May WIPocalypse

I'm a little late because I was waiting for the May part of the Blackwork SAL; and then I had to stitch it, and then I wanted to finish some other stuff...that last part didn't all work out, but at least I am here now before May is quite over!
The question this month is Where do you love to shop for stash?, and sadly, my answer hasn't changed all that much over the last years...I love shopping for stash in real stores, but I don't really get to do that unless I'm traveling. We have a few yarn shops in town, but not really anything stitchy. Online, there are a lot of awesome stores, but the two I want to mention are https://www.lakesideneedlecraft.co.uk/ - most of you probably know it by know, but Kate is absolutely awesome and has an amazing selection of crafty goods. And then there is https://www.unconventionalxstitch.com/ - Jody has graduated from Etsy and launched her own website, complete with a discount system for repeat customers. I do love her patterns!

Now for my ongoing SALs...I did stitch the May parts for the Blackwork and Mamluk SAL, and loved both of them:

 

And I worked on the Temperature SAL too. This is caught up to last weekend - I think this week might have had a couple yellow days, and I am excited to add them soon:

 

Looks good, right? What doesn't look so good is my WIP count...I just made it back to 49 (+0), where I started, by finishing Early Morning Santa, Ambarussa, the Spring SAL and the Crocodile, but starting the Hippo, the Panda (next one in the lineup - I started it despite still needing to sew the Hippo together) and a new little cross stitch for a friend's birthday. Maybe I'll get a little more done in June, but I already have at least two new starts lined up, so I better get cracking!

Last but not least, our lovely WIPocalypse-master Measi has called another focus challenge for June and July - stitch every day on a project of your choice. I'll continue focusing on the Mermaid, working on her everyday for both months (or until she's finished, but somehow I don't see that happening so soon!). Here she is right now - page 2 finished, page 1 is still missing three shells in the border, and I made a decent start on page 3. I hope to have at least three pages finished by the end of July!

May Gifted Gorgeousness

Can you believe we're halfway through May again? Me neither! I have been busy, though, and have quite a few things to show for this month's Gifted Gorgeousness check in.

First of, a finished the Ambarussa moebius loop in blue. I reallyl ike how it turned out . it's just as soft and pretty as the red one, but thanks to the new 'cast on' I tried out, it's stretchy all the way through and even more comfortable. I think I'll need to make another one for Felix sonn as well, but this one is a very late Christmas present for a good friend.

I also finished the crocodile blanket doll! It only took me ages, seeing how I already finished the head and body by late March, but Ambarussa got in the way and vacation time and now it's all done. I am very pleased with how it turned out and enjoyed working with the yarn too (Scheepjes Stone Washed - mostly cotton with some artifical fibres for effect).

I already started the second animal from the same book - this one is a hippo. I already finished the head and ears and I'm now working on the body, and I think if I stick to it, I might even finish it next week! Those two are gifts for the grandchildren of a friend of my grandma, but I think I'll have to make more from the book too, they are all really cute and fun.

And last but not least, I've been working more on my Mermaid...I fully finished the cross stitch on the upper right page, only need to fill in the border to do the same for the upper left, and I worked on her tail too! Her butt is sitting smack on the intersection of all four pages, so there was a lot of page-juggling, but I think I managed it without any noticeable mistakes.

May Fully Finished Gallery

I'm back to finish-finishing, and although I still haven't touched my older finishes, I'm back up to date with my more current finishes! In fact, there were two stitchy ones (and two more on the crochet side that you'll see in a few days). One I already showed you, my Early Morning Santa - a beaded ornament on perforated paper, backed with felt:

The other one I just finished today - I made my Spring Mystery SAL into a biscornu, which is probably my favourite way to finish - whip stitch, a beaded edge, it's just so fun to make, even though it's not super creative!

My focusing on bigger projects this year leaves me without a lot of finishes, but I still hope to be back with something next month :)

The People's Choice - Flowers & Specialty Stitches

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I usually like to make a new small something for Jo's monthly SAL checkins, but the past few months have shown me that I am hard pressed to both do that AND meet my stitching goals on the other projects at the same time...so I've made the executive decision to save a little time and use older pictures for this posts, if I have some that fit. And since I missed last month's checkin altogether, you're probably in for a looot of pictures...you've been warned!

Last month, the topic was specialty stitches (and as I learned from Jo, I've been pronouncing these the US way all along, even though I originally tried to learn British English!) and while I don't get to use those very often, I do love them. Most prominently, my Angel of Frost had a TON of them, especially in the border, and I've done two band samplers (also something I love and don't do nearly often enough):

Now for this month, the topic is 'Flowers', and I've done a few of those as well! A pillow case with big bright tulips (which reminds me, those still need finish-finishing!), a couple asters, a garden sampler, and most recently, my Hello Spring card. Quite a few WIPs as well...which reminds me, I'll better get stitching ;)

April Stitchy Pie

I can't believe it's already May, but it is, and as such it's time for a new Stitchy Pie!

You can see I was away - Ambarussa and Charming, my take-away projects, obviously saw a lot of attention, and my total crafting time is a little lower than usual. The Puppeteer didn't quite get his usual attention too! The poor Mermaid has been terribly neglected, but I'm trying to make up for it - for the next month or two want to focus on her and not work on anything else (expect for the daily Puppeteer and on-the-go crafting) until I did at least ten hours a week.

I think you've actually seen everything I worked on in April except for the Pumpkin Doodle, which got a little bit of attention thanks to the Magical Stitches group again. I just love how it's turning out!

Finish it in 2019 - May Check-In

So after missing the checkin for April, I'm back for May, and almost on time, too! I'm linking up with my friend Magical who hosts this SAL. Let's have a look at my list:

1) Early Morning Santa
2) The Mermaid
3) Half Granny Shawl
4) Reindeer
5) Wuffi the Dog
6) Whacky Witches in Stitches

The Mermaid is still trodding along. I'm back to working on her almost every day and have been making good progress those last few days - hopefully it'll keep going like this!
I'm also still working on Whacky Witches - in April I finished the lower row and I started working on the top now:

I also had a finish - as seems to become the rule, I did the finish-finishing just tonight, although the stitching and beading has been finished since mid-March. It's Early Morning Santa! I so love his colours with the bright red and green. I finished him as an ornament as to the instructions and backed him with dark green felt which I might trim a little more once the glue has all dried:

This would bring my list down to five items, but I'm going to introduce another one - my March Fobs. This was Magical's first 'Fob of the Month', back in 2015 when she first started doing them. I stitched up the charted orange version years ago, but I always wanted to make a purple colourway too. Last week's homework in the Magical Stitches group had me working on my smallest WIP, so I pulled it out and stitched up the back, and I want to keep this motion going, stitch the second front and finish both of them:

So my updated list is this:

1) The Mermaid
2) Half Granny Shawl
3) Reindeer
4) Wuffi the Dog
5) Whacky Witches in Stitches
6) March Fobs