April Smalls SAL

For the April edition of the Smalls SAL, hosted by the wonderful Rachel, I bring you something really fun. There's this person (I think it's a lady, but you know what they say about assuming!) called poignetamour who makes really elaborate cross stitch animations. They design a little animation in 100+ frame ands and then everyone who participates gets to stitch up one frame and send in a photo. Check them out, it's really cool! I signed up for the current project with is called planstar, and last weekend finally stitched up my entry. Now I got until June to take a proper (maybe a little fancy) picture of it.

 I think I got very lucky with this frame as it also looks cute on it's own, some people got the star all from the side and that looks a bit weird out of context! Anyways, I am excited to be a part of this, and will try and remember to link you the result when it's out.

Things Unseen - Part 1

After a bunch of SAL checkins, here we got a regular progress post for once - hooray! This is a piece that last came out for for WIPGO last year and I realized I really enjoy working on it. It also makes a decent travel project, as it's fairly easy and all kitted up with a limited number of hand dyed threads, so it's easy to carry around.

Things Unseen was originally released as a 3 part SAL. I started stitching late so worked across parts 1 and 2 simulatnously, because I didn't want the lines of text to be split, but now I'm working on the middle section with all the different motifs, I focused on finishing the first part, including working the border down far enough.

The four flowers besides 'touched' and the bird already belong to part 2, and then part 3 will be across the bottom, full width. I plan to bring this on a couple more trips this year and hopefully finish part 2 as well. It's stitching up fairly quickly so I don't see why not!

April Gifted Gorgeousness

So, you know how Gifted Gorgeousness is one of my favourite SALs, because I'm always off making gifts of some kind? Well, sometimes I over do it, but sometimes, it's worth it!

April was a perfect storm for gift making. We made more or less spontanous plans to meet an old friend we hadn't seen in years and his wife and kid we'd never met before (we originally planned to meet them in June, but plans changed, as they do). The little one is just about six months old, so of course I had to making him a little ragdoll, and due to some running gags we got it had to be a little piggie - and isn't she a cutie?

 

Then we went to spend Easter weekend in Felix' old homevillage, and Saturday evening were invited for game night with some friends who had a child last November that I also hadn't made a gift for yet. The little guys sister got a dog ragdoll when she was born, so he got one too - a little pug for a baby boy!

 Finally, we spent Easter Sunday with Felix' extended family at his grandma's place. I already showed you the mini-birthdampler I made for her, but there was also his youngest grandcousin - she's almost a year old now, and I had planned to give her this gift when we last met her on Christmas, but I got too busy with Christmas gifts so it kind of fell of the table. So Easter it was, and here is Lupo the lamb!

 He got stolen by the little girl's sister for a while (who apparently is a big fan of me now) but when they got home she remembered she already got the matching fox, so now each animal is with the right little girl, and I'm one step closer to being caught up with baby gifts! Not quite there yet...but closer! For now, I think I'll spend the next month focusing on the blanket for my second niece, as we want to visit her in July.

April Fully Finished Gallery

This month for Rachel's Fully Finished Gallery, I have one object, and that feels like a bit of a cheat - I stitched up another one of my mini flower birth samplers, and then had Felix frame it!

At least it was a new flowers this time, that is, one I hadn't stitched before - as my second niece was born this March, here we have a daffodil!

Sorry for the short post - it's been a busy month so far. Will be back with more craftng and longer writing soon!

March WIPocalypse

Here we go for the March installment of Measi's long running WIPocalypse SAL. I'm a little late this month but we are going to ignore that and jump right in! 

The question if the month is Which are your favorite three designers? It's so hard to pick just three! There are so many great designers out there. Some everyone knows, and I do have a fondness for the 'big ones', like Teresa Wentzler, Joan Eliott, Mirabilia or Durene Jones. I constantly discover new ones too. But I think this time for my favourite, I will pick designers that not only do gorgeous design work, but I've also had great personal interactions with!

In third place, there is Jody Ellis from UnconventionalXStitch. She dropped to third place only because I pretty much reached saturation on how many full coverage patterns I own, but she is by far still the best designer I know for these, and a lovely person too! She's still rebuilding her physical inventory after a fire last year, so if you are in the market for some great full coverage patterns, go check her out.

In second place, a newer addition to the list, is Olena from LivingOnTheRainbow. She does very fun and cute patterns, often with interesting 3D finishing constructions - probably best known are her little books of stuff, but she also does mittens, little caravans, houses, potion bottles...really fun! I don't know her as well as the others either, but I've had some interactions with her on Instagram and she seems like a lovely person.

Top of my list, for various reasons, has to by my good friend Ashley from Make It Pink! We've been friends for years, she does such amazingly detailed patterns. Best known for her Hannah Alexander Much-Style princesses, she's recently gained some traction and signed up a couple more artists, newest and most exciting being Karen Hallion. She also just started a Flosstube if anyone is interested in checking that out!

Now to my own stitching, coincidentally, not by any of those designers, haha! Every month I share my progress on The Loneliness of Autumn by Love Thy Thread. It felt like I didn't make a lot of progress in March, but I did go from 89.35% to 90.55%, which means I must have added about 1400 stitches! I also had another page finish, and while this one is being confetti-y, I'm getting close!

 

March was also the first one-a-day challenge of the year, and I picked my blue tablecloth, currently my oldest WIP. After not really feeling it in the beginning of the month, it went really well after a while, adding a full length or more most days. I managed to finish one of the four sides, and made a little start on the next one. This might not be finished this year, but if I can pick it up for the other four challenges this year, I should at least to the halfway point! It will be good to get this one out of the stash eventually.

 

March Smalls SAL

This month, I am linking up to the Smalls SAL, hosted by Rachel, with a piece that was driving me crazy for months, before I even started it! So story time first.

Edelweiss Forever was one of the kits we received as part of our goodie bags for Stitch Basel 2023. This and another kit share the same special dyed silk floss from xJu Design. I didn't start them right away, but some people did, and I started hearing from people who ran out of the special colour way. So I messaged Jucus (the dyer) and she was amazing to offer to send me another floss set for free! Problem solved! Except the whole process of messaging her and her mailing the floss fom Hungary took a while, and when I went to put the extra floss with the original kit...I couldn't find it. It wasn't with my other Stitch Basel stuff, or in my box of kits, or with the patterns. I reorganized half my stash looking for it, but nothing! It was driving me crazy. Until, just over a week ago, inspiration struck and I checked my back travel backback I hadn't used in some time, and there it was. Apparently I had packed this as an 'emergency start' for some trip or other, but just never unpacked it! The pattern got a little wrinkly in the process, but I don't care. I had to start this right away (it was my birthday start, in fact) and have since finished the front of this biscornu pattern:

 This is 'Edelweiss Forever' by Vintage Tulip designs, stitched on the kitted floss (the special Stitch Basel Color and Blanc silk) and fabric (Rustic Driftwood) by xJu Design. This is the front, the back will have similar motifs, but is a lot simpler, so I hope I can get this fully stitched and finished soon. It's super pretty and very fun to stitch, and I think it was worth all the hassle of looking for it. Freshly sorted stash is a bonus, too!