Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop

I apologize to all European (and Asian/Australian) Easter Treasure Hunters as time got away from me so I'm a little late in the day posting - US peeps should be fine because of the time difference - but I think you all still got plenty of time to hop around this Easter weekend!

That being said, welcome to my little corner of Jo's (in)famous Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop! No idea what I'm talking about?! Then you should check out her full description of the event here! If you already know what you are doing, you know there are two things two expect from this post. Of course I'll be mean and post a pretty picture first before giving you what you are really here for...

I didn't get aroUnd to stitch anything new this year, so I picked this tUlip pillow I finished a coUple years ago. Isn't it pretty? The bright coloUrs make me happy any time I see them!

So that's it from me this year...now it's time to hop on to get the next letter at A Patchwork of  Crafts! Wait, what about my letter, you ask? Maybe read that second-to-last paragraph over again...I'm sure you'll find a hint, or four!

March WIPocalypse

 So...I have a confession to make. Wait, that sounds way to negative - I just have to tell you that in March, I lost my stitchy bug a little bit. It might have been one of the challenges I signed up for (a daily bracket in which I pitches my projects against each other, and even though I only had five projects selected for it, the daily swapping soon drove my crazy), but mostly I think there was just a lot of other stuff going on. So I ended up doing a decent amount of knitting and crochet, but not much stitching at all, and that means I did not hit my goals for the month. I'm a little bummed, but trying to be okay with it, so instead of putting this off even longer, I'll just show you what I *did* achieve on my WIPocalpyse goals. And hoping that April will go better :) 

First of all, though - the question of the month - Tell us about your favourite place to buy cross stitch supplies. I didn't really have any new discoveries since the last time the question came up. Only I've not been buying any hand dyed fabrics from my usual, favourite dealers recently, because they are all UK based and since Brexit, they have to pay import taxes when getting fabric from Zweigart in Germany, and then I have to pay the fees again when buying the dyed fabrics. It's a dilemma that's really annoying me but for now, I got some pretty fabrics in stash to use. For 'regular' supplies, I will mostly rely on stickstoff.eu und stickteufelchen.de, two German stores I've only had good experiences with so far (again, Lakeside, no longer a viable option, cost wise...)

So, stitching. As every month, I was working on The Loneliness of Autumn, which I am SALing with Rachel, and she's been working on it as well this month!! after taking a break for a while. Of course now that she's back, I'm slacking off...so maybe only one of us can be on track here at a time? I hope not!

So in March, I finished the 920, and then made a start on 471 which was quite exciting, actually - a nice, bright, spring green was something this project was lacking so far, and I had fun stitching it. I just didn't get all that far, and a total of 846 stitches in this month, which is about half of my usual number.

This brings me to a new total of 82812/118800 stitches or 69.71% progress. A bit over 200 stitches left on the 471 and I believe next up is 911, another green but more on the dark side. Maybe I'll get that done in April? Hopefully so!

March was also the first one-a-day challenge month of WIPocalypse, and I forgot to tell you which project I was using for that last month. It's an old, nameless WIP that I have dupped 'Meadow Tablecloth', that is currently one of my oldest WIPs and I want to use these challenges to finish it this year! The goal was one lenght a day, but also finish one of the four sides, which, as you can see, I fell jsut short of, adding just 791 stitches last Month.

For April, I'd love to make up for what I missed in March, and then some, but since my stitchy bug is still in a delicate position, I don't want to push it, and will rather work on what I want to, rather than push myself to meet this goals. I know from experience that I'll get caught up eventually. What I do know is that I have a couple of blog posts to catch up on, both to read and to write, and I'll give those a good push over the upcoming Easter weekend - fingers crossed!

The Jacquie SAL, Part 6

In February, I worked on part 6 of the Jacquie SAL by Faby Reilly Designs - and that was were things got exciting! I was stitching another dragonfly, but this one had a lot more specialty stitches and techniques.

The stems of the flowers in the background where done in whipped backstitch, which I had used on a TW before, but the body was new to me: A woven Picot stitch, in which you use a pin to secure a number of threads that you weave through:

The wing was also done in stumpwork technique, using organza fabric. I was trying to be thrifty, so I used some of the fabric that was cut off from my wedding dress to adjust the length, and that worked perfectly! I also have enough of the fabric to do the four wings needed in the last part of the SAL.

Cutting it out was a little scary, but eventually I managed and put it all together. Isn't it lovely?

This month I'm working on Part 7, which is just the basis for the last dragonfly...next month will be Part 8, which will repeat all these fancy techniques though, and then May will be assembly!

March Gifted Gorgeousness

Welcome again to my Gifted Gorgeousness for March, Jo's wonderful SAL after everything gifted and giftee! For me, it's usually a place to talk about my yarn work rather than my stitching, as I love to craft for family and friends, and they in turn like to gift me yarn. 

This month, I have to report a failure on my biggest goal...I did not make a lot of progress on my Snuggle Up blanket, and so it won't be done by it's one year mark on my birthday next week. I managed another two or three rounds, but it doesn't look much different, and I don't want to show it again before it's done! Hopefully in April. 

I did, however, finish one small gift, and that was a new pair of Jacobi Wristwarmers for my grandma, using the leftover yarn from my Hermione socks. I gave them to her for her birthday this week, but here they are on my own hands before I parted with them:

I've also done some crochet. Last time I showed you the start of an Amigurumi I was making...I have added a couple parts, but not as much as I had planned. Time just got away from me this month! Still, I could not resist starting yet another crochet project just this weekend. A friend had given me some super bulky yarn a while back, and I decided to use it and make a basket to hold some other yarn. Basically a win-win on the stash buster front! Here's my start, hopefully this won't take more than a few days, and also the collected parts of the blue Amigurumi:

Hermione Everyday Socks - Finished

I'm one of those people who have the bad habit to always craft for other people and not for myself, but last October, I finally started a pair of socks for myself! I've been working on them on and off, and as usual, the first sock took me about four months, and the second was done in less than two weeks!

I used a pattern I've been meaning to do for years, the Hermione's Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder. It's a wonderful pattern with just the right amount of texture to keep things interesting, while also being quick to knit and really pretty!

The yarn I used was Regia Premium Silk Color, a sock yarn with just a *touch* of silk to make it really nice and shiny and soft! I can highly recommend both the pattern and the yarn and might use both of them again.

March Fully Finished Gallery

I was really hoping to have something new finished for this SAL this month, but I'm having one of my worst stitching and blogging months in recent history (nothing dramatic, just a lot of other stuff going on), so I'll have to do a bit of recycling. So today we're talking about a project that has been on this blog before, but it's been finished after the last FFG so I think it still counts as 'new'! This is the Binary Heart I made for Valentine's Day this year:

As you can see I finished it in a hoop - I bought a whole bunch of these small ones a while back, and it's quickly becoming a favourite technique! As usual, the back was secured and cleaned with some felt, and I stuck with the colour scheme on the front:

I'm not sure if I've talked about that before, but the cute dotted aida was part of a set of ornament cut fabrics I got a while back. I'm never sure what do do with printed fabrics, but think this was a nice fit. 

So that's it for this month...hopefully, I'll have something more impressive for April!

The People Chose: Science

Well, I had a good run with hitting all my SAL dates this year, but I was bound to slip sooner or later! The March check in for Jo's wonderful all-purpose SAL was last Saturday, and this month's theme is 'Science'. 

So what does science have to do with stitching? Let's see. Some say baking is a science:

Genealogy can be a kind of science:

Potion brewing is a bit of a science - witchy chemistry!

Meterology is a science too!