Fiery Phoenix

 I was off work sick the last two days, and while I was feeling truely miserable yesterday, this afternoon I was feeling a lot better, so will be back at work tomorrow - but that still gave me a window of a couple hours to actually make some crafting progress, AND even get up and iron my latest finish!

I've shown you a progress picture of my phoenix already, but here she is in all her finished glory!

 I might have been worried about my fabric choice in the beginning, but now I am SO glad I went bold. Still, it's a *tad* stressfull to work on something for 37 hours before you know your choice was correct haha! Now I have to think about how to frame her...do I go with simple black? Do I make it even more bold? What do we think?

Fiery Phoenix by NeedleLotDesign, on 32ct Murano 'Devil's Kiss' my xJuDesign. 

June WIPocalypse

 It's finally cooled down a bit, and I'm hoping to be able to catch up on some things! One of which is this WIPocalypse check in that I am...somewhat late for. Well. 

The question of the month was Half-year recap:  How are you doing with your goals so far this year? My goal for the year was to get from 58 WIPs down to below 50, and it's actually going quite well! In June, I finished the Phoenix (just need to give it a nice good iron...and couldn't bring myself to do that during the heat wave, but it's also on the list for this week!) and scrapped one WIP - it was Magical's Sampler SAL, which is never going to get finished due to her indefinit hiatus. So I finally decided to just bin it, and gave what was left of that fabric (a not quite evenly woven linen) away to a friend who wanted to try embroidery. That's technically two WIPs down, but I also decided to add my two small-ish crochet WIPs to the official count as they are taking longer than I thought. Will show them to you soon. So we remain stable at 53, which is still more than half way there!

I am especially proud of myself for getting the number of WIPs down without denying myself any new starts or just going for the quick wins - in fact, I have made a ton of progress on some of my bigger WIPs this year, as well! It's a nice balance, and I am hoping to continue this trend for what remains of the year (although I got a gigantic list of gift crafting plans again, oh my.). That's it for today, posts with pictures coming up soon! 

Poison Garden Part 9-13

 Is anyone else really struggling to stay productive in this heat wave? I'm fine slowly melting on my couch, binging some TV show and stitching, but staying on top of everything else - including blog reading and writing - has become a chore. I think I am slowly getting used to this and feeling more productive, however! So here I am, trying to catch up on some things I've been up to.

I've been slowly working on my Poison Garden - most of this stitching happened in May and June, although one page was finished last August (I just didn't want to post it for just one page back then). Here are all the pages I finished since you last saw this:

 This is all the stitching on this project finished! Now I still have the quite elaborate finish-finishing left to do, but my desk is currently covered in another miniature project I'm working on, so it will have to wait a while longer!

Kahla the Dragon

 This month, for the Cloudsfactory Magical Creatures Calendar, we got a good one: It's a dragon with her baby!

 I seriously loved this section. The colours, are so nice and soft and pretty, you got some really nice chunks tostitch so it was flowing nicely...in fact, I finished this way earlier in the month, just didn't get around to posting before. She was chonky in terms of stitch count, though, so I didn't continue working on the border. July is a small section though, so I'm hoping to get some extra done then!

Dragon Scale Wrist Warmers

 From the series 'small crochet projects I work on on the side' I bring you these dragon scale (officially it's called a crocodile stitch, but they're dragon scales to me!) wrist warmers I made for my friend Becky. I don't think she reads my blog, so I can share them with you even though I haven't send them off yet!

 She's a teacher and said she sometimes gets cold hands in the class room, but can't wear full gloves, so I hope these helps! It's a pattern I've used for ages by Bonita patterns, but I'm going pretty free form on the wrist/arm part of it. The yarn is a Lang Yarn Mille Colori Socks and Lace Luxe in Teal.

Now I just need to get around to sending these out...the parcel's been sitting here almost ready to go for two weeks, but sending stuff to the US makes me nervous, I always think I'm going to mess up the customs forms! 

May WIPocalypse

 WOW, I am behind - but the sad thing is, I don't even think the 13th is my record for a late WIPocalypse! Anyways, better late than never, so here we go. 

How has your May been? Mine was...slightly chaotic. We had a couple holidays, which was nice, but also lots of work stress. First week of June we had some friends visiting, and now there is more work stress due to some people being out sick. Crafting is a welcome reprieve and I try to do some every night to keep my sanity!

Now, to my stitching. In May, I had one start (the Phoenix) and one WIP finished (the tea party). Also still working on a bunch of smaller crochet projects that I'm not officially counting (as I should have some finishes soon) so my official WIP count is stable at 53!

For May's question - Give us five projects in your stash right now that you’d really love to start – and why you haven’t yet.

Oh gosh, there's so many. To pick just a couple - these are 

The Greenhouse of Oddities by LolaCrow Designs

Summer Quakers by Rosewood Manor

 

Winter Retreat (a Dimensions Gold kit)

Florence Nightingale by Mirabilia

Piggie in the Middle by Bothy Threads

 I think the reason I haven't started them yet is that I got more WIPs on the go than I feel comfortable with already...how ever, I *have* been starting a couple things I wanted to start for a long time lately, so I'm sure these will get their turn soon! In fact, Summer Quakers is pretty much set to be started in September (or maybe another one of the set if I find a fabric I like, but I got one picked out for summer.). I'm sure you'll see all of these show up in due time! 

Maynia - Stitching on Fire

 Yesyes, I know, May is over - and I don't really participate in the craziness that is Maynia - but this year, I wanted to try something different. A while ago, I bought the new book by Iris Kleinsbussink aka NeedleLot Designs. It's full of lovely patterns and I was craving a new start, so I decided to try something different - at the beginning of May, I'd start the Fiery Phoenix (it had to be her - I had the perfect fabric in stash!) and see how far I could get during the month of May.

Of course, best laid plans and everything...I didn't stick with the project quite as much as I had planned, and got distracted by some other WIPs, but I still got a good chunk done. This is a little over 50% of "Fiery Phoenix" - isn't she gorgeous on this fabric?

 If you are quite in love with this fabric as I am - it's Devil's Kiss by xJu Design, on a 32ct Evenweave. I think I will keep this one out and continue working on it to get a finish soon!

Thaddeus the Wizard

 This month, I worked on the May section of cloudfactory's 2013 (?) SAL, the Magical Creatures calendar. Meet Thaddeus, the Wizard:

 With his blue robes he reminds me a lot of Merlin from Disney's Sword in the Stone. And doesn't that owl look just like his trusty companion, Archimedes? While he is not necessarily what I'd call a 'magical creature', he did turn out really cute! The panel has a lot going on, lots of small bits and pieces and lots of colour changes. So I'm looking forward to the June panel, which will be much simpler. As you can see I already prepared a new section of the frame, so I'm ready to dive in!

It's a tiny Tea Party!

 If you've been a long time visitor of this blog, you know that all kinds of crafts lurk on my WIP list...and this year, I am determined to finish some of them!

One of them was a miniature kit a friend had picked up for me at her local discount crafts store. The design was absolutely adorable - a little Alice in Wonderland tea party in a plexi glass cylinder - but sadly, the 'discount' quality showed in the materials. A lot of it was very frustrating to build, several parts had to be painted, but the paint that was included was almost dried up, a ton of stuff had to be made from wire and glued together (and if you ever tried glueing wire, you know why that's an issue!)...frankly, by the time I had all the single parts finished, I was quite disheartened because most of them didn't look very neat. But since most of the work was done at that point, I continued putting everything together, and I have to say, now that it's all combined into one big (small) scene, that distracts from the little imperfections and I am actually very pleased with the result! 

 

Sacrifice - Page 2

 In late April, I suddenly felt an urge to work on my full coverage projects again, so I pulled out Sacrifice, my tentacle lady.

It feels like ages since I worked on her, and I know why...this corner I started in is so confetti-y! All the little waves and tentacle bits. Other areas of the design have bigger waves and tentacles so will be quicker. Or so I hope! 

 Either way, I stuck it out and finished the second page (although it almost broke me). But it does look sooo good, doesn't it? I can't wait to see more of this! This is just 4.35% of the whole design, so I got a long way to go yet, and page #3 will still be pretty intense...

Yipyip - it's a Martian attack!

 I still owe you one of my April finishes - actually, I've been meaning to get a better picture of him, be he's a little shy and keeps turning away! This is the best I could get:

 Isn't he fun?! A friend of mine discovered the pattern last year, and I just had to make one. It just took me way longer to get around to finishing him than it should have! He got table tennis balls for eyes, pipe cleaners for antenna, and the lining is made from some old pajama pants (so I lucked out of having to do all the sewing I'd have had to do using plain fabric). Not sure what I'll store in his stomach yet...maybe socks?

Here comes Octonaut!

 I've been trying to balance working on my WIPs with some small new starts this year, and last month, it was time for another new start! Tiffstitch over at Tiffstitches Blog is doing a hundred starts this year, and through her posts I discovered a couple new designers and I might have picked up a couple patterns along the way! One of them being this cute little space octopus, or Octonaut, by SonovaStitch. He's so sweet, and I had the perfect fabric in my stash from an ornaments pack by Under the Sea Fabrics, so I just had to get and stitch him!

 

 He was a fairly quick stitch, and I really like how he turned out, but now I gotta figure out what to do with him! What holiday do you use an octopus ornament for, is what I'm asking myself...?

April WIPocalypse

I feel like I'm finally getting back into a good rhythm with my blogging, and if that means WIPocalypse psots fall into the next month, I'm okay with that! 

Are you having a good spring this far? April went by in a flash, but I did get a lot of stuff done, so I'm not complaining. I had a couple finishes - the baby bonnet, the lace scarf, and one more that I still got to show you - and one start - a new pair of socks - so my total WIP count moved down to 53. It still sounds and feels like way too much, but I'm happy with the progress I've been making , so I try to focus on that.

Now the question of the month is What is your oldest WIP? Tell us a little bit about it. I think I've already brought this up a couple times this year - my oldest WIP, and the only WIP pre-this blog, so also the only one I can't properly date, is this pretty blue table cloth!

 I've been working away on it during focus event these past year, and it is absolutely on my to-finish-list this year! As you can see, it's stamped cross stitch, and I just don't enjoy that too mucht  the printed stitches never properly line up with the fabric, it's annoying. But this is my last WIP of the kind, so that will soon be behind me. Hopefully!

Linda the Lace Scarf

 Over the last couple weeks I finished my oldest knitting WIP. Isn't it strange how some things have to linger for years until they finally grip you and you just breeze through? This is what happend with "Linda", a kit for a lace scarf I bought in 2016 from GemachtMitLiebe, a designer sadly no longer with us. 

 This very simple, straight forward lace pattern caught my attention back when I was pretty much a knitting beginner, and even though it's an easy repeat, I struggled with it a bit. I could do it, but it needed my full attention, which is not the best combination when you need to do hundreds and hundreds of rows of a particular pattern! I think I got about 15cm into the scarf back then before it went away. Over the years, I picked it up a couple times, realizing it goes quickly once I focus on it for a while, but still, when I picked it back up in March, I only had about 30 cm done. But I wanted to make a birthday gift for a friend of my grandma's, whose favourite colour is blue, and while going through my stash, thinking what I could start, I came across this and thought this would be perfect.

So Linda became my focus knitting piece for the month, and suddenly, it moved along very quickly! I used 3 25g skeins of Lang Merino Lace 400, which is a beautiful share of blue and very, very soft, and last weekend managed to finish a scarf of very respectable length.

 I think it was finally her time to shine, and am very happy to now have another finish that has been ten years in the making!

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!