March WIPocalypse

Time for another WIPocalypse update! The world isn't the same this month as it was last month, but this SAL is, and it's good to have some constants in life (although I'm constantly late for these things, and now I am on time, sooo....). So, the question of the month is Have you ever adopted a piece from someone else or gave up a piece to someone else? Which piece and why? and I can honestly say, I have not and I'm not likely to. I'm a little strangely wired this way, I think I couldn't bear the thought that the stitching wasn't all mine. Although of course there are special circumstances (like a round robin thing, or finishing a project someone dear to me couldn't finish) that might very well over-write that wiring. As for giving up a project to someone else, I am not opposed to that...so if I'm ever about to bin something, I'll let you guys know! (and I'm assuming we're talking WIPs here. I have picked up unstarted kits/charts from friends several times before when they decided they were not going to stitch them, and vice versa, but that's different I guess).

Now stitching wise, this is the place were I get to talk about my The Loneliness of Autumn SAL I'm doing with Rachel. Here progress report for the month just went up here, and doesn't is look fantastic?

As for me, I have two milestones to celebrate this month - for once, I'm at 7094 stitches now, which means I have less than 10.000 stitches of 939 to go (9576, to be exact). Yay? xD That's 5.97% total, by the way. Also, and perhaps more excitingly, I reached the left edge of the design (although I still have some work to do on the lower half of pages 4, 5 and 6). So next month, I'll probably finish the first row of pages, and start on the right half of the second row.

It's a strange feeling...like it's going sooo slow and sooo quick at the same time! By the way, as Rachel has just reached her 30 hours, I do one length a day which averages to a little more time a month, so I'm at a total of 38:23h. So maybe not that quick after all!

March Gifted Gorgeousness

For the past couple months, these posts have been a little bit boring...probably because I haven't made any fancy baby gifts lately and only had repeat pictures to show! Still, I have gifts to show, and being this late even allowed me to get one other picture in that isn't a repeat. But let's begin...

My main gift project is, of course, still Lady Justice. I've been making lots of progress on her (and will have another update to show soon) and even got to stitch something other than green and blue for a while, so I think getting her finished by the deadline shouldn't be an issue now (baring smaller desasters *knocks on wood*). Here she was the last time you saw her - looks pretty close already, eh?

I also stitched the bookmark of the month - I'm making these to have a nice collection of gifts to give away by Christmas, so it also qualifies for GG:

And last but not least, it was my birthday last week, and I invested some money I got in stitchy supplies that came in today from Casa Cenia! The linen (rightmost fabric), floss and beads are for a new start I'm allowing myself once LJ is done (I think you'll like it). The others are just stash enhancement - I was running low on my favourite white 32ct, and there was a 20% sale going on when I ordered, so why not take advantage on some fabric basics? I've wanted a nice light purple (it's a gorgeous lavender that of course totally messes up the colours of the whole picture) for ages, and platinum is always a good choice!

March Boomark of the Month

After my latest rotation on LJ, I worked on the March Bookmark, and this one required a little planning on my part. It uses aida banding for the construction and was charted in some pretty greens, but careful inspection of my stash revealed that I only own two kinds of aida banding - red with gold, and dark blue. It's not Christmas yet, so I went with the blue, and picked colours to go with it - Jodyri's Winter Solstice (one of my favourites) as the main colour, and DMC 775 and Kreinik #4 018 (from LJ) to go with it. I really liked how it turned out! (It's almost the same colour as the blanket on my couch, so I had to take the picture on my journal):

Next up is another rotation on Lady. I had a slight change of plans and started working on her face...couldn't help myself!

Lady Justice - Look at the size of that thing!

I've been quiet for a couple of days (although I still have plenty of stuff to post about!)...I think I let the crazyness of the current situation get me down for a bit, but I'm doing my best to not let myself go, not give into panic and despair, and be positive and stitching! I guess I'm just a little bummed out, it's my birthday today, and the fourth year in a row I can't really do anything for it. Maybe birthdays just aren't a thing for me anymore.

So anyways, I've been stitching, and since I was so excited to get on with her, I already finished the next ten hours on Lady Justice! It's been a few updates since you saw her, so here's a reminder of where we last left her:

Now during the new rotation, things moved pretty fast. First, I finished that part of bow on the right, which means I'm finally all done with the lower half of the chart (I made a working copy which is in two pages). Then, I moved on to her left hand, holding the sword! It's sparkly and huge but still stitched up very quickly. It also goes up almost to the top of her head, so we can really see her final dimensions now. Next, I stitched her belt (which leaves me with only one piece of blue floaty stuff left to do!) and made a start on her upper body, working up her right shoulder. So here she is now:

So in my next rotation, I will finish her upper body (no more green after that!) and make a start on her right arm with the scales and last bit of scarf. After that, it's just her head left to stitch! I'll also hit the hundred-hours-total mark during the next rotation (I'm at 95h now). I never though she'd take this long, but so far it hasn't been boring even for a moment :)

The People's Choice SAL: Coffee

Again it's time for Jo's 'The People Chose' SAL, and this month the theme is coffee! Personally, I like both coffee and tea, but I came to coffee only in my late twenties and have to admit that I'm mostly a fan of 'fancy coffee' - at the very least I need lots of milk, I usually drink Latte Machiato from our fancy coffee machien at work, and when I'm out I enjoy trying all kinds of really fancy coffee drinks (although I don't often get the chance to do so).

Stitching-wise, there's only one coffee-related thing I did so far, and that is this little cup of coffee I model-stitched for my friend Ashley before finishing it as a coaster (I put it om a small frame for protection after taking this picture):

It's one of a set of four, and I plan to eventually stitch the other three and finish all of them the same way!

March Blackwork SAL

I arrived home from my very productive train trip just in time for the release of the March Blackwork SAL :) Again, there were four patterns to stitch, all of which I really enjoyed! The green one (on the left) is one of my favourite patterns so far. And as you can see, I have now reached the lower left corner! After just three month, my pattern feels almost half full, so I'm curious to see how nine more month are supposed to fit in there...

This part only took me 3:51h to stitch and usually, I would have filled the rest of the slot with the Bookmark of the month...however, the pattern release for that was still a few days out when I finished, and I didn't really feel like throwing anything else into the mix when LJ is getting so close, so I'm back to her and almost ready to post another update, so stay tuned!

March Fully Finished Gallery

I'm a little late for this checkin, but still within a good margin I believe :) Although I can't show you anything exciting, I'm afraid, I do have something you don't know about yet!

But first, I will (again) show you my February bookmark. It's finished the same way that January was (spoiler: March will be a little different!), only with rounded sides, which made it a little more difficult, and actually the rounded edges came out a little pointier than I would have liked - still, I'm quite satisfied :)

My second finish (see Rachel, I'm meeting my quota!) was a little project I read about on Carol's blog. The idea was to stitch up a little chart, finish it up as a needle pillow - well actually, it's almost-finished - it's not stuffed and there's a little opening - and send it (along with a little note) to Australia, where they will be stuffed and distributed to people as a little cheer-me-up after the severe fires of February. I'm actually quite late to the game (and with the Corvid-pandamic happening right now, will be even later sending this out) but hope that it will still get so someone and bring them a little joy.

Lady Justice: Getting Exciting Now!

I still have some SALs to catch up on, but I have some regular stitching to show you as well! I've been working on Lady Justice again, mostly on the train to and from Berlin (I think I put in about 4 hours each direction) and got a good bit done. To recall, here she as before:

Before the trip and on the train TO Berlin, I worked on her left shawl and actually finished it. Then, on the train back home, I worked on her dress and this time I really, actually (yes I know I've that this before, but this time it was for real!) made it up to her waist. Any higher and I'll be stitching belt! But before that, I'm stitching another bit of blue on the right side, I think it's a bow or something.

(this picture is actually about eleven hours, not ten - but I was on a train, what should I have done? Stop stitching and waste precious time?! ;) ). Soooo next rotation, I'm going to finish that bow thing, and after that - after that it's her hand, the one holding her sword! Do you see why I'm excited? There'll be some sparkle involved as well. Oooh I just can't wait!

February Crafty Pies

My apologies for being a couple updates behind once again - we spent a fun couple days with my best friend in Berlin, but now I'm back home, have a few more days off work, and fully intend to get caught up on some things, including blog writing (reading might take a little longer!). So here we are with my pies for February

   

So after a slow start, I had a very productive week close to the end of the month, so my total time came out about average. I did a lot of stitching, but also a fair amount of knitting - Viajante is coming along nicely, and I hope to be able to show you a finish soon! 

Apart from that, I worked more-or-less on my usual projects, except for one that you haven't seen yet. My friend Ashley designed a gorgeous stained-glass version of Princess Peach, and she was looking for model stitchers for a couple of re-colours she did. I couldn't resist and agreed to stitch Daisy, and again couldn't resist to start her right away! I didn't really have time in my rotation, so it was just a length of thread here or there, but I can't wait to dedicate some serious time to her eventually!

See what I mean? This is just two and a half hours, and those white roses are already turning out sooo pretty!

February Bookmark & Temperature SAL

My last stitching rotation in February started with the February bookmark. Again, an interesting shape, but this time it was charted all in one colour, and that just begged for me to dive into my stash of hand dyeds! I wanted something not too variegated, so I settled on Wisteria by Fiberlicious, which is a gorgeous light violet and worked perfectly with all the vines in the backstitching. Here it is, finished after almost exactly 8 hours of stitching and finishing:

With only two more hours left on the rota, I want on to work on my Temperature SAL for the year. I've been asked what colour scheme I'm using, so here it is - it's basically the one Magical recommended with the pattern, but I adjusted the scale so that, according to last year's temperatures, I should to get to use (almost) all of them:

(all temperatures in °C):
< -4       : 333
-4 - -1.5 : 155
-1.5 - 1  : 156
1 - 3.5    : 800
3,5 - 6    : 809
6 - 8.5    : 798
8.5 - 11  : 909
11 - 13.5: 911
13.5 - 16: 813
16 - 18.5: 445
18.5 - 21: 444
21 - 23.5: 741
23.5 - 26: 946
26 - 28.5: 666
> 28.5    : 816

And here's February (well, minus the leap day actually, since I finished a day early and added that after taking the picture):

February WIPocalypse

Well, fun facts first: as I start writing this post, it's actually 11:59pm on February 29th, so I am technically on time for this second WIPocalypse post of the year! And now the minute has passed, it's March 1st, and I'm officially late, hahaha :D

Okay, joke aside, it's time for the leap year WIPocalpyse - yes, Measi gave us an extra week this month (so we're posting on leap day instead of last Sunday) and I did my best to make good use of it. The question of the month was In honor of “Leap Year,” tell the story of a time you had to make some sort of a “leap” in stitching – taking the chance on a new style of stitching, attending a meetup or class, etc. I think my biggest leap happened when I decided to start a Teresa Wentzler less than a year after getting back into stitching (after first starting aged ten or so, and a 10+ year break after that). I just joines deviantArt and met some great people there, who had just decided to make 2014 the 'Year of TW'. So I just took the plunge, bought a ton of patterns and kits and finally settled on starting Peacock Tapestry on January 1st! Where is it now, you ask? Well...here's the last picture I have, sometime in...still 2014, probably? And I haven't really touched it since:

But then that was also the year I finished my first TW because my grandma had fallen in love with Angel of Frost, so that was my first time really dealing with specialty stitches and beads and OHMYGOD all those blends and backstitching and...you know the drill.

I think I was never really scared to try out new stuff and jumped right into every challenge (except for Hardanger. Like, cutting your stitching? That shit is scary!) along the way. Which sounds much braver than I actually am, I just enjoy traing out new stuff!

So, now for some actual new stitching. I am SALing The Loneliness of Autumn with Rachel the TenHourStitcher. We're both using different versions of the chart by different designers, but we're both stitching extreme cross country starting with the most used colour. You can see her 20 hour/two month update here, and my progress right here: 

Hers looks like so much more progress, but I swear we're about the same way in! So some stats, I'm stitching with DMC 939, which has a total 16.670 stitches. So far I have done 4.794 of them, which amounts to a total of 4.03% of the project. This design is 5 and a bit pages across, and five and a bit from top to bottom, and so far I've done the 939 on almost five of them...quite a bits to go yet! It has taken me 26:07h to get this far. So...on to the next 2000 stitches or so? So far I've managed to work on this every day, because January and February have been really quiet, but starting March, it seems I'm getting back to my traveling-to-people-and.being-traveled-to ways, at least a bit, so we'll see how I'll hold up!