April Gifted Gorgeousness

 Hello lovelies,

I am rather late for this post, but I also have a massive amount of things to share, so let's jump right in! We'll start with gifts I've been working on, than transit into the ones I received.

For once, I am still working on Age is Irrelephant, a gift for my best friend's mum. It'll probably be ready for its own update post in a couple of page, for now I'll share my progress from a while ago:

My grandma said she needed a new pair of wrist warmers - she still wears them every night - so I picked out some left over sock yarn from my stash that was just enough to knit a pair up. And I mean *just* - I had about a metre left over when I finished, phew! (I've also been practicing to take more instagramable pictures, in case you are wondering):

I also picked up a real old UFO - this red snake was started almost twenty years ago, as a present for my mum. I finished the body alright, but just couldn't get the head to work, so it went into a drawer and...stayed there. When I was thinking what to get her for her birthday this year, I remembered the snake and decided to finally finish her! I still didn't love the pattern, and the yarn is horrible (maybe one of the reasons I couldn't get it done the last time around - the white stripes are a pure sheep wool that kept breaking all the time!), so she isn't quite up to my usual standards, and I didn't have proper snaky eyes, but I still think she is quite cute! I had originally planned to make a second snake in purple, but have now decided that one is enough, and what is left of the white yarn (and the black too, don't know what that one's excuse is for being horrible and breaking so much!) will be chucked into the garbage.

I worked some more on my Ubuntu blanket, the yarn for which was a gift for my birthday. I finished part one - which made a start on all six of the central diamonds. Aren't all these colours lovely?

Since, I have started to work on part 2, which has all the diamonds about double in size!

I had already gotten some money for my birthday, which I used to buy the remaining Little Sheep Values patterns and buttons (I had to substitute a little from my own money, but not a lot, and I really wanted to get them all so I can't get blindsided by stuff not being made anymore!). It took a while to had them all delivered (I ordered from a German store but they were waiting for stock from the US) but here they are!

Aaaand last, but most certainly not least...some time ago, I won a giveaway on Rachel's blog. She asked me to pick something I wanted, and I asked for fabric (as I never seem to have enough), and a couple weeks ago she told me that I should be looking out for a parcel. Yesterday, it finally arrived, and I just have to show you how beautifully she packaged everything:

I almost didn't want to open them, but only almost, I was so curious! She really went all out and got me not only a gorgeous big piece of a very beautifully coloured 'Candy Floss' fabric, but also a great selection of smaller pieces in some really nice and cheerful colours. I can't wait to pick projects for everything (I have some tentative ideas, but nothing final) and just know that I will end up buying bigger pieces of some of those tasters eventually.

Thank you so much, Rachel!

March Fully Finished Gallery

 I was trying to stall this post for another finish-finish, but can't get Felix to do any framing right now, so only one quick finish this month, and hopefully some more next month!

Remember little Cotton, the bunny, who I stitched for Easter? I got it out and practiced my hoop finishing!

Is it centered? I'm not sure. I tried to get that flower under the top center but the whole motif isn't quite symmetrical, so it still looks a bit weird. I really like how these small wooden hoops work out, though!

Age is Irrelephant - 20 Hours

 After the crazyness that was March, I am having a very productive April so far with tons of focused stitching. Last week, I finished a rotation on Age is Irrelevant in just three days! Being on vacation certainly helps with stitchy goals. 

Last time you saw my elephant, she (I decided the one I'm currently working on is a she) was here:

Over the last ten hours, I added almost 1,800 stitches and worked my way downwards and caught up with the lowest stitches I had done last time. In fact, below this point it's mostly her legs and trunk and I am fairly certain that during my next rotation, I'll be able to finish her and maybe make a small start on her companion:

Currently I am working on catching up some SALs (the new Just Nan band sampler I started with Jo, and TLOA, where I am about to start colour #5) and also picked up an older WIP that I am hoping to finish this week!

Ten Things for Jo's Tenth Bloggoversary

 The lovely Jo has celebrated her 10th Bloggoversary a couple days ago, and gave us a list of ten prompts to participate! This will likely have me dive deep into my stash of old picture, so get on for the ride.

1. The tenth project you completed:

That's already starting off on a tricky one. As I stitched for some years before starting to blog, it's hard to accurately track back what I finished when. I just wrote down from memory what I think I finished before starting to blog, and this is the last one - and the tenth in my count is Elsa William's Suncatchers, which I stitched for my grandma for Christmas 2013. This took me two and a half months - I was a one at a time stitcher back then, can you believe that?

2. The tenth blog post you made

That was in January 2014, my first full year of blogging. I was working on the Peacock Tapestry - what a shame that I still haven't finished that border! Turns out I was experimenting with rotations even back then. If I remember correctly, this one lasted for about two weeks.

Peacock Tapestry Border Section 4

3. The tenth blog in your blog roll (or your reader or however you follow blogs)

The tenth blog from the top in my (alphabetically sorted) reading list is Brownie's Chair. Alyssa was one of the first bloggers I started to follow, and she used to post about a wide array of cute little stitches. She hasn't posted in almost two years, though, so I hope she's all okay.

4. A designer you have stitched more than ten designs

I really think the only designer who fits that bill for me is my friend Magical525. I stitched a lot more than ten of hers! Here are the twelve bookmarks I stitched in 2020:

5. A project that took/is taking more than ten years to complete

This is my oldest project - I don't know when exactly I started it, but it's been way more than ten years! Doesn't help I lost the chart. I'll need to draw the chart for the house from what I already stitched, and need to improvise on the tree. Then all the stitching I already have needs to go because it's horribly uneven, and I'll redo it. It's not that much stitching, I just can't get off my butt to do the charting!

6.  A design on the theme of "ten"

I had to dig pretty deep for this one, and finally settled on these two ornaments - they are birth stone ornaments for October, the tenth month, that I stitched a couple of years ago:

7. The tenth colour on your current project. Do you use this colour a lot?

My current project is Nan's Garden, the next one of the Just Nan band samplers I'm SALing with Jo and the Just Nan Junkies group. I only started this a week ago and I'm pulling the colours for my floss card as they turn up, and I haven't even pulled 647, the 10th colour in numerical order, yet! Scanning the pattern, I think it's only used in the central band, but not a lot in total.

8. Your tenth WIP for WIPocalypse, WIPGO or whatever list you make

I don't have a list of yearly goals, but I do have a running list of all my WIPs and #10 are my Blackwork Water Lilies. It's been a while since I worked on them, this picture is from 2019!

9. Your tenth finish this year (or last year if you haven't finished ten so far this year)

I was going to say there is no way I had ten finishes this year already, but I did! More than ten actually. #10 was this blanket that I absolutely adored and that was such a joy to work on!

10. How has your stitching style changed in the last ten years?

Well, let's see...ten years ago I was only stitching the couple of kits I could get my hands on. My 'big break' was in 2014 when I started to discover stitching communities on the internet and the joys of international stitchy shopping, so I'd say I pretty much did a 180° in the last then years! Ever since then, I think I'm stitching pretty much everything, so that's fine ;) 

Thank you Jo for this fun prompts, and on to the next ten years!

The March SALs

 I caught up on my SAL stitching a while ago, but as we had Felix' best friend staying over for a couple of days, I didn't get around to posting! I'll try to catch up with everything the coming week.

My SAL stitching was a bit sparse in March, due to the other 'SALs' going on - the Mischievous New Start challenge and the one-a-day on the Puppeteer. I still got things to show!

First of all, I am all caught up on the Sampler SAL. By rights I shouldn't be, but Magical is on a bit of a hiatus right now (she just needs a break after overdoing it on the SALs last year, but I'm sure she'll be back in due time, and I have lots of stitching to tide me over until then). So I stitched the first three parts of the second page, and will now put this away until she releases the next one (sorry for the bad picture, it's fresh out of the hoop):

From previous SALs, I stitched one of the 2015 ornaments of the month, which I already showed started and finished - I think there are three more of these left to stitch now:

And then the last one I got caught up on was the temperature stitch - finished March, including a special flower on my birthday! It's still being pretty chilly right now, but you can see on the monthly averages (the names of the months) that it's getting slightly warmer. I also finished the top border and will continue working down the sides next month.

The People's Choice SAL: Blue

 In this iteration of Jo's multi-subject, democratic SAL, the subject is 'Blue'. Now blue is not my favourite colour, but I still like it, so it will creep up in my stitching from time to time. Going through my pictures how ever I realized it's mostly smalls and a lot of knitting and crochet :D And of course there is Darf Forces which is stitched mostly in blues.

March WIPocalypse

 It took me a couple days to get caught up after a crazy month (with the one-a-day challenge and the mischiveous new starts), but I'm back on it now. I also have a couple more days off work after Easter, so maybe I can even get ahead a bit in my stitching game! For now, though, let me show you March's progress on my two BAPs, and answer the monthly question - What is your process for working on WIPs? Are you a one-at-a-time stitcher, a rotation stitcher, or something else? If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I am anything but a one-at-a-time stitcher, and recently (well, a bit over a year ago) started to follow a loose rotation, copied from Rachel: Ten hours on a project before I switch to something else. I usually try to pick a focus piece and make every other rotation on that. I also have a couple of monthly goals and SALs I try to achieve 'on the side'. Usually it's too much, but I keep busy!

Now, for March, we had the additional challenge on WIPocalypse to pick one project and add at least one stitch on it every day of the month. I chose my Puppeteer and stitched on length of black every day, which made up for a total of 1,668 stitches!

That line on the lower left is less than 20 rows from the lower edge, so I am getting there! I still have 9,510 stitches of black left to go though, so this is definitively coming out for future one-a-day challenges. New total progress: 52,441 stitches/46.82%!

My usual monthly project is The Loneliness of Autumn, which I am SALing with Rachel - you can find her current update on it here. Last time, I was here:

I was working on another brown, 898, 28.24% done at 33,547 stitches. The colour was pretty spread out but I made good progress and have just under 300 stitches left of it now, all in the lower right corner:

My new total is 35,709 stitches and 30,06%! The goal for April is to finish the 898 and make a good start on the next colour, which is 814, so a nice red and very exciting.

Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2021

 Hello everybunny, and Happy Easter! As every year, Jo is sending us all on a while treasure hunt, to collect letters and look at pretty crafting. You can read all about it (and find the first blog to visit) here. To be honest, I was having such a lazy morning (and then such a lovely time at my grandma's) that I almost forgot this was set to start to today, but thankfully I had my stitching prepared already, so here we go!

You might have seen this little one around already - Cotton was a freebie by Shannon Christine Designs this year, and I just had to stitch him up! Only took me about 3 hours too, he's tiny (but uses a ton of colours) and so cute. By the way, this was my new start for the 4th weekend of Mischievous March - after deciding and re-deciding about four times, I finally settled on stitching something new for the blog hop, so this post is doing double duty, actually!

Now you probably want a letter and know where to hop to next...my letter is T and you can find the next blog here!