Cup-ybara - Finished!

I'm trying to establish a tradition for StitchBasel where I start a thing while at the retreat, but also finish one. So far, so good - I've started things all three years of the retreat so far, and had finished the last two. This year, I was determined to finish my Capybara in a Teacup, or Cup-ybara, by Needlelotdesigns. In fact, I had just reached 30 hours on this the day I was supposed to leave for the retreat:

 

With just over 1k stitches left, I was optimistic that I could finish this during the three day retreat. Although I did not do full days at the retreat (I decided to commute, which was about 90 mins of travel each day, so I usually showed up a little later in the mornings) I did about 400 stitches on Friday and Saturday each, which left me with just a little bit of work to do on Sunday, when I finished him at just over 37 hours:

 That's him up on the wall at the retreat! I know need to pick out a frame and put him up on my wall, as I really like him and want to put him on proud display. 

September Gifted Gorgeousness

It is once again time for one of my most favourite SALs of the month, Jo's brain child, the one stop for all things gifted and giftee - the Gifted Gorgeousness!

Since most of my gifted projects are yarn work these days, and a do a lot of those in my lunch breaks at work, AND I had two weeks off this month, my progress has been a little less - but still worth showing!

So my big gift progress is the 'A Spicier Life' blanket I am working on for my third nibbling, scheduled to arrive in October. I'm about halfway through the third part now:

 It's growing nicely and I am really pleased with the colours I picked!

As a little bonus, I made this dino for my grandma. He reminded me a lot of a toy I had as a child that she and I used to play with all the time together, so I thought she like him, and she did!

 Isn't he cute?!

 

September Fully Finished Gallery

For the September edition of Rachel's Fully Finished Gallery, I finished the Autumn Minis from August's smalls SAL into adorable little needle minders! As these were stitched on plastic canvas, this was fairly quick and easy to do - I only had to carefully cut them out and glue some magnets to the backs.

 These were also my entry for the smalls exchange at this years Stitch Basel - more on that soon, I think - hence the card!

Bellatrix - 50 Hours

It had been way to long since I worked on my Bella - I couldn't find the last post, but I know it has been at least a year - so when she came up for some tasks in a stitching game, I stuck with her for a bit and finished another ten hours. 

 

I added her hand with the flame (which was the reason she came up to begin with) and then spent some time working on the right side of that big stone arch. That brought me somewhere in the neighborhood of 28%. Still lots of work to go but I do enjoy stitching her so might bring her out again soon! 

August WIPocalypse

Again, I promise, this is solely an issue of finding time to blog, because I've been stitching plenty! So this is my (somewhat late) August check in for WIPocalypse. The question of the month is Which retired designer would you love to have back designing? That's a tough one. Teresa Wentzler comes to mind, and then there are some designers who have sadly passed away, like Stitcher's Anon, Chatelaine and Brooke's Books, but to be completely honest - each of them left behind more designs than I am ever going to be able to stitch. So I can't say I'd really *need* new designs by any of them. I think I'll have to say I wish my friend Magical525 was healthy enought to return to designing and finish the last SALs she started, although I got plenty of hers left to stitch still, as well.

Now for actual stitching progress - this is The Loneliness of Autum by Love Thy Thread (another retired designer, I believe), my monly WIPocalypse project. I made some good progress this month, added about 1200 stitches and currently only got 5800 left to go. That's 95.12% done!

 

I also managed two page finishes - hopefully I'll get another one in September. I do need to step up my game a little more if I want to finish it this year! 

August Smalls SAL

I was so *nicely* on track with my stitching, but then I borked up posting about it all the same! Either way, I am here to check in with the smalls SAL, hosted by Rachel on the last Friday of every month, to share our smalls stitching. And I got some very small stitching to share!

A friend of mine discovered the shop Craftigurumi on Etsy, and she got the cutest tiny designs, to be stitched on plastic canvas. I just had to get a couple sets and stitched up the first right away. I went with the more generic 'Autumn Minis' over her fandom ones for now, although I got my eye on a couple of those as well.

 

We got a scarecrow, a toffee apple (I think?), a squirrel, a fox, an acorn and an oh so vibrant autumn leaf. 

These were so fun to stitch and barely took an hour each...which is a good thing as there are a lot more I need to stitch!