October WIPocalypse

Sticking to my theme of being a little late to anything, here I am again...but as I'm also not working on what I'm supposed to be working on, so this is going to be a short one! 

The question of the month for October was How do you organize your WIPs and stash? All my crafting supplies live in 5x4 Kallax shelf. That is all the yarn, the books, the fabric, flosses, WIPs, beads, and a couple unrelated things too. For stitching, I got one box full of fabrics, one that holds all my yarn (except for the master stash, which lives in floss boxes on the top shelf), one and a half boxes of kits (the second one is shared with a couple knitting kits), and one box of WIPs. For my WIPs, I try to keep everything together in a bag (one bag per WIP, that is) - for the longest time, I all kind of tote bags and plastic bags, but recently discovered proper projects bag, fabric ones with vinyl windows, and I might have gotten obessessed with them just a bit! I don't yet have enough for all my WIPs, but I hope at some point I'll either aquire enough bags or whittle down my WIPs enough to make it fit! Or maybe a little bit of both and meet in the middle. 

October was a one-a-month-challenge for WIPocalypse, and I had dug out my oldest WIP for this, another table cloth kit. I have to admit defeat, as I did work on it for only a couple days before being distracted by something else. Still, this is the most stitches this has seen in probably the last ten years or so, so it's at least a partial win I think!

October Gifted Gorgeousness

Oh gee, the end of the month really snuck up on me this time! I've been really good making gifts, but not so good posting about it! Does that mean? Yes it does, I finally finished my Spice of Life blanket, and with plenty of time to spare until the baptism too! It's not perfectly rectangular because for some reason those things always get more narrow and more wide as you go, but the border still tied is nicely together, and for pretty much randomly picked colours, I am very pleased with the colours as well! It also used up a bunch of yarn I had been gifted, so it's a doubly whammy for Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness. Woo!

And with this big gift project out of the way, I had time to pick up several smaller ones! I made this cute little dwarf (also from a kit I was gifted earlier this year, by the way) for a friend who role plays a dwarf in her D&D campaign:

He is from what I assume must be unlicenced Lord of the Ring patterns. They all have generic names like 'The Dwarf', 'The Elf' and 'The Wizard', but look an awful lot like the characters from the movies!

I also made up this little own from a kit I had been gifted years ago. It's for a friend of mine who's about to hand in her Bachelor thesis! So I guess it has been a successful GG month for me, even if I almost missed the actual post!

October + November WIPGO

I've really dropped the ball with blogging lately, but I am still here! Having some laptop troubles too, but those will be figured out soon, I hope - it's still under warranty. Anyways! I never got around to telling you about my WIPGO plans for October, and I think that's a bit telling about the issues I've been having. I really enjoyed this SAL in the beginning, but lately I seem to have fallen out of love with it. I felt like this before for a short while back in...April it was, I think, but got over it. Maybe this SAL just isn't for me; or rather, I didn't do a good job picking out my goals. But picking up a project for just ten hours, then packing it away again until probably next year, just doesn't bring me a lot of enjoyment right now. I finished The Guardian of Wayfarers, which was my big focus project for the year, and I'm itching to pick a new focus and sink my teeth into it! Plus, I have some (Christmas) presents I need to get a move on with. So I'm going to give you my update, along with the numbers pulled for November, but I'm not sure if I'll be working on them much. We'll see.

First, though, we're going to take a step back - in September, the numbers asked me to work on Peacock Tapestry, and I did - I put 10 hours of work into the border, bringing it down a good section and close to the lower edge of the design:

In October, I got a project I'm not sure I ever showed here before - it's Dimension's Butterfly Forest. I started it back in December of 2022, but never really worked on it much. It only had about 8 hours of work in it when I started working on it, and over the course of ten hours, I finished the first butterfly and made some progress on the background:

Now for November, the numbers called were 14 and 16. 14 is for Cirque des Cercles. I started this last year and left it here:

I think I actually might enjoy working on this a bit more, so we'll see if I can cross off another goal in November! 16 is Bellatrix, which I haven't worked on in a while, but could also see it happening. She's currently here:

So I think all that remains is me showing you the state of my WIPGO board. Will it be the final time? We shall see!

Stitch Basel Start - LDS SAGA

Sorry for being a bit quiet lately - life has been busy, and my crafting plans have become derailed, as usual! One reason for that (the derailment, not the busy-ness) was a new start I had at Stitch Basel Light, sponsored by my friends who got me the pattern and a voucher for floss for my birthday. 

I'm taking about Long Dog Sampler SAGA (Stories amongst graceful arches). Yes, it's a big one, yes, I might be slightly crazy, and no, I regret nothing! I'm stitching this on 40ct Verdal, the colour is called 'Desert Sand' and dyed by xJuDesigns. The floss is from Missus Sedas and called 'Lake'. I'm building my pretty oasis in the desert!

So far, I have stitched up the first arch - one of the smallest ones in the design, and still a bit over 2000 stitches/2% worth (half of that was done while still at the retreat):

The extra fun thing with this is that each arch comes with a little story, and they are all so fun! This first one is called "The Battenburg Cake" - I won't paste it here for copyright reasons, but you can find the pdf on the pattern page linked above.

I'm really enjoying working on this one and I think I want to work on it for a bit longer. My plans for the rest of the year have changed a bit anyways, but that's a topic for another post - one I'll hopefully get around to writing over the weekend!

Guardian of Wayfarers - Finished!

I had originally planned to talk about this with my WIGO report, but decided it deserved its very own post after all. On September 20th, whilte at the Stitch Basel retreat, I finished The Guardian of Wayfarers by Nadezhda Gavrilenkova aka PatternNadGavr after two and a half years and 224 hours of stitching!

It was a fairly big stitch for me, clocking in at almost 40k stitches including back stitch, but I have to say I enjoyed every minute of i. The colours are so nice and almost glowing on the fabric. Finishing this at a retreat, getting to ring the bell and having everyone oh and ah over it just made it more special. 

Now I handed it off to Felix to figure out the framing...but I think I'm going to help him pick out a frame first, or it'll never happen!

The Waterflow Sweater

As a little side note in between more recent updates, I wanted to show you something I finished much earlier this year, in April to be exact. I never managed to get a good picture of it as it was always too warm to wear it, but now it's cooling downit's finally time to shine for my Waterflow Sweater!

I just love asymetrical sweaters, so when I saw this pattern on Hobbii, I knew I wanted to make it. Then the yarn (which is a gorgeously shiny viscose/wool mix) was on a really good sale last winter, so I treated myself and started this around new year. I worked on it ins purts here and there and finally finished it all about four months later. And now I get to wear it and am very happy with it!

September WIPocalypse

Can you believe we're into the last quarter of the year already? Time sure is flying! I had a wonderful stitching September, not least of all thanks to Stitch Basel, which I attended with two of my very good online stitching friends, and had a blast! My stitchy bug had been super charged ever since, and I will have some progress and finishes (and new starts!) to show very soon! For now, though, it's time for WIPocalypse, and I am a little sad to report that over all the other stitchy endeavours, I didn't find time to work on The Loneliness of Autumn in September. I hope to make up for that soon! So today, I will only talk about the question of the month as well as the currently running focus challenge.

For the question of the month - How did you learn to stitch? I must have been about seven or eight years old, and we did at little embroidery at school. I think we embroidered tote bags with perle floss and little stars. I really enjoyed the process and my grandma, ever supportive of my crafty endeavours, got me a printed cross stitch breadcloth and pink perle floss, and after I finished that, for summer vacation, I got a cross stitch book and some aida fabric and Anchor floss and that kept me busy the whole vacation. My grandma didn't stitch, so other than what I did at school, I pretty much taught myself from that book!

For WIPocalypse, October is a focus month challenge, so we pick a project and try and work on it a little each day. Traditionally, I pick my oldest WIP for this, and if you've been reading along for a while, you might recall that I got one more really old table cloth from my very early stitching days. This one had a little more stiching than the last two, so I kept it until now. It looks like this - times four:

Ideally, I'd like to finish this side, so I can try and do one side during each focus month from now on, but I find it hard to estimate the number of stitches and now my progress will be slow on the printed fabric, so I'm not sure yet if it will be feasible. We will see at the October checkin how much I got done!

September Gifted Gorgeousness

For our monthly SAL of all things gifted and giftee, hosted by the lovely Jo, I am still hard at work on my various baby gifts. This month I have one finish and two works in progress, but the latter are in a messy state of lots of loose ends and I'm going to wait a bit longer until I show them. The finish is the one I already showed in a messy state last time - my little frog!

Both Frog and Monkey are with their new little owners now, who both seemed very happy (well, the big sister did, the little brother is a little young yet to seem happy about gifts!)

I already started the next of these animals, a little mouse, and also worked a bit more on my baby blanket, but as I said, those will be a thing for next month, hopefully. See you around!

September WIPGO

I just realized September is more than halfway gone (gasp) and I haven't yet told you about my WIPGO goals and progress! 

For August, I hit my goal of ten hours on Things Unseen - in fact, I made it 12 hours, as I had only 8 on the counter and wanted to get to a clean 20. I basically addad anything below the text, the bees, flower basket and some border. Aren't those flowers pretty? They are what drew me to this design in the first place!

I also did not just 10, but 20 hours on Guardian of Wayfarers, as I had been carrying along an additional called goal on that one. It went from 79 to 87% done and just look how close I got to finishing the cross stitch! Of course I have worked on it again in the meantime, but any progress I made this month will have to remain a surprise yet.

For September, the numbers called were 11 and 4 - another round of Guardian, and the oldest WIP on the board, Peacock Tapestry!

Yes, it's been many years since I worked on this, and it would be nice to put in a couple hours, get closer to finish that border!

So that's the plan for this month. I'm also going to be at Stitch Basel this weekend, so hope to get a good chunk done, have a couple new starts and a LOT of fun! If any of you are around, come say hi!

August Smalls SAL

Remember the little blotch of blue I showed for my failed July checkin to the Smalls SAL as hosted by our dear Rachel? Well, is is a blotch no more, and instead has been finishe into this lovely flower - it's July's Larkspur from a Flower of the Month sampler by Kooler Design Studios:

This is going to be a mini birth sampler for my little niece who was born this July, so I still need to chart and stitch her name and birthdate, but I'm going to blur those out when showing it online anyways, so might as well share it now! 

August WIPocalypse

Welcome to August WIPocalpyse, were we stitch as if it's the end of the world! I'm checking in with Measi the Geeky Witch, our host for this SAL for...basically ever (at least longer than I have my blog). The question of the month is Do you belong to any stitching groups or guilds (either in person or virtual)? If so, tell us about them. I don't belong to any organized groups or guilds, but have several seperate groups of stitching friends that have formed over the years. There is my original group from back when I started blogging and discovered the wonderful world of online stitching communities on deviantArt, but most of them are not all that active anymore online. katjykay still checks in with WIPocalypse semi-regularly though, and of course many of you know Ashley aka PinkyThePink!
I also consider our little bloggoverse here a group of stitching friends, namely the regulars who check in with Jo's SALs and bloghops throughout the year.
And lastely, my newest stitchy home is a group of stitchers from the 'Stitchy Quest to Destroy the one ring' facebook group that came together on Discord during the pandemic, when many of us felt lonely and isolated. It's not quite the same constallation as back then - some have left, some have joint in the years since - but we've become quite the tight knit group, and two of them will join me in real life for Stitch Basel this month!

As we are moving closer to autumn, naturally I start thinking about my stitching goals for the year, and what still seems reasonable to reach at this point. One of my big (hopeful, but not actuall important) goals for the year was to finish The Loneliness of Autumn, my regular WIPocalypse project. At this point I can say with confidence that is not going to happen; as I neglected it way too much throughout the year in favour of different goals - I still hope to make a little progress, but won't burn myself out trying to push for anything. In August, I managed another page finish (or actually two, but one was a partial page and barely ten stitches wide), and thus finished the second row of pages on this design. I was only missing some very scattered about stitches for this, so actually only did a little over a hundred stitches this month. Hopefully, the next row should bring some actual progress in stitch numbers, as there are a couple larger areas left to in, and not just confetti stitches!

 

My new total is 101,356/118,800 stitches, or 85.32%. Not much of a progress, but every stitch counts!

Measi has also reminded us that October will be a new One-Stitch-a-Day challenge, so I want to finalize my plans for that. As usual, I am torn between using the opportunity to really press for a finish (or progress) on a focus piece, or revive an old project that has been neglected for far too long. Currently, I am leaning towards focusing on Guardian of Wayfarers, which is getting awfully close to a finish - depending on my progress in September, focusing on this in October might mean a finish, and leave me free for other projects the last two months of the year...still pondering, though!

August Gifted Gorgeousness

Welcome to my monthly hey-I-am-late-again checkin for Jo's wonderful SAL for all things gifts and giftee! I am still hard at work making baby gifts, and this month I almost finished another ragdoll, allas, I first ran out of yarn and, once that was remedied, out of time! So all I got to show this month is a frog puzzle:

Hopefully, he will be assembled soon, so he and the monkey from last month can go to their new friends!

I'm also still working on the Spice of Life blanket, which now has a deadline to be done be October 19th...doable, but I need to hurry up a bit!

August Fully Finished Gallery

Due to an abundance of social obligations this month, I am way late for the check in on Rachel's blog, but still wanted to share my finish-finish with you this month. So to keep this short, without further ado:

I bought a frame for the little squirrel angel, washed and ironed it (there was a weird hoop stain on this one), and had Felix frame it, ready to go to its recipients this upcoming weekend! Smudged out for privacy are name and birthdate of the baby this is for.

August WIPGO

Time for my August WIPGO update, and this time I got real progress to report!

While I did not work on Dark Forces (called in July), I finished my 10 hours on Red Velvet Cake (called in June). I finished the 'spikes' around the central circle, then started on the red frame around this whole motif. This one is pretty large, and despite adding a total of 1278 stitches, I only managed a quarter of the way around!

I also did another 10 hours on Guardian of Wayfarers, bringing my total up to 79.2% and finishing a couple more shades of blue (and one green).

Now for August, the numbers called where another round of GoW, and also Things Unseen, a Lizzie*Kate mystery sampler I last touched two years ago:

Last time I worked on this I finished the text over part 1 and 2, now I want to work on finishing part 1 by adding some of the bigger motifs on the left side. This is fun to work on and travels well as it's only a couple colours, so perfect for another busy month!

So with the additions for July and August, my board looks like this now - still a bit behind, but at least I haven't fallen further back:

July Smalls Failure

While I did get a good amount of stitching done in July, I have to admit defeat for the smalls SAL! I made a small start, but am just not feeling it right now, so it will have to wait a bit and hopefully get finished in August.

This is another mini birth sampler for Felix' grandma - I'm doing 'flowers of the month' for all her great-grandkids, and she's had two more this year so I better get stitching!

July WIPocalypse

It's time for July WIPocalypse, and the question of the month is: Which of your current WIPs do you consider your most difficult piece to stitch? I don't really consider any of my WIPs as difficult, but probably the biggest challenge right now is my Jacquie SAL! It has several new techniques like stumpwork that I have already done once for the third pannel, but need to do more of for the fourth!

July is the Olympic stitchign focus month for WIPocalypse, but as I once again neglected to do any planning, I will not be participating and instead try to make some progress on my regular stitching.

Part of that is making some progress on The Loneliness of Autumn! In July, I added another 519 stitches and finished page 10.

One more (and a tiny partial) page in this row! My new total is 85.20% or 101,217/118,800 stitches done. Hopefully, I'll have some more progress to show in the next WIPocalypse!

July Gifted Gorgeousness

This is my post to link up with Jo's wonderful SAL for anything gifted or giftee, and my place to show you all the yarn gifts I've been making!

My gift making situation has become more dire this month, as all the babies I was making stuff for have been born and I have finished none of the gifts! Yes, that includes Felix' niece, who was born three weeks early, but is otherwise happy and healthy. Time to turn on turbo crochet mode...or die trying!

For now, I made some progress on her blanket, but amnot quite halfway done with it yet. I hope to get this done for her baptism in October, which seems somewhat realistic if I can just stick to it a bit more regularly!

I'm also making some more ragdolls this year (still plenty of cute animals left that I haven't made yet) and finished the first one today. Actually I finished the crochet two weeks ago but sewing them together is much less fun, so takes a while. But now the little monkey is done!

I'm working on a companion to this one (a little frog) that is almost done. These two are for a some-degree-cousin of Felix, who had her second child a couple weeks ago, so I wanted to make ragdolls both for him and his big sister. The frog is almost done, and if I can also add the name and birthday to the little squirrel I posted for the June Smalls SAL; I can cross two gifting obligations off the list soon!

July Fully Finished Gallery

I had all but given up on posting a fully finished object this month, but somehow I didn't feel quite ready to give up yet, so...watch me try and pull a massive shoehorn on this!

I was tyding up my crafting corner the other day (I needed to pack Guardian of Wayfarers away for a bit as the friend I'm making it for is coming over this weekend, and not supposed to see him), I cam across this pair of Felix' pants that I started mending about a year ago. He tore off one off the back pockets in a way that wasn't salvagable, and after I removed the pocket, some small holes and a very visible seam line remained. So I decided to try my hands at visible mending - basically adding some surface embroidery to cover and close and holes in the process. I got about halfway done and then just put it aside for some reason, and picked it up again yesterday for a pretty quick finish.

It was an experiment for sure...so what do you think? Can one get away with wearing these pants again? Can I get away with shoehorning them into the FFO SAL?

July WIPGO

Another month, another WIPGO update. In June, the numbers called corresponded to Guardian of Wayfarers and Red Velvet Cake. I did actually pull out RVC for a couple hours (and it's so lovely to work on with the silks!) but haven't hit my 10 hour goal yet, so won't show you an update yet.

I did, however, put ten hours into Guardian of Wayfarers. It's at 75.07% now, so I'm basically working on the last quarter of the circle (still have quite a bit of backstitch to add as well), and still have hopes of finishing this as a Christmas present...

Last month, I added mostly blues, and I'm actually startign to finish a couple of the shades, which adds an extra layer of motivation for me!

For July, the numbers called were 6 and 25. That's another round of GoW, and also Dark Forces, my first big ful coverage WIP (I think I started it in 2015). It's been a bit neglected lately, so only 23.85% done. You can see what it is supposed to look like when done on my side bar, and I pulled my current progress from PK do give you and idea:

From previous rotations I know I still enjoy working on this, so it would be nice to give it another 10 hours, and it might even be enough to finish the current page. Hope I can get around to it!

So the current state of my WIPGO is as follows - I realize the goal is to fill in the whole board, but technically I'll get a 'Bingo!' just for stitching the 25, no? ;)  

June WIPocalypse

Well hello there! June WIPocalypse has come around and totally steamrolled me be asking for a Half-year recap:  How are you doing with your goals so far this year?

And I can't believe half the year is over already, but I checked my calender and it sure is! As for my goals, well, you've had front row seats to see how they've been derailed - maybe I'm just not cut out for following a strict rotation of any sorts? However, I am not too mad either, having made good progress on some projects, and snuck a couple new ones in there. And I might still make it for one big finish this year, Guardian of Wayfarers just needs a little over 9k stitches now! 

The Loneliness of Autumn, though, has been terribly neglected for almost 3 months now! But, imagine that, I do have a little progress to report and added 566 stitches in June. That does not sound like a lot, but I am still in a very confetti-y area (maybe that's why I stopped working on it?) and it was actually enough to fill in another page!

I'm now at 84.76% and while I have pretty much given up on finishing the project this year, I still hope I can get a couple more pages filled in. The next two (or three, there is a tiny partial page on the right) should go pretty quickly now, and then I'll hit a lot more white space in the next row, but hopefully that also means more stitches in one colour? We'll see about that!

June Smalls SAL

I have decided to no longer start these posts with excuses about how much behind I am, etc etc, because that must be really boring for you. I think I've decided this before and fell back into old habits, we'll see how it goes this time!

Anyways, the Small SAL is a monthly stitch along to show our smalls stitching ('small' being a very wide term) hosted this year by the lovely Rachel. No link up post this month, I hope she's alright.

This year I had plans to stitch the LHN Little Sheep Virtues for this SAL, but have been busy with something else in June (and probably will again in July) - a mini birth annoucement for two very close friends who had their baby girl early this month.

I haven't added the birth info yet, but won't share it online anyways (or blur it out if I do), so for the purpose of this SAL, this is a finish:

 

This is Squirrel Angel by new-to-me designer MiKaStitchDesign on Etsy. This was very nice to stitch and didn't take too long either!

June GIfted Gorgeousness

Once again I am super behind with blogging, both reading and posting and hitting my goals anyways. I know what it is with me this year, but I am still around and eventually I'll get all these posts up and read...probably!

So here is my June checkin for Gifted Gorgeousness, Jo's SAL for all things gifted and giftee.

Last month, I worked some more on the Spice of Life blanket - at this point I don't think I can get it done in time for our nibbling's birth in August, but every row counts!

I also made another Amigurumi - the pokémon Corsola, for my best friend's birthday. She bought an official plush a while back but it was stolen at the post office, and then she was so sad she couldn't get another one, so I made her one instead - these tiny pieces on the spikes were a pain to make, but I'm really happy with the result!

June Fully Finished Gallery

Despite having my sewing done really early this month, I'm posting pretty late...this time it was stuffing the little pillows that had to wait until the very last moment. Maybe I'm just a lost cause! But I did do some finishing this month, so maybe the timing isn't all that important.

First, I finished two more of my Little Sheep Virtues pillows - Peace, which you've seen as a failed finish before, and Faith, a much more recent finish. Since I accepted them all being a little different, I'm really having fun with these!

The other finish is one I believe I have not showed you since I finished stitching, I believe - it's my Meadow Tablecloth, that I used for the last couple WIPocalypse one-a-day challenges, and previously my oldest WIP. I finally finished the stitching earlier this year and, since the stitching as the sparse and the stitches so big, didn't quite trust the backside - so I covered it in very thin iron-on interfacing. Probably won't fall as nicely anymore, but it's a pretty small tablecloth anyway so not the kind you'd have hanging down on all sides of the table - and my stitching is safe now!

I think that's me caught up for finish-finishing everything I stitched this year, at least...but still plenty to go in my box of shame, so we'll see what I can whip up next month!

May WIPocalypse

Another really late WIPocalypse checkin, and another one I don't have much to talk about, as well - my stitching bug has returned, but was almost fully occupied with the Book of Fungi SAL in May. I do have grand plans to return to regularly scheduled stitching, that is, The Loneliness of Autumn, now in June, though; if not for a full 10 hours, then at least for a couple hundred stitches.

I will also not be taking part in the one-a-day challenge for this month; I usuall really enjoy these but, again, does not fit in will with all my SAL stitching currently. I am hoping that by the next challenge in October I will be back to regular business enough to pick up my last tablecloth for this challenge, though!

So the only thing that remains to talk about today is the question - How do you personally distinguish between a Work in Progress (WIP) and an Unfinished Object (UFO)? The simple answer would be, I don't, or rather, I can't. All my projects are WIPs, as I intend to go back and finish them eventually. If I actually want to 'be done' with an unfinished project and find closure, I need to give it away, frog, or trash it.
Currently I got only one project that is steering into UFO territory, it's a SAL that never had all parts released and at this point it is unsure whether they ever will be - although I'm still in contact with the designer, so not giving up hope just yet!

Last time I worked on it was in 2021 and this is how it currently looks:

May Smalls

First weekend of the month and time for the May Smalls post...what do you mean it's supposed to be last Friday, not first Sunday? Shhh, no one noticed! 

So as you (glares at unspecified reader) helpfully pointed out, I'm a little late, but I did stitch up SImplicity, the 6th one of the Little Sheep Virtue series! I am now halfway done and starting unto the second piece of fabric I set aside for this series.

Simplicity was a rather quick stitch - apart from the border, there's not a lot of dense stitching going on, but it was fun and between the birdhouse, the flowers and the little bees, is very cute!

June WIPGO

Look. I know I seem to be caught in a perpetual game of trying to get caught up on stuff, but maybe I find it *fun* to do so...have you ever thought about that?! Well, I kind of do and I kind of don't, but that's not what I am here to talk about today - I want to tell you about my WIPGO progress, before I get stuck in this months's projects! Hopefully. Anyways!

In May, we had three numbers called (one of which being the free field), and I actually hit two of my goals, and while that still means I am behind by two, I kind of made up for that in other ways - and I got my stitchy bug back! But first things first, I did work on Guardian of Wayfarers for 10 hours, added 1775 stitches and brought it up to 71%. I'm still positive I might be able to finish it this year!

As you can see I am actually almost finished with the dragon itself, so I think I might do some more backstitching soon. Will see!

The other goal I managed was the new start...and I did a little bit more than 10 hours on that one. The first three parts of the Book of Fungi SAL dropped in May, and I stitched them all, for a total of 6568 stitches. Yes, I was slightly obessed with this, and that's what brought my stitchy bug back, so I spent about 38 hours on it, but here is the completed book cover:

Isn't the little froggy on the back just the cutest?! The first of the actual pages will drop this week, and I'm very excited for it! I will try and stay caught up on this, even if it means falling further behind on WIPGO and other goals.

For June, the numbers pulled were another slot for GoW, and also Red Velvet Cake. This is a project I've been lookng forward to a lot - a pattern by Glendon Place that I got as a gift from my grandparents several years ago, along with the silks and a really nice fabric from Polstitches. I have no idea why I only put in a tiny start and then never touched it again...it must be 8 years or so now!

So my board currently looks like this - as you can see we only need 17 or 7 now for a BINGO on the diagonal, but of course we're all aiming to get the whole thing filled in! Even if it might take me a bit longer than December, I won't be mad if I can also get an additional finish or two on the way.

May Gifted Gorgeousness

Welcome to the May installment of the Gifted Gorgeousness, one of my favourite SALs as hosted by the marvelous Jo, and the one stop SAL for all things gift and gifted! As you know, I've spent a lot of time knitting and crocheting lately, and as my yarn projects are often gifts, you'd think I'd have something to show for this SAL...and you'd be right!

I finally finished the granny square blanket I'd been working on all year - joined all the squares, then added a bit of a border. I've had this project in mind for a very long time and I'm quite pleased with how it all came together - just in time too, as the baby is due June 7th!

But no rest for the knitting (or crocheting!), I already started the nest blanket and hope to be able to finish it by mid August. This is the Spice of Life pattern, quite a popular blanket by Sandra Paul, but I'm doing it in my own colour way of off white with some bright colours. 

This is Part 1 of the blanket - I just started this 10 days ago and hope to have a lot more to show by next month!