April WIPocalypse

Hello, lovely readers! I hope you are having a wonderful first of May. In Germany, this is a holiday, and after a lazy Sunday I am making good use of it to get caught up on chores, and more fun things like blogging too! Well I'll probably not get all caught up, but make an effort to get this WIPocalypse effort typed up, maybe schedule a post for later in the week, and answer some comments. We'll see how it goes!

Anyways, first things first. The question of the month is a fun one: Give us five projects in your stash right now that you’d really love to start – and why you haven’t yet. We had a similar prompt last year in July, and the will be some overlap, but also some new ones. Stay tuned! However, I can give a bit of a blanket answer on the 'Why you haven't started it yet' part - I haven not been feeling much of an itch to start something new lately, I'm content to whittle down my list of WIPs, and I'm not going to 'waste' a new start when I'm not really feeling it!

1) Circular Logic by Ink Circles 

 

2) Nightingale by Mirabilia

3) Adoraburrs by SewNerdyByBreigh

4) Impossible by Satsuma Street

5) Piggy in the Middle by Bothy Threads

 

Now for my stitching progress - I have been working on The Loneliness of Autumn again, which I am SALing with Rachel - since I'm two weeks behind on my blog reading though, I'm not sure if she has posted progress in April! I, for my part, have somewhat recovered from my stitching slump in March. I have not yet caught up on all the stitching I missed then, but I did get in a full month of progress in April, 1752 stitches total.

 

 I finished the 471, all of the 911, and also made a good start on my next blue, 3842. After this comes 311, which is exciting as it is the last colour over 1k stitches! My new totals are 84569/118800 stitches and 71.19% done.

 

Emma, the Zig-Zag Scarf - 50%

After finishing my Hermione socks and the corresponding wrist warmers, I needed a new on-the-go knitting project, and instead of starting something new I was good and picked up an old project - the zig-zag scarf named Emma! I actually started this in late 2016 but only posted about it once, and that's pretty much how it had been sitting since then. Which is a shame because it's really fun and pretty! Since picking it back up, it has grown from about 10 inches to almost 32, and I finished the first ball of yarn. I got another one, so that's the 50% mark, and I think I'll get a nice finished length!

This scarf lives in my work bag, so I work on it when I'm not going out during lunch breaks, or during long online meetings. Hopefully this time, I'll stick with it until it is all done!

April Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello and welcome to one of my favourite SALs of the month, Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness! THE place to go for all things gifted and giftee. I'm a little late this month (what else is new?) but I do have some decent progress to show on two projects. Both of them crochet, and both of them you've seen before! First, there is, of course, my big 'Snuggle Up' blanket! I finally finished part 11, so I only got the border left to do. I actually finished for first row of that too, so there are only 3 more rounds to go...unless I decide to do one more repeat to get the colours right, in which case it'll be 6 rows. Right now I got a row of 500+ clusters to face, so we'll see how I feel about it afterwards!

I also worked on my blue amigurumi. Worked on it lots in fact, as it kept me company when I spend a day sick in bed! I even spent some time assembling all the small parts on the head, so you can really see it now...

It's Yoshi! A blue Yoshi, that is. My friend wanted the big knitted Yoshi amiibo, but it's gotten very expensive, so I offered to make him one as a thank you for helping me get my PS5 last year. Hopefully this time next month, Yoshi will be all finished and on his way to a new home!

Guardian of Wayfarers - 90 Hours

Not quite as focused as I'm supposed to be, but I did get in another ten hours on Guardians of Wayfarers! It doesn't all look terribly exciting, as I was mostly filling in more foliage, but I got to use a couple new colours...oh, and the dragon's wing got a couple stitches as well, which was very fun indeed!

What *also* was exciting was that I hit 40% during the last session, 40.6% to be exact. 14,992 crosses done, 17,967 (plus backstitch) left to go! Kind of looking forward to jumping back into this one now.

April Fully Finished Gallery

It's the 10th of the month, and as such, our dear Rachel (the Ten Hour Stitcher) is hosting the Fully Finished Gallery SAL! And for once, I actually got something prepared and am ready to post. You've already seen a couple of these over the years, but in March, I finally stitched up (and finished!) the last of the 2015 Ornaments of the Month by Galdra Stafir (only took me eight years!). Meet Blue Circonia, one of the December birth stones:

Now that the set is all done, I took the opportunity of the nice weather over the weekend to decorate a tree and take pictures outside:

Then I took them down and brought them inside, and to answer the question that I'm sure everyone had (but none dared ask ;) ) - why there is a second loop at the bottom of the ornaments. It's so I can sling them all together and make a (not so little) garland that is now decorating my living room window!

By the way - someone keeps commenting about the tulips in my Easter Blog Hop post. Sadly, they are anonymous so I can't email them directly, so maybe I can reach them here - it was an older kit by Vervaco, so I don't know the designer, but maybe that'll help you find it!

The People Chose: Subversive

Well, how dare April start on a Saturday, so I had zero time to prepare for this (or I could look up the theme before the actual start of the month...but wouldn't that just be prepostorous?!) and now I'm late. As if that *ever* happens to me otherwise! Phew. Lying is hard work. 

Anyways! Welcome to the April Edition of Jo's wonderfully versatile all-purpose SAL, and this month, the topic is 'Subversive'! There are wonderful patterns of that subject matter out there (and Jo even talks a little about the origin of the tradition in her intro post!) but apparently the best I can do is some slight snark. I think I'll need to hit the Etsy wishlists and up my game a little!

Countryside Notes

Sometime last year, I got obsessed with all these miniature its floating around on the internet (I think most of them are Chinese). There are so many and they are all so pretty, and look like they would be a lot of fun to make! I finally caved and bought one. Of course the one I bought was especially small, which is great for display and storage, but in making it I ended up gluing my fingers to stuff more than anything else! However, working on it a little bit here and there, I finished this within a couple weeks of actually starting it (of course the unopened kit sat in my stash for months before I got around to it...), and I think it was well worth some sticky fingertips! Isn't it adorable? I love how it all fits into a little tin!

It even lights up, and has a little stand for display! The two little bunnies enjoy a little breather on their swing out in the lush garden, just outside their fully furnished house.

All in all, making this was a lot of fun, and I really want to get another one...maybe something a little bigger...but I'm holding off for now because I'm not sure where I'd even put one of those!