Dark Forces - August Rotation

 Dark Forces got its August rotation pretty early in the month - I finished right after the first rotation on Zoe, and actually finished within a couple of days this time.

Last time you saw them, I was here - finished all the black on page 7, plus a hand full of blues:

This time, I filled in a couple more blues on the spooky face, which looks a little more complete (but no less scary) than before, but mostly I moved on the the helmet again, finished a large chunk of off-white (so might need to zoom in to see that it's actually there) and also a fair amount ouf lighter blues. 

I added a total of 1,482 stitches which brought me to a total of 23.78%. Seems like I can stitch just over one % in then hours - I really don't want to do the rest of the math, though!

Next month, I'll move further across the top of the helmet, so that should fill in nicely. Bur first, another rotation on Zoe!

Zoe Box - 30 Hours

 The first weekend of August, we had a friend visiting, and one of our plans entailled watching the entire third season od Stranger Things on Netflix. We did (amongst lots of talking and lots of great food) and I made good use of that time to work on the Zoe Box. Last time you saw her, 20 hours in, she was here - cross stitch finished on the outside of the box, plus the stems and a tiny start on the backstitch:

Ten hours later, this part of the box was all finished! 

So I finished the backstitch, added beads and sequins and all those fance specialty stitches. Don't worry, I brought some detail shots to show you!

The autumn panel features, aside from that *oh so cute* squirrel, some ribbed spiderweb stitches which were a pain to stitch - like ten minutes each - but have a great effekt! I do love trying out new stitches.  

Summer has regular spiderweb stitches, but done with coloris, and the effect is quite stunning. Also a pretty butterfly!

Spring isn't quite as impressive critter-wise, but I still love it with all the vibrant colours. I also wanted to point out the rice stitch in the bottom, that runs across the entire width of the box - coloris and silver PTB on top of it. Great effect and so easy and fun to stitch!

And last but not least, the winter panel. Not a lot of stitching altogether, but that little robin is probably my favourite of the critters after the squirrel. Also a lot of sequins (such a fun adition) and beads (love that matte colour) in this one.

I am really enjoying the project and the amount of progress I am making. This was by far the biggest and most heavily stitched part, but there still is quite a bit left to do. Before my ten hours were out, I made a start on the outline of the box inside, but that's not really worth showing yet. As there is much less stitching involved in that part, I have hopes to actually finish it in the next rotation slot, though!

The People's Choice SAL: Freedom

This month on Jo's multi-topic SAL, the subject chosen by the people is 'Freedom'. I expect to see lots of red, white, and blue from our US friends, but for us Europeans, we have to think a little more outside of the box!

For me, freedom, especially this year, also means the freedom do travel whereever I want to. The German passport is one of the most 'powerful' in the world, meaning there are tons of countried we can travel to without having to request a visum, and I've done a fair share of traveling in the last couple years. However, with the added repsonsibility of talking care of my grandma (who relies on me and my husband more and more), it's been harder to get away, and now with the pandemic, of course it's become an impossibility alltogether. I still like to remember, so today I'll be showing you just a couple of the projects that accompanied me on my trips!

I remember working on this Bunny Biscornu by Joan Elliott while sitting across from my best friend in Leipzig, Germany a couple of years ago, when we visited the bookfair together!

Satsuma Street's Halloween Cat accompanied me on a business trip to Torino, Italy, and I remember stitching on it in the evenings in my hotel room, as well as on the train ride there and back. A wonderful trainride straight through the beautiful Swiss alps, I might add!

This one I brought with me on a business trip to Melbourne, Australia. I was there for a conference and worked on it on the plane and also during several presentations I attended!

Although I have many, many more 'travel projects', I'm going to end with 99 - not only is it a very international project all by itself, depicting bottles from all over the world, but also my most well-traveled one! I started this on a trip to Ireland in 2017, took it with me to Australia later that year, and to Californa in 2018. Such wonderful memories!

Summer Blog Hop: Stitching Friends are Friends Who Count

Year and year again, Jo entertains us with several new and fun blog hops throughout the year, and this year she has though of something very special: Each of us was assigned a stitching blogger we had to research and now talk about them, as well as show some of our own stitching that we thing they might like. I hope you'll have fun with my little entry - if you enjoyed it and want more, here is Jo's kickoff post linking to all the participants: click.

My stitching friend lives in England and every day, she takes the bus to work. How - besides blogging, working and riding on the bus - she still finds the time to practice a myriad of crafts, I do not know, but she does. Her blog is ful of wonderful projects, not just cross stitching, but also quilting and, most excitingly, pyrography. While exploring her blog, I've also encountered some delicious looking food pictures!

My stitchy friend has been blogging for many years, starting in 2013. She seems to like to participate in SALs with her friends, and I've seen her name came up on several of Jo's blog hops before. She has a special love for dragons, so that is what I'll be sharing with her for this SAL - some of my own scaly friends! A big one, and a small one:

Now if you're interested to learn more, hop over to A Patchwork of Crafts! Or visit Jo's Blog to read about all the other participants.

The July SALs

Hi lovelies! Still working on getting these blog posts caught up, as I actually finished my July SALs on the first day of August this time (and only because I needed to wait on the mean temperature for July 31st!). I had a bit of a stitching marathon to get there, but I am quite happy with the results!

First, there was the Blackwork SAL. As usual, this one stitched up quickly, especially as I only stitched one full cross (one of my favourite patterns so far!) and one little square this month.

Next up was the bookmark, and that thing was huge this time! Over 2000 stitches, and yet I finished it in less than five days. The pattern was repetetive and I could get into a bit of good old mindless stitching. It's also done on transparent plastic canvas and really cool in my opinion! I'm still debating backing it with stick-it-on felt, but I think it'd take from the transparent look, even if I cut the holes in it. And the plastic is pretty sturdy to begin with!

And last but not least, the temperature SAL. July was hot hot hot, so there is a lot of orange here! On the last day I almost got to use a new colour, but not quite. But it will make an appearance for the 1st of August - hopefully the last new colour of the year since everything left is just *way* too hot or too cold!

July Crafty Pie

I got a fair bit of crafting done in July, with a pretty fair distribution across my different crafts (stitching still got the lion's share, of course). There even if some sewing in there - I had to make a new tag for that, as it's been so long since I did any!

Project-wise, I was pretty spread out, but mostly because I got a lot of finishes:

I was a little worried that I only managed two rotations (one on Zoe and one on Dark Forces) this month instead of my usual three or four, but I totally forgot about Morning Meadow, which took up another eleven hours! I also stitched up another one of the Mini Mysteries, plus a cute back that Magical graciously provided:

On the knitting side, there were the two small scarves I showed for July's Gifted Gorgeousness, and in terms of crochet, I pulled out the Kanata Kerchief Tank, which is almost done - I'm in the process of sewing it all up, so hopefully there will be something to show soon. I also pulled out a small set of crochet emojis that my brother in law gave me a couple of years ago, and finished them.

They were fun but I don't really know what to do with them now! For the moment I added some strings and loops so they are hanging on Felix' drumset.

Since I am having this week off, I made a great crafting start to August, I'm almost done with my second rotation of the month - let's see how much time I can add to that clock!

Dark Forces - July Rotation

Time just passes me by this year and suddenly I have ten (approximately) blog posts to write! I am off work this week without any grand plans, so maybe I'll actually manage to get caught up on stuff blog wise for once, who knows ;) In any case, towards the middle of July I was working on Dark Forces (somehow this rotation took ages and threw me off for the rest of the month. But it's okay now!)

So, last time you say Dark Forces, I had just started page 7:

For my latest rotation, I went out of my usual 'pick the top-most-left-most colour' order because I needed black stitches for a challenge. I ended up finishing all of that plus a couple of the blues afterwards, for a total of 1.544 stitches, which brought this to a total of 22.7% finished.

I'm actually working on this one again right now - THAT'S how many posts I have lined up - and I'm currently filling in a couple of the rogue blues but after that there will be some nice blocks for that helmet and that should go pretty quick - so hopefully another 1.500 stitches? Fingers crossed!