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!

The Delicate Cardigan

I feel like I'm always telling you guys how much knitting and crochet I am doing, but don't always update you on what I actually knit and crochet - sorry about that! A big part of the reason is issues with taking pictures - with knit garments, there often isn't a ton of progress visible until it's done, and then you need to wear it and get good lighting to get decent pictures - definitely a two person job! I'll try to get better at updating you though, and maybe find out a good way to take progress pictures too.

For now, I have a finish to report - you might remember the cardigan I started last summer? It's been finished, and finish-finished, and blocked and washed and today I finally got around to taking pictures!

I'm really happy with how this turned out, it's comfy and warm, fits well and I love the colour. It was quite a big project because it was a pretty thin yarn, so it took some time, and I was happy to finally finish it - in time for when the air conditioning goes on in my office, I'll need something warm then!

So that has kept me busy for some time...I got another finish to share, and then a couple WIPs I'll try to get pictures of eventually. But don't worry, a stitching update is coming up as well!

May Fully Finished Gallery

Linking up with Rachel for this monthly SAL of 'doing something with your stitched pieces except for putting them in a folder'...

Another month has passed that I barely touched my sewing machine...it's alright though, because I got an other finish-finish that I am very proud of, it just didn't require any sewing! It did, however, involve one of the oldest pieces in my folder of shame.

Last Christmas, I got a gift set from Rituals (shower gel, body loion and such) that came in a very nice box. I knew I wanted to use the box for something, but it took a while until inspiration struck. Here it is, before I started:

Eventually, I figured out what I was going to do, because the lid had just the right size for this Christmas tree I stitched many many years ago!

Can you tell already? I ended up covering the whole box in Christmas fabrics (using a ton of double sided tape and even some spray on glue) and put my stitching on the lid!

I'm very happy with how it turned out. This will hold my stitched Christmas ornaments and some other decorations that life in an old shoe box for now. Much more in style, isn't it? The stitching itself isn't perfect and there is bit of a permanent crease that, after almost 20 years, I couldn't quite get out, but this way it is still useful and I don't have to be too crazy about keeping it absolutely prestine at all times. I'm pretty happy with my finish and plan to make another one - I got one more sturdy box and a piece to go on the lid, but I haven't found the right fabric yet so it will have to wait a while longer. Still, one down in my folder of finishes!

May WIPGO

Well, I know May is halfway gone already, but I was thinking about what to do about my WIPGO. In my last post I wrote about how my stitching bug had been a bit absent in April, replaced by lots of knitting and crochet, but I think part of it was that both in February and March, I had a WIPGO project I brought close to a finish, then had to put away again just when I was getting into the groove. And Jacquie, which came up in April, was shaping up to be another one on that list, so I was reluctant to pick it up. To be honest, I am still not too sure what to do about it, but the May picks were a bit different, so that gives me another month to figure things out, I guess! I have since started two SALs (one was the Book of Fungi, the other one is a Faby Reilly I'll show you soon) and that has revived my urge to stitch, so what does that say about me? I think I might just not be cut out to adhere to a stitching schedule very closely, I need the flexibility to change my plans throughout the year...

Anyways, the one WIPGO goal I did meet in April was 10 hours on Guardian of Wayfarers, which brought me here (and several new 'zeros' on Cross Stitch Saga as I finished up colours)! I added 1496 stitches for a new total of 66.6%.

 

For May, the numbers called were 5, 19 and 13. 13 is the 'free spot' in the middle of the board, so there was an extra number called. I had put 'new start' for this and while I was planning to start Greenhouse of Oddities when the number came up, I substituted for the Book of Fungi SAL since the first part was released last week and I really, really wanted to start it right away! The other numbers equals two appearances of Guardian of Wayfarers, so I'll try and make some decent headway on him. 

Other than that we'll see if I get back to Jackquie, and I should also work on my small and TLoA but...SALs! Sigh. Days are just too short...

April WIPocalypse

Another month down, another WIPocalypse...this one is going to be a short one, though. Why? Well, to be honest...I haven't been stitching a whole lot in April, and haven't touched The Loneliness of Autumn, my main WIPocalypse piece, even once since the last checkin! One reason for that being that I am firmly stuck in my yarncrafts at the moment, doing a log of knitting and crochet (I just never seem to remember to show those until they are done!), and the other having to do with a bit of personal frustration...I'm still working out what exactly has been putting me off, but will probably talk about it more in my upcoming WIPGO post. Anyways! That's a whole lot of words just to say I am alive and well, just not stitching a whole lot at the moment.

So for this post, I'll only be talking about the question of the month, and keep it short. The question for April was Which designers have you discovered lately? While I haven't actually stitched any new designers lately, I did sign up for a SAL that starts soon and that I am very excited about, and by a new-to-me designer - Living on the Rainbow. Their Ets-shop has a ton of cute designs, but their specialty are 3D cross stitch designs that are finished in really fun ways, including the Witches library, a series of little stitched books. I will be stitching the newest edition in this series, the Book of Fungi, when it starts releasing later this week:

Maybe this will help me get out of my stitching slump! I ordered the kit (everything you need to stitch and finish, minus the threads itself) from Lady Ravenga because it came with these cute metal book corners and an adorable mushroom charm as well as some fabrics for finishing, and was reasonably priced. If it's as much fun as it looks, I might get the other books at a later date, but for now, fungi it is!

April Smalls SAL

Last Friday was the check in for the Aprils Smalls SAL as hosted by the wonderful Rachel this year - and I am definitely getting closer! For this SAL, I am stitching the Little Sheep Virtues series by LittleHouseNeedlewords this year, and in April I finished #5, Faith.

Now I am not quite sure why there is a giant carrot growing out of the roof of that house, but the little black sheep is very cute, don't you think?

April Gifted Gorgeousness

Here we go for the April installment of Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness - as you might be able to tell, I'm getting caught up, with the distance between link up dates and my actual posting getting slightly shorter, haha.

I'm still working on my granny square baby blanket - getting a little antsy to get this one done as I have so many other babies I should start crafting for, but most of the things I'm planning to make should still be welcome once the litle ones are a couple months old, so as long as I can finish everything this year I should be fine.

For this month, I finished the last of the squares, wove in all the ends, and started joining them. I spent some time finding a pleasing layout, trying to create a bit of a colour gradient. I've now assembled the squares into three long stripes, so I can move them without using the layout, but they still need a ton more joins to make an actual blanket!

I've also had a new vacation start - I project I've been meaning to start for a while, as the yarn was a Christmas gift from my husband. But actually starting required casting on 509 stitches and that just seemed too daunting a task! Perfect to tackle when I had some more time, though, so I did and got the first 10 rows or so in. It's going to be a massive shawl, called Blanket to Go because that's basically what it is, but right now it looks like some green worm of sorts:

It's not all green, though - I did a little colour swatch before I started, to demonstrate the gradient I'm planning:

Probably going to take me a while for sheer size, but I'm looking forward to getting all the colours in there!

April Fully Finished Gallery

Hi, it's me! Still behind and still fighting my sewing machine, but slowly getting there. Today I am checking in (once again, very late) with Rachel's Fully Finished Gallery, where we attempt to do something with all these pieces lurking in our treasure chests and boxes of shame.

Last month I shared my struggles with finishing the second one of the Little Sheep Values. They have been continuing, but after some more sewing and unsewing and cutting and measuring I've come to a couple conclusions:

1) It's a bit of a curse that the first one I finished came out so neat and perfect because

2) I probably don't have the sewing skills yet to make 12 identical pillows and finally

3) I'm probably okay with that.

My first concession was to get some different kinds of lace - I didn't have enough of the original one for 12 pillows anyway - so they'd all look a little different because of that alone. Then, after I had sewn, frogged and resewn Courage just to discover it was still a bit wonky and I probably wouldn't be able to fix it cause I had made a mistake with cutting, I had a good long think and realized - it's okay. I finished Hope next, and for that one I had to do the centering of the stitched piece differently anyways because it has a big button right in the corner, and now that there are three (and not just one perfect and one wonky one) I'm feeling more at ease with them. I will continue to practice, but if in the meantime not everything comes out perfect, I will accept it - how else am I going to make progress? So here we have LSV #1, #2 (finished two months ago) and #4. I'll try to re-finish #3 Peace and #5 (which I am currently stitching) for next month.