Queen of the Pirates - 40 Hours

 It's been a while, but I picked up my pirate lady again and completed the next ten hours of stitching on her!

As you can see I added two more (big) feathers on her hat, and also added some more hair. I am not completely convinded about the colour of those lights and shadows - I might go over it with some darker half stitches in the end, but want to see how it looks when it's all stitched up first. There's still a lot more to go on this one, but now it feels like I'm actually getting somewhere with ther!
 

Up-cycling and down-stashing

 When Felix and I moved in together, we obviously bought a lot of household stuff. That stuff is now a little over ten years old and apparently, for some stuff, that is as old as it wants to be! Over the last couple weeks, we noticed out dirty clothes hamper was starting to break down around the edge. It's basically just a big plastic vat and in the interest of reducing plastic waste I really don't want to throw it out, but everytim we had to move it we hurt our hands - it really was looking quite grim!

 I decided to try and see if I could save it. The bottom part is still quite sturdy, so I wanted to put something around the edge, and the best way to get something to fit correctly is to make it yourself - so I went stash diving and found a pretty blue yarn that I had no other use for. The yarn crafters among you might know what kind of yarn I mean - it's pretty, but artificial to such a high degree you really don't want to wear it. Perfect for some home improvement! So I did some measuring and went at it, and I was so lucky that the one skein I had made the exact right size for what I needed. Isn't that much better?!

 I know it's just a little thing, but I love repairing things and giving them a second life, and it makes me happy everytime I see it!

Lisa, the Garden Gnome

 April's section of the Magical Creature Calendar was small, but relatively dense stitching.

 It a little female garden gnome in front of her tree stump house and according to the SAL instructions, her name is Lisa. Hi, Lisa! It took  couple days to finish her but it feels good still being caught up - so far, so good! May's section is a bigger one, so I'm hoping to put some work in on the frames to set it up before then.

Things Unseen - Part 2

 It's been almost a year since I finished part 1 of the Things Unseen SAL by Lizzie Kate and vouched to work on it more...and I finally made it to finish part 2! This part was fairly chunky though, especially the house on the hill:

 Part 3 will be mostly text, so should go a fair bit quicker. I am hoping to get this piece done this year as I promised the pattern to someone and don't want to keep them waiting!

Is it a sloth, or a bear?

 On Easter weekend, we visited a friend who's having a baby soon, so I took that as an opportunity to finally finish this baby hat I had started last year, to leave it with her as a gift for the little one. Back then a group of friends all started the Bearly Bonnet by Pure Stitches, and I took entirely too long to finish it for such a quick knit!

 Here it is, modeled by my friend Simon the sloth, whose head has just the right size to pull it off. Isn't he cute? I think he quite enjoyed having visible ears for once!

March WIPocalypse

 We were visiting family for a couple days over Easter, so now I am very behind on blogging and reading again - but that's okay, I'll get caught up in time for sure! For now, let me talk about March WIPocalypse.

March was one of the one-a-day challenge months for the year, so I was working on my oldest WIP, a blue printed table cloth. I managed to finish the 3rd side and made a little start on the fourth, so this is officially over 75% done now!

 I really want to finish it this year, so, as there is only one more challenge month, I will probably have to throw in a couple addition stitches here and there, but it would feel good to get this crossed off the list.

Speaking of the list - no real progress on the WIP list in March! I had one good finish (the comfy sweater), but also a new start (the Magical Creature Calendar), so the total count is still at 55! I'm hoping for some finishes in April though, so I am not worried so far.

Last but not least, the question of the month is Which of your current WIPs do you consider your most difficult piece to stitch? Honestly, none of my current WIPs are too challenging, but if I have to pick one it'll be the Jacquie SAL, because those dragonfly wings use quite some stump work and it's my first one doing it, so it takes a long time to do neatly. 

I got a couple more posts lined up and the week off work, so hopefully, I'll see you again soon!