The People Chose: Snow

I think this might actually be the last post I need to catch up on for February - just looots of reading up to do now, but thankfully, I got a not too busy weekend ahead (and am actually off work today as well, so it's a long one). Yay me, haha :D 

So, for Jo's wonderful all-purpose SAL, the topic of the month was Snow. And even though it's getting warmer out there, in the beginning of the month that was very much still appropriate! I even had one small snowy finish, Hello Winter by Durene Jones.

I also did a little crawl through my older finishes to find the ones that had snow in them. I found more than I expected to! But also, why don't I have a framed picture of Angel of Frost?! I'll have to dig around my old picture folders some time.

February Gifted Gorgeousness

My crochet bug is in full swing this month, which is doing wonders for my gift projects (on the flip side, I'm not doing a ton of stitching, but something has to give, right?!), so for the February edition of Jo's very special gift SAL this month it's all crochet (and a teensy bit of knitting)!

Let's start with that, actually - remember the baby jacket I showed last month, and said I only needed to close the shoulder seams, knit up the collar, and attach buttons? Call me the master procrastinator, because from this short list, I only managed the shoulders (and I think I'll need to redo them because now the 'wrong' side is outside...oh boy.).

Instead, I started working on a shawl for the big sister of the baby who this jacket is for. I had this really pretty yarn in my stash, but only the one cake and it just wasn't enough to do a proper shawl for myself, but it makes a great shawl for a five year old! Also, I got to try out a pattern I wanted to do for ages - it's the Talvi by MorbenDesign. Some people have made tons of these and I never really understood why as it looked a little...boring, to be honest. But it's actually really addictive, and brings the colours or in an amazing way! I'll be making a big version of this some time for sure.

And then there was some progress on a little fox I started last year...I had the head and one ear done and made a start on the body; now I finished the body, added the second ear and the tail, and made a start on his arms and legs - yes, all of them! Hopefully, this and the jacket will be finished in March:

But actually, I might not be able to because what I really, REALLY want to finish (by my next birthday on March 21st, to be exact) is the Ubuntu blanket! The yarn was a present for my last birthday, and I just finished part 10 of 12 a couple of days ago:

 Not much more to go, so I think I can get it done - wish me luck!

February Fully Finished Gallery

Every month, Rachel's wonderful SAL gives us a reason to not let those stitching-finishes lay around, but actually pick them up and do something with them! This month, I managed two finishes - one a very quick one that I prepared in January (in case I get into a tight spot again) and one was Felix' Valentines gift.

As I also used the second one in Jo's Secret Stitching Sweetheart blog hop, I had to wait a little to actually show it, but of course, it all turned into a very close call again - I had the stitching done in plenty of time, but again I ended up debating different ways of finishing it, until I pulled the perfect frame out of my stash on Sunday afternoon, and framed this just in the evening of the 13th! Goes to prove that even though Felix does most of my framing, I'm still, technically, able to do it myself, hah!

This is 'Balloon Bunnies' by CutePatternsByMaria, a freebie she published several years ago and that I had saved up for this kind of occasion! Aren't they cute? The frame was one I bought for a Mill Hill kit a while back, but it ended up being one size too small. Perfect for the bunnies, though!

The other finish is part of a freebie series by Durene Jones, of which I have previously finished two others:

Finished as a simple card (although I don't think I'll ever send them, I just keep them around for decorative purposes!).

One or hopefully two big framed finishes coming up for March...stay tuned!

January WIPocalypse

So, I hear you ask, what's up with that - more than halfway through February, and no WIPocalypse yet? Well, there is a perfectly good excuse reason for that, but we'll get to that a little bit later. First, there is the question of last month to deal with - Describe your stitching style – are you a one-at-a-time stitcher? Do you stitch on rotation? Are you a chaos wrangler? Are you comfortable in your current stitching style, or are you still searching for that stitching zen? I think I'm somewhere between rotation and chaos. Definitely not one-at-a-time! I try to work my projects in ten hour increments, with one being in focus and getting every other slots, but most of the time - right now is a prime example - things keep happening, and deadlines and SALs sneak up on me, and it gets a little chaotic. I feel more comfortable in the less chaotic phases, so I'm trying to get there again, but I don't think I'll ever strictly stick to rotation either - I'm a bit of a free spirit there, hah!

So, confession time. Usually this is the point where I show you my monthly progress on The Loneliness of Autumn, which I am SALing with Rachel (who is all caught up again after falling a little behind last year, so big shout out to her!), but it looks like...now I'm the one falling behind a bit. You see, I'm a bit of a slump with this one. I discovered that the next five colours - and judging by stitches, that's at least half a year of stitching there - are still rather dark and drab, and my current colour (869, a medium brown) is so spread out I rarely get to stitch more than five stitches without dragging it along the back, and then there was a bit of a frogging accident and I completely lost my mojo. I kept putting this post off, thinking I'd get caught up soon, but I just don't think it's happening this month.I'm not too concerned, I know I will get back to it, but for now it feels a little like defeat to show you this - TLoA, where it was supposed to be January 13th (and still is!):

At least I put a little more work into taking this picture, so it's something I guess? XD As you might see (or maybe not), I finished 154, the colour I was working on last time, and made a start on the 869. Of the 2006 stitches, I still have 1671 to go after finishing the first row of pages. Total numbers are 55,394 stitches or 46.63% done. 

There are a couple of things I want to finish at the moment, but after that I'll try to get back into this. Slowly, maybe a length or two at a time, so it might take a while to actually get caught up, but I promise I'm not giving up!

2022 Secret Stitching Sweetheart

Happy Valentines Day, every one! We don't really celebrate it in this house, but if you do, I hope you are having a great one. What I DO celebrate is dear Jo's Secret Stitching Sweetheart blog hop! It's been the highlight of February for several years, now. So basically we each send in something we stitched for the occasion, Jo randomly sends everyone a picture, and then we post it and wait for our secret sweetheart to show up!

This year, I got these cute wooden ornaments:

I wonder who made them? If you want to join me in finding out, and see what everyone else got for the occasion, check out Jo's master post here!

Fans of the Far East - 15th and 16th rotation

I wonder if I will ever get caught up with stuff around here this year...I'm tired of apologizing and making excuses, so I won't, and will just keep doing me best to get everything up! So in an effort to expedite things a little, I'm going to summarize my latest two rotations on Fans of the Far East. So first, I worked on back stitch for another ten hour. Which was enough to finish the middle fan, and aaaaall of that lower border.

And then things got really exciting, because it was back to cross stitching the right fan, and that gap was filling in really fast...I ended up cheating a little and stitching for an extra hour after the ten, but suddenly, all the cross stitch was done:

I'm both super happy, and also a little sad - all that's left to do is back stitch now, and while it makes the piece pop a LOT, it's making me a little antsy to get finished already! 

I have almost a month so I'm sure I can do it, I just need to find that last bit of motivation...very possible that the next time you see this, it will be finished!

The January SALs

Hah, bet you didn't expect THIS to be my next post! But after being super late in January, I'm pretty early in February to make up for it. And then some...you'll see.

So in December, I made a start on the 2021 Magical Kingdom SAL by Cunning Cross Stitch. I took the last days of January to stitch up the second part - can you see little Alice at her tiny tea party?

And then, I did some thinking after my last post...and decided I wanted to do a temperature project this year, after all! There is that super pretty Temperature Tree by Stitchin' Mommy on Etsy - I've actually been meaning to do this one since 2020, but my friend Magical released her own versions of temperature samplers in 2020 and 2021, so I stitched those instead, knowing the tree would always be there once I got around to it. So this is the year! I spent two days working on the tree itself, then filled in the January leaves today.

Isn't it pretty?! I LOVE the colours! January temperature were so weird I already got to use half of my total temperature range, which is fine by me. I have a little bit of trunk and root left to do, so I hope to get that done for February, along with the next branch itself.