Guardian of Wayfarers - 40 Hours

So I spent most of May getting me different rotations in order, but I am finally back on track and so last weekend, I was able to bring out Guardian of Wayfarers for the first time this month, and I finished my newest ten hours pretty quickly! Last time, I had just made a start on the massive blue background:

By some miracle, I was not yet tired of stitching blues (what with this, the NYE SAL and the newest part of the Magical Kingdom also being mostly blue), so I continued where I left of and added some more. 

I think I underestimated this background - there is quite a bit more to go - but it stitches up so beautifully with all the blends, so I am really enjoying it!

2019 NYE SAL - 30 Hours

Earlier this month, I made an attempt to finally finish the 2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL I started...well, I started on NYE 2019! It was released as a mystery, 32 parts with one part being released every 4 hours. Naturally, I fell of the wagon somewhere around the middle, and I've been trying to finish this ever since, doing a couple parts here and there.

I had worked on this for about 18 hours up to this point:

I had five or six parts left to do on the front until it was finished:

22h in at that point and all the back left to stitch up! But, as I was telling myself, all the starting and stopping threads on the front had taken up a lot of times. I was going to stitch the back all in one go, so that should go much quicker! Well, it did go quicker, but it was still another 2,4k stitches, so not quite as quick as I hoped. As the end of 30 hours (which means I worked on it for about twelve this month) the back was here:

Yes, it does look close to a finish, but that's still 1.1k stitches left to go (there are SO many stitches in that border), plus the finishing. So I won't push through right now, but return to it after a bit of a break, to hopefully finally finish it then!

Hufflepuff Pride Socks - 60 Hours

Since I picked up the Hufflepuff Pride Socks (or just 'Badger socks', as I like to call them), I'm trying to make regular progress on them to get the second sock finished soon. Last time, this was the state of my work, having finished the cuff and a tiny start on the leg:

I continued working on the leg this month, finishing the first and second badger and making a start of the third. As you can see in the finished sock, though, there are seven in total, so still quite a bit left to do!

Still, the next ten hours should get me close to finishing the leg (given I don't attract anymore frogs...I had to undo quite a few rows in this part again!) and I really enjoyed constructing the foot, so I'm looking forward to that!

May Gifted Gorgeousness: Addendum

Going through my notes today, I realized I totally forgot to tell you about a small gift project I finished this month. It's nothing special, but it's unlikely to come up anywhere else, and I really wanted to show you because it's kind of cute!

Our landlady keeps losing her keys and refuses to wear them on a key chain around her neck because 'it doesn't look nice'. But she also admires my crafting whenever she sees some of it, so when I found this pattern I was hoping that if I crocheted a key chain for her, she'd actually use it!

This was a fun little afternoon project using some yarn leftover from another project. I have some more of these key rings, so I might do more in the future.

May Gifted Gorgeousness

Welcome to the May instance of my favourite SAL, Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness for all things gifted and to be gifted! I still haven't managed to make any progress on the little fox ragdoll I am making as a gift, but I think I worked out a new rotation that will finally get me some more time on my gift projects. What I did work on this month, again, was the Snuggle Up blanket CAL which I started in March. Since the last time, I have finished Part 3 (of 12) and size wise, we are getting into baby blanket territory now:

(Yes, I know, I really need to fix the couch, it's getting worse). We are now into the last colours of this cake, so I might have to start the second one already on part 4. Part 3 didn't look that great on paper and in pictures, but was a lot of fun to actually crochet! Here is a close up so you can properly see:

 Aren't these shells just lovely? The next pattern has little stars, I'm looking forward to it very much!

May Fully Finished Gallery

This month for Fully Finished Gallery, I have just one finish (not that that's news), but one I have been planning for a long time! In fact, I had this plan from the moment I finished the stitching, but spent a long time gathering the right supplies and then I was a little reluctant to actually start because I wasn't sure it'd work the way I planned. Well, it did! Meet the Metallic Geostar:

It looks a little out of center, but this one was a really tight fit on the fabric - less than two inches on two sides - so I didn't have a lot of wriggle room. It also doesn't look that bad once it's up on the wall! And I managed to make the back really nice and tidy:

When I stitched this all in metallics, I knew the hoop would need to be equally shiny, so I wrapped it in silver ribbon. I had the ribbon for ages, but finding a hoop just the right size (remember, tight fit) was a bit of an issue. Now I have a couple of extra hoops in wrong sizes, but I'm sure I'll find a use for them. I attached double sided tape to the inside and outside of the hoop, then wrapped away!

I am happy with this finish and might do something similar again sometime.

The People Chose: Witches

This month, for Jo's wonderfully versatile all-purpose SAL, the theme is Witches. At first I thought that to be a little strange subject, being that it is May and not October, but with Walpurgisnacht on April 30th and Beltane on May 1st, it might be appropriate after all!

This time, going through my stitching, I found pretty much what I was expecting to find! There's a  couple of cute witches from Frosted Pumpkin:

 

 

This fun flying 3D-ish witch in front of the blood moon:

 

 

And of course the pièce of résistance, Whacky Witches in Stitches by Cloudsfactory - loved stitching this one:

 

The April SALs

Somehow I have gotten behind on my SALs again. Usually my goal is to stitch the Magical Kingdom SAL in the end of the month and prepare the branch on the Temperature Tree, then add the leaves on the first day or two of the new month. This time, I started in the end of April, but only finished today! I started work on the next part of Magical Kingdom right away though to hopefully get ahead for May. Anyways, here is my progress:

On Magical Kingdom, I stitched the May section, which was another classic, Beauty and the Beast. There are a big rose and a small Belle dancing with her Beast. Not too much detail, no backstitch, but very recognizable and fun to stitch!

On the Temperature tree, we started the month in the blues, went all the way through the greens into the first two yellow/gold colours (new colours are always fun to add!) and ended firmly in the greens. Lots of colour changes that had me cursing in the beginning of the month - this tree is lucky that it's so pretty!

Guardian of Wayfarers - 30 Hours

I just realized I haven't posted any progress on GoW all month in April, although I did stitch on it - it was a pretty crazy month though, with lots of different projects in the mix! Late in the month, I managed to finish another ten hours. This is where you last saw the design:

 Last month, I mostly stitched in three shades of blue, working my way towards the left edge of the circle and then up along it. It's not very exciting, but it was still fun to see some quick-ish progress!

Here we are now, a total of 13% in and I think by now it has lost any resemblance to anyone swallowing anything, wouldn't you agree? Depending on how I feel, I might continue with the blue background next time, or move on to more exciting bits for a while.

April WIPocalypse

 Another month, another WIPocalypse update! The question for April was What is your favorite store (either online or brick and mortar) to purchase your supplies? Lately, I've been trying to buy from German stores as much as possible (partly because Brexit made buying from the UK really inconvenient, partly because I want to support them so we don't lose the last stores there are in the country). My favourite at the moment store is Stickstoff, they got great customer service and quick turnaround times. I also order from Stickteufelchen sometimes, they have a bigger selection, but shipping is a little more expensive. There are a couple more, but these are probably my favourites right now! Now if only I could find some great EU-based dyers...all my favourite ones are in the UK!

As for stitching, I continued working on The Loneliness of Autumn, my long term SAL with Rachel. I worked on it again every day in April, for at least one length a day, but I also caught up on some of the backlog I still have from January and February. In total, I added 2238 stitches, finishing the 400...and making a start on 3826, yet another reddish-brown colour! 994 stitches of that left to go, so there will be a new colour again in May. Maybe that will be more exciting? So far, I finished the 3826 on the first two rows of pages:

Current total: 59,834/118800 stitches, 50.37%! Yes that's right, I am officially past the half way point. Wanna know how long that took me? Two years and 4 months...or 345 hours of stitching. Whew! Wanna bet if I can finish it below 700?!