March Gifted Gorgeousness

Happy Birthday to me! I could have made this entry to Jo's wonderful SAL about all things gifty a couple days ago, but I wanted to show you exactly a year after I started my Ubuntu blanket (the yarn was a gift for my last birthday) - it's finished! 

Here it is (on our approximately king sized bed, for reference) - isn't it pretty?

Over the last month, I continued working on the border, finishing the last two parts. Here's a close up:

There are so many gorgeous details in this pattern, I adore it and it was so much fun to make, too! Now I have a bit of yarn left over, and will have to make a plan on how to use it up.

For now, though, another birthday apparently means another blanket - I feel very loved again because I got the yarn for the Snuggle Up blanket by Morben Design, which I have been eying for months:

This one comes in 12 parts as well and as you can see I made a teeny-tiny start already, but I think it will be a lot more work over all, so no promises I can get it done within a year! Since I'm home sick with the dreaded plague, I should get a good start in, though.

So that's the big gift-y news...in smaller news, I finally finished my baby jacket:

... but then I washed it and somehow it did the opposite of shrinking and now the buttons are too small for the holes and I'll have to see what to do about that! Still, considering this finished for the purpose of this SAL, haha.

The People Chose: Quilts

Welcome for another month of Jo's wonderful all-purpose SAL were the people choose the topic and everyone else tries to find something that fits! March's theme is is 'Quilts'.

 I don't quilt (yet...I find it fascinating, but where to find the time?!), but Jo had the great idea to include cross stitch that was made to be incorporated in a quilt, and I have two of those:

And a couple years ago I tried out English Paper Piecing, which is kind of a first foray into the world of quilting...I really need to get working on that sewing machine cover again, I remember loving it!

And then I just remembered I stitched a design with a quilt in it! It's at my grandma's place and can't get a picture right now, but I found the stock image and remember stitching it very well:

New Focus Start - Guardian of Wayfarers

After finishing Fans of the Far East, I had intended to work on a couple of my older projects for a while to see if something stuck, but ultimately, I could not resist the pull of a new start. I know I showed this pattern a couple of times already, but now I finally caved, got the pattern and started it. This is Guardian of Wayfarers by PatternNadGavr, and will look like this when finished:

This will be a gift for a friend who always supports my work but, to my great shame, I have yet to make something for him! I might be able to finish this for Christmas, but I'm not going to push it if I don't. It'll be done when it'll be done :) For now, I put in ten hours of work, and that got me here:

I've been told it looks like a blind frog being sick, or a squid running away while wearing a cape! Can you see it? And can you tell which part of the design this really is?

March Fully Finished Gallery

Hello and welcome to my almost-on-time March instance of the Fully Finished Gallery! I have just one finish to show you this month, but that is alright, because I wanted this to stand on its own, anyways. Yesterday, I could finally convince Felix to get some framing done (and high time it was, just a couple more days until grandma's big birthday!) and under a lot of cursing (apparently the long sides were impossible to get straight) he got Fans of the Far East framed and done! 

I am so very pleased and proud of both us us. We picked a simple frame made from some red-ish wood and I think it complements the border very well, and let's the fans shine. This was a real labour of love, and I do hope grandma will see that!

The February SALs

 So who was it again who tried really hard to get both my SALs caught up be March 1st, than forgot to post about it for ten days? Yup, sure sounds like me! My two SALs for the year are the Magical Kingdom SAL which I am doing with an eleven month delay to when it was released because I wanted to see the whole pattern, and the Temperature Tree. So in February, I was stitching the March installment of Magical Kingdom, which was Snow White (and her seven dwarves):

Lots of colours and details on this part, especially with the dwarves. This month is going to be the Lion King, one of my favourite movies, and I think the pattern is really pretty too, so I'm looking forward to stitching it!

On the Temperature Tree, I took some time to finish the trunk, then did the branch for February and added the leaves too. Still really enjoying these colours! Now that the trunk is all done, every month should stitch up pretty quickly:

Fans of the Far East - Finale

Yesss baby, I did it. It took me an additional 14 hours, so my timer (which doesn't include most of the first fan, as this is an older project) hit just over 185h in the end -165 of which where done since last July. I'm pretty happy with my progress, and pretty happy with the end result!

Aren't the pretty? I'm totally in love. The frame is ready too, so Felix has two more weeks to get it done...I better let him know ;)

February WIPocalypse

 Wow, can you believe it's March again? I know this is getting old, but time is still really crazy! In any case, it's time for another WIPocalypse SAL, and this time the topic is What stitch-a-longs (SALs) are you participating in this year? and I think my answer to this will be a little boring because it's basically the same list as last year! 

Well, almost. In actual stitching SALs, there is my new Temperature SAL and the Magical Kingdom one, both of which will get an update soon :), and TLoA which I am SALing on with Rachel - I might be a little behind, but I'll get caught up soon, promised! 

In terms of blogging SALs, I'm still doing WIPocalypse (obviously), as well as Gifted Gorgeousness and the Fully Finished Gallery. I'm consistent with my SALs, and they keep me plenty busy and make sure I post on my blog semi-regularly! 

Last month's event on WIPocalypse was Olympic stitching, but as usual I was ill-prepared and didn't really do anything for that. March, however, is our first focus month event and I will be taking part in that! Focus month means to put at least one stitch a day into a project, and my original plan was to use The Puppeteer, stitching one length a day of black as I want that colour done this year:

I will still be doing that, but in light of my backlog on TLoA (still only halfway through January, and not a stitch done for February!) I will double up and also try and pick that up every day. I already did a couple stitches on Sunday and Monday, but the 869 is slow going...

 

I'll be trying to actually work on TLoA every day because right now I can't handle longer sessions on it, but might spread The Puppeteer and just aim for a general '31 lengths throughout the month'. We'll see how it goes.