June SFS

Month: June
Spent: 44.94€
Earned: 15.50€

One last post to catch up - let's just get this out of the way! But before I get into details, let me start by saying - this is going to be my last SFS post for the time being. I survived 2014 and 2015-A, but am not signing back on for 2015-B. I love SFS, I loved the challenge and I think it was really good for me to reign my spending in in this first exciting phase of really 'getting' into the online stitching community and discovering all those great and epic designs and fabrics and everything. But I'm a little TOO good at sticking to the rules - never going over budget, missing out on awesome offers and limited edition stuff, planning projects months in advance so I can get the supplies in small bits...I just want to be a bit spontenous, and my character won't allow for that while those slef-imposed rules are in place. So I'm leaving for now. And while I'm convinced that I will go on a bit of a spending spree for the first time, I'm also sure that in the long run the lessons learned will stick with me and I'll do okay :)

So, enough blahblah, on to the part with pretty pictures! What did I get? First, I treated myself to a Design Works kit I had been looking at for months. It's called 'My day off' and I want to finish it before October, as a birthday present for Felix' mum who works several part time jobs and always struggles to keep her one free day actually free since people always want her to do stuff for her on that day. It just fits perfectly - right down to the black cat! (not her cloth size though :D). That was 25.99€.

Then I went on a bit of an ebay-spree. I got an other design works kit which has been on my watch list for weeks for $14.99, and a Lizzie*Kate pattern  for only 1€. Both haven't arrived yet, so I can only show you the pictures from the auction.

I also got three patterns from Indigo Rose, for 1€ each. I had never heard of the designer before, but the preview pictures (while to small to make out details) looked pretty. The patterns arrived today and they are absolutely gorgeous! Now my problem is that two of them are from a Seasonal Series (I got Spring and Autumn) and now I just NEED to find Summer and Winter as well...they are long out of print, but maybe I'll get lucky some day :)

As for earnings, I finished a full (7.50€) and partial (4€) page on Cut Thru' Cottage, and also Clue 3 of Halloween Town (4€). I have a final 'Carry Over' of 44.94€.

I also got some new yarn to show: three balls of a nice, light cotton off ebay, I just fell in love with the color combination and I'll probably make a light summer shawl with them. And then Daniela (the one that also does the corchet blog parade) release her first crochet box with everything you need to make four garlands, which will look great in our apartment I'm sure.

June DESIGN

For once, picking a designer was easy this month - it's one I wanted to talk about all year, but only now did I manage to actually put a few stitches in one of their designs ^.~

What project are you talking about this month? 

My project for this month is Halloween Town by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. It was a mystery SAL last Halloween, but I only just managed to finish the third of four clues since stuff kept getting in the way, as usual.

Have you stitched a project by this designer before?

Nope, this was the first.

Would you buy/stitch a design by this designer again? Why/Why not?

Yes! I've been hooked ever since I got this one, and even though I haven't started anything else yet, I bought quite some more of their patterns.


What made you choose this particular design/designer?

I've seen it on some other blog and decided that I wanted it, badly :)

Did you notice anything that distinguished this designer from others? - For example specialty stitches, fractionals, much/little 'confetti', beads, special fibers...

Well for one, they are cute. Like, really cute. The patterns are simple, and thus easyly adjustable if you want to make small changes. They work wonderfully on hand dyed fabrics, and they mostly use hand dyed threads as well - but somehow, they manage to create really big, lively scenes and pictures with using only a few colors, which is really great in my opinion :)

June IHSW and TUSAL

I know, I know, I'm late again...like, SUPER late. In fact, I actually skipped a week of posting...I think I will really need to reduce the number of checkins I have, since I'm so bad at keeping schedule, and I really don't like it as well. But now, let's just get to the important part: what did I stitch?

To be honest, I'm being a bit slow at the moment. That's due to a mix of real life stress (like work and apartment organizing), being on a gaming spree, and being really, really lazy when it's hot outside. So last week, I only finished my column of Dark Force on friday - and then forgot to take a picture. This week, I only finished the column yesterday as well, so here is two weeks of progress on this:

Thankfully, I bekame a bit more productive during the actual IHSW weekend: the third clue of Halloween Town I was working on on Saturday. I'm really enjoying this one, but I will have to take a bit of a break because a) I'm all out of the black Sampler Thread and will need to order more and b) I'm planning a bit of recharting on the last clue and will have to see how that goes.

Then, I did the backstitching on page 6 of Cut Thru' Cottage: Now I only have the ground floor left to do.

And for the last picture, here's my ORT-jar: Looks like a lot of stitcing happened this month, but don't forget that I'm two weeks late in taking this picture!

Other stuff that happened: I finished Imperial Glory, a large-skale turn-based strategy game. I'm quite happy about that, because I had fun playing, but I had put off doing the last few battles for ages, and now I finally got myself to do it ;)

There was watching too, of course: How I Met Your Mother (S5, E6-20), Vikings (S3, E 1+ 2), Downton Abbey (S4, 1-3) and Once Upon a Time (S1, E5-7). Also some movies: Babel, a story about one gunshot that has consequences in four very different places for some very different people, and Limitless, one of those movies about mind-enhancing drugs (I'm seeing a trend here) that Felix had seen a while ago and wanted me to see as well. I enjoyed it, but for being hyper-intelligent, that guy sure did some very basic mistakes...

June ToT, GG and general progress

I'm a bit out-of-date with the dates for all my SALs, but I'm pretty sure it's time for Tons of Tiny and Gifted Gorgeousness, so I'll include those in my weekend post while I'm at it. ToT is quick, as I don't have anything new to show, I did finish the May ornament since the last checkin though (and hope to start June soon):

Gifted Gorgeousness is a bit more interesting: Last week, I finished another column of Dark Force, and I also finished cross stitching on page 6 of Cut Thru' Cottage. I'm hoping to add the backstitching this week.

Other gift/gifted projects I worked on during the last month were Lady & Tramp, Things Unseen, Red Velvet Cake and the Asters wedding sampler - I actually added the lettering and framed that one last week, so I can finally count a proper finish. We visited the happy couple on Saturday, and I think they really liked it :)

The other project I dug out for the weekend doesn't fit in any of the categories above - it's Halloween Town by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, and was the Halloween SAL last year. I started it, did the first two clues (in fact, it might be clue 1 and 3, I'm not quite sure), then put it away to concentrate on my christmas crafting and never pulled it out again. Now Carla, Nancy and I plan to SAL on FP's other Halloween piece this year, and I'd like to finish this one before we start, so I took this one with me when we went to Felix' parents for the weekend. I started the house on the left, which only needs the roof, some details and a lantern before I can start on the final clue.

I also knitted a bit more. I'm not quite done with the body of the second BSJ, but I got right up to the buttonholes, where I needed to check my notes from last time around. I'm quite confident to finish this soon now :)

On another note, I finished The Death Cure, the last book in the Maze Runner trilogy, yesterday, and I really liked it. I'll have to say, from the three distopic trilogies I've read lately, this one ranks second, after The Hunger Games (which was great all the way through) but before Divergent (I loved the first one, but barely made it through Allegiant and I hated the end). Maze Runnter is decent all the way through, and even gets a bit better towards the end, so now I'm really looking forward to reading the prequel as well once I finished two other books on my nightstand.

I also finished a tiny game called Run Sackboy! Run! on my PS Vita, and a not quite so tiny one (Lego Ninjago Shadow of Ronin). Lots of mobile gaming fun :)

June WIPocalypse

Form some reason, I'm being extremely blog lazy at the moment - sorry about that! Thankfully, the same can't be said about my stitching, so I at least have something to show you this fine late WIPocalypse sign in.  The question this time is Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter? - I probably have to say I'm a bit more productive in winter, but not by much. It's different with knitting and crochet, I don't enjoy working with yarn and wool as much when it's hot, but for stitching, it doesn't make much of a difference.

Now to what I worked on - of course there is the obligatory column on Dark Force:

After my last SFS post, Felix and I were indeed sick for a few days, which led, despite all the uncomfort, at least to quite some extra-stitching time since we spent most of our waking hours on the sofa. So over one very lazy weekend, I managed to finish the cross stitch of page 5 of Cut Thru' Cottage, and last week I added the backstitching. Four more pages to go! :)

I also made good progress with my knitting - maybe if I can muster the motivation over the weekend, I can finish the main part of the jacket.

Also while being sick, I finished another one of those Lego-games on my PS Vita (Lego Ninjago Nindroids) - I can't help myself, but I really like those :)

For watching, when I was home sick alone for a day (and a bit before and after) I watched quite some more Castle (S2, E8-21). Sadly, amazon has taken the show off prime for now, so I'll have to wait a bit before I can continue this one.  Felix and I finished S1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (E11-22), and now we can't wait for Season 2! After finishing that, we started Downton Abbey (a friend of Felix had recommended it...which, of course, was way more of a reason to start than me trying to convince him for weeks!). We really liked it, and already finished the first three seasons, and now there's only one more in prime to watch - how did that happen so fast? Also, some more How I Met your Mother (I don't know what the last episodes I told you abot were but we're now at S5, E5). We also saw two movies: G-Force, from our latest haul of Disney movies - I mostly watched it for the guinea pigs, which were animated very cute, and it was fun, but nothing special otherwise. Then, Transformers Age of Extinction, since one of our collegues swears it's the best movie ever, but honestly we had troubles sitting through the whole thing...not cool, really not cool. What happend to all the characters?! Not to mention the story?

That's it for catching up right now, I'm back to producing pretty things to show you now :) Have fun!

May DESIGN

Yet another last minute post for my SAL ;)


What project are you talking about this month?

My designer of the month for May is Glendon Place. 'Stop!', you might yell, 'What did you stitch by them?' True, I haven't shared it here yet, but I did start the Red Velvet Cake I got for my birthday  this year last weekend. It's a mandala like design, so I'm stitching in circles startin in the middle, and here's the innermost round.

Have you stitched a project by this designer before?
Nope, not yet :)

Would you buy/stitch a design by this designer again? Why/Why not?

Yes! In fact, I NEED most of the other A-Maze-ing Desserts, and have wishlisted quite some more...

What made you choose this particular design/designer?

I really, really like the A-Maze-Ing Desserts series by Glendon Place. I've seen pictures of Tiramisu and Plum Pudding on another blog, but Red Velvet Cake was the one I fell most in love with instantly. I just LOVE the colours (and stitching with those silks is delicious!), and the shapes, there are hearts in the border, it's just adorably cute :)

Did you notice anything that distinguished this designer from others? - For example specialty stitches, fractionals, much/little 'confetti', beads, special fibers...
I think Glendon Place's pattern can be devided in two groups: One, ornamental/mandala like patterns, often worked with silks and other variengated threads and using beads, and two, funny designs, mostly for Halloween, with great detail and colors. I love both of them, and want to work on both, if I can find the time. This design is very clear to read, only uses five or six colors (and I think four or five kinds of beads), and is a real joy to stitch :)

Blog parade: Yarn

Last month I posted my first entry for the blog parade Daniela from the German blog Gemachtmitliebe.de is hosting. She's asking a different question for bloggers to answer every month. Now May is almost over, but I still have a few days left to post this response. This month, the question was about yarn: Which yarn do you like most for crochet and why? Which yarn would you like to experiment with? Where do you buy your yarn, and how much to you buy a month?

Now I now this blog parade is focusing mostly on crochet, but honestly, if I only wrote about that, this post would be very short: I'm kind of the opposite of a yarn snob. Over the years I bought what ever was pretty, cheap and easyly avaiable, mostly no name cottons and buttinette's Versaille, a fngering acrylic yarn, in the colors I needed for whatever I was making - which was mostly amigurumi, oven mittens and stuff for dools/stuffed animals where material didn't matter much.

But now, to do a bit of a loop, since I started getting into knitting, I'm focusing more on making actual garmets for people to wear, and suddenly material starts to matter - and more and more I find myself buying yarn for certain projects. And while I have mostly done so for knitting thus far, I'm also getting more into crochet as a by-product as well, so let's talk about what I bought for knitting!

So far, I'm mostly working with sock yarn. I like that it's easy to use, to wash (something that's rooted kinda deep into my brain since my grandma it's always the first thing my grandma looks at when buying yarn or clothes), and how many colour choices there are - hand dyed stuff, but then also colourways as awesome as the Lang Yarn Sock & Lace Luxe I recently bought! But also normal sock yarn can give really awesome effects if used on a larger piece of knitting:

Now what I've used so far was mostly a mix of cotton and arcrylic fibers. What I really want to start doing now is to experiment a bit with what I consider 'luxury' yarns - silk, mohair, alpaca, merino...not as easyly washable, but since I'm doing my own laundry now I can deal with that, and lots more expensive, but I think my income can cope with that now that I'm not a poor student anymore :D 

So far I've bought most of my yarn online at different stores, but I found out about a few awesome-sounding shops in town that I want to check out later this year. I've also got a few pinned down to visit in towns I will be traveling to. As for the amount, buying yarn usually comes in spurts for me...I won't buy anything for months, then I find some awesome new source or patterns or whatever, ideas start flowing into my head and I will buy 10 balls/skeins at once (see first picture above ;) ). So I really can't break it down to what I buy a month, it vastly differs.