The People's Choice SAL: Finishing

I'm super late again! And I didn't even work on something new...there was just always so much month left, and suddenly, there was no more month left.

So I''m just going to throw a couple of pictures in here...I'm a pretty boring finisher. I do a lot of framing, and for smaller finishes, I love my whip stitched square ornaments, and I love biscornu, and sometimes I'm lazy and just make a cute card:

I sometimes try and experiment with other ornament styles and shapes, and I do like them, but I tend to be lazy and revert to what I know best!

 

And here are some other fun finishes I tried over the years: I really liked the bell pull, ready-made stitchable accerssories are always fun, and isn't that little baggy cute?!

 

 

 

July Gifted Gorgeousness

Wow, I'm late again! I've had a hard week...I was only a little late with the intention to catch up on everything last weekend, but on Thursday a friend died very unexpectedly, and I sunk into a deep pit of  being unmotivated and feeling like 'nothing really matters', so I just lazed around and spent time with family for most of the weekend. It still isn't easy, but I'm starting to feel much more like myself again, and I know getting back on track with stuff will help with that as well, so here we go.

I'm still having quite a few gift projects on the go, and I've been making quite good progress too! For the Mermaid, I put some work into the border (finishing ten whole and two partial shells) and also made progress on the rocks. I'm not sure I'll make the page finish in July, as there is quite some confetti going on in the last parts, but if not I'll probably have a nice overlap onto the last page to show for it.

There's also Lady Justice...I have yet too really put focus on this one, but for now it's fun to see it grow every time I throw a couple hundred stitches at it! But with how slowly The Mermaid is coming along, I'm feeling a slight bout of panic coming up about whether I'll actually be able to finish this in time...I just don't have too much quality stitching time this summer!

Knitting is easier, as I can just take it with me whereever I go. I still didn't finish the Hippo, but made great progress on the baby jacket; I finished the main knitting and only need to sew the shoulders closed, knit up the collar, and find some buttons now:

And then, last but not least, I got some gifts too! Or rather, bought them for myself...I still had an amazon gift card I got for my birthday, and found two Dimensions Gold kits that had been on my wishlist in forever and added up to exactly the amount on the gift card, so I went ahead and ordered them! I really wanted the Woodland Enchantress to go together with the Fall Fairy I already have, and I don't know what about Winter Retreat fascinates me but I've been in love with it for years!

Finish it in - July Checkin

So it's time (or actually, it was time a week ago) for the monthly 'Finish it in' check in. Here's my current list:

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

I've made progress on three of them (though not always as much as I'd liked) and finished none.

The Mermaid is progressing slowly, but surely. After slacking of in June I'm trying to do at least 500 stitches every week in July (not always easy when you're away the whole weekend, like the last one) and it's already showing:

I worked on Whacky Witches too, but didn't manage to finish the whole block - the letters and eye were a lot of fun, but also a lot of stitching! I made a decent start, though, and hope to be done before the start of our new Halloween SAL.

And I worked on Viajante too - I did one row a day all though June, and a few more this month, and made decent progress. It's not easy to see progress on this one, so I decided to track the remaining yarn: 221g at the moment.

So my list remains the same for now, and I hope to make some more decent progress this month!

June Stitchy Pie

Another month, another pie! This one is a little shameful for me...I got a lot of crafting time in, but it's split across so many projects, and the Mermaid didn't get nearly as much love as she deserved. I think the blame has to be shared between the Magical Stitches Group with all its fun challenges, me having a lot of out-of-home crafting time, and lack of discipline...I'll try to work on this!

Now for some picture time! Things I worked on that haven't shown up anywhere yet and are not likely to show up in any other post soon. There is Fans of the Far East, which came out to play as it fit in with a few of the Homework tasks, and travels well. I finished up the left edge of the middle fan and made a start on the border (and now that I see the picture, I realize how off-center it is...I really should get the edge of the fabric cleaned up before it gets any worse).

Then there is my Halata shawl, which I started last fall and now actually finished! I wanted some nice and bright colours for gray days, and I'm sure there will be more gray days this year, so mission acchieved.

Dark Forces and Flower Trellis also came out due to Magical Stitches Homework. Both saw a decent bit of progress, and both are likely to come out to play again soon!

And then there were two new starts! Another one of my beloved baby jackets, and Sekamelska is a really need crochet along, a joint effort by tsix generous designers. It's already been on for a little over three weeks, and I didn't really put much work in, as you can see, but I picked it up for another hour or so yesterday to finish part one (which is in the picture) and today I made it a good way through part two, so I hope I'll catch up eventually!

June WIPocalypse

I'm just a tiny bit late for this one, so I'm counting this at a win! It's WIPocalypse time, so here we go. The question of the month is Half-year recap:  How are you doing with your goals so far this year?, and my answer to that would be, pretty good! Even if it doesn't look like it - I'm way behind on the Mermaid (which should have been finished yesterday, but obviously is far from it) and my whittling down of WIPs isn't going all that well either, at least according to the numbers - but I have made a ton of progress on lots of things, I'm almost on top of my gift making and SALs, and I've actually finished and almost finished a few projects that have been lurking around for a long time. So yeah, I think things are going pretty well.

Now for my progress. My SALs - Mamluk, Blackwork and the Temperature SAL are all at the halfway point now, and aren't they all pretty? We had a few pretty hot days last week, so I got to introduce two new colours. Technically there are two more reds on my scale, but I really hope I won't need them.

And for my Mermaid - my 'Stitch a day' challenge piece for June, she's progressed to here:

Not as much as I had hoped - and my stitchy pie will show you why in a few days - but how could I be angry at her making slow progess when every bit I add is just so pretty?

For my other 'Stitch a day' piece - I'm still lagging behind severely on the Puppeteer, and at this point I'm not sure if I'll ever catch up (between vacation and work, I'm more than a month behind) but I'm still working on it every day and made good progress - another row finish! Just three more to go now:

I still have two more posts to do this week, so expect me back soon with lots of pretty pictures!