! Well, there's one very close to the end that is all black and therefore very boring, but apart from that, every page has counting and shapes and fun. Gotta keep motivated for another 15 skeins or so!

Now for my less long running WIPs...I stitched on all my SALs, and caught up on the Mamluk and Blackwork SALs last weekend. Tiny parts on both, but both very fun!

I also worked on the Temperature SAL and finished most of April (well, all but the days that hadn't happened yet). If I counted right, I'll be turning the corner by May 1st and look, there's a tiny yellow day in the lower left!

Last week, I finished the front of the Spring SAL, then stitched up the back over the weekend:

And with everything else out of the way (well expect for the Puppetteer, but that one is catching up, slowly) I was finally free to return to my Mermaid! I did about 600 stitches over the weekend, and at the moment is feels like it's stitching up pretty quickly (at least for a TW). Maybe it's the rocks, or maybe I was just a little burned out and have since recovered, either way, I am very much enjoying it.

So far, so good, right? Right...now for my WIP count, that has been...not as good. I'm still at 50 (+1) with no new finishes this month...but as you can see, the Spring SAL is ready to finish-finish, another project is as well, and two or three more don't need too much more work...so maybe things will finally look up in May. One can hope, right?

April IHSW

Last weekend was IHSW, and also Easter, which meant a four day weekend for me - and I was determined to make the best of it! So some serious stitching happened (also I was not totally hermitting, we also visited my grandparents and some friends, went for a walk, cooked and some gaming was in there, too.)

So I had two main projects I was working on - one was Whacky Witches, which fit in great with this weeks Magical Stiching homework. So great actually that I finished the lower right panel and therefore the complete lower row - I got to scroll up and next month I'll start on the top row!

This weekend was also Magicals Spring Mystery SAL - I finished the two prestitches before the weekend, and Friday noon was go time! One part came out every four hours, and even though I only stayed up to date during Friday, by Monday evening I was almost caught up - just two parts (plus the backside) left to go! Isn't it pretty with all those nice pastels?

And lastely, I also through a couple of stitches (or rather beads) into the Flower Trellis, since it fit in with another one of the Magical Stitches challenges. Before I did that, I spent some time sorting my beads into that pretty bead case I got for a mere 100 Yen (~0,80€) in Japan. So much easier to work on it now!

April Gifted Gorgeousness

So I have officially given up on April 'Finish it in' and 'Fully Finished Gallery' (I'll just have to put on double the effort in May), but I will participate in Gifted Gorgeousness! I do not really have any gift-crafting to show (I already showed you Ambarussa, and I didn't really work on the Mermaid and Crocodile lately), so I am going to show you the stash I got with my birthday money from last month!

Of course I had to do some shopping in Japan - various embroidery and other craft kits, especially beading. Also a few news things to try - basket weaving, needle felting and those cool thread covered balls. I wonder when I will ever find the time! The second picture just has a few things from a stationary shop - a stamp and origami paper - that I forgot to include in the first picture.

I also ordered some stuff from Lakeside that waited for me when I got home. My mum is turning 60 next year, and I'm planning to stitch Mirabillia's Lady Justice for her. I ordered the pattern, fabric, beads, Kreinik and the DMC that will be used most:

Oh an then I actually have some stitching to show since I started a little Sashiko kit from my Japan haul - a technique I'd never tried before, but it's fun and surprisingly quick. I think I'll do more of it in the future!

Edit: I just remember, there are two things I can finally show you! Literally YEARS ago I had promised Pamela to knit her some socks. I started them pretty soon, but it took me until last November to finally finish them. I made a pair of frist warmers from the left over yarn, too (a really lovely yarn, by the way;  a Silk Color Sock Yarn by OnLine yarns which is wonderful to touch and work with due to the silk content). Since I knew I was traveling to Japan this March, and wanted to meet her there, I decided it could wait a little longer and gave them to her in person. I think she liked them!

Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop

It's Good Friday, and as such time for the yearly Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop, hosted, as usual, by our dear Jo!

Again, I get to share with you a pretty spring finish, a letter, and the link to the next participant - in that order. So first, let me (again) show you the 'Hello Spring' card I made earlier this year:

Then, of course, my letter for the mystery phrase (if you have no idea what's going on at this point, please klick the link above to get to the main post with all the instructions and participants), which is

i

And last but not least, the next hop on the way:

A Patchwork of Crafts

Thanks for hopping by!

March WIPocalypse

Well...I'm not saying this is the latest WIPocalypse post ever, but it might well be! It just doesn't feel right to let all these posts fall through, so you'll have to suffer through them this weekend. Sorry!

The question of the month was What newer designers and product creators (fabric or floss dyeing, etc) out there have you discovered and recommend?As many others whose posts I read, I've been trying to limit my spending and new starts, so I didn't work on a lot of 'new' projects. Going through my finishes, though, there is at least one new-to-me designer I 'discovered' since this topic came up last, and thats Maria Brovko who's CutePatternsByMaria on Etsy. I stitched one of her freebies last summer and not only is it totally cute, the patterns are also of very nice quality!

Now for the WIPocalypse update, I usually share my three ongoing SALs, so here we go - you've already seen the March Mamluk, but those last few days, I also stitched the Blackwork SAL, and finished March on my Temperature SAL:

 

 March also saw the 'Stitch a Day' challenge. I was working on my Mermaid until the day we left for Japan, and for traveling, I brought Charming, on which I worked every day of our vacation (so, I good deal longer than just March). Here are the two now:

So, nice progress considering how long I was away for, I guess! Now I just need to get back into the swing of things, and most importantly, of finishing things. With the gift starts I had recently (and one additional start that doesn't quite fit in here, but that I'll show soon), I am up to 50 WIPs...yes, I went from -2 to +1! Shameful! I'll be doing my best to get back down, but with just 9 days left to the next WIPocalypse, I'm not sure I'll manage before then.

March Stitchy Pie

Hello, lovely blog-reading people! It is me, the blog-writing person. I know I have been MIA for a while, but I assure you that everything is fine - I was on vacation (two weeks and change traveling Japan, plus a few days with the in laws) and just finally got back home today. I will spend the next week (at least) catching up on reading, writing, stitching, answering emails and whatever else has piled up in my absence, plus also probably write a little about what I've been up to.
Today, I'll be starting with the stitchy pie for March - before leaving, I spent quite a bit of time getting everything prepared, but still found time to stitch and crochet and everything!

There are a lot of different projects in there, but only a few I still need to show you. There is the Pumpkin Doodle Cats, which I've been working on on and off whenever it fit any of the Magical Stitches Challenges. They've been making good progress though, and surely will be done before long!

Then there is the Lizzie Wallet SAL, which - thanks to a challenge - I've only just picked up for the first time this year. I'm still working on the first part of many, but I don't think the actual amount of stitching left is too bad...

And, of course, there's Ambarussa. I really wanted to get this one finished over my vacation, and I got really far, but it still has a little bit to go. I also didn't take a picture as the month changed, so this is a current photo, which is more than double the work it saw in March:

My other travel project was Charming, a Diminsions Mini I picked up last year. It has seen a lot of progress, but as I've been taking regular pictures of this one, I'll just show end-of-March state for now: