March Smalls SAL

This month, I am linking up to the Smalls SAL, hosted by Rachel, with a piece that was driving me crazy for months, before I even started it! So story time first.

Edelweiss Forever was one of the kits we received as part of our goodie bags for Stitch Basel 2023. This and another kit share the same special dyed silk floss from xJu Design. I didn't start them right away, but some people did, and I started hearing from people who ran out of the special colour way. So I messaged Jucus (the dyer) and she was amazing to offer to send me another floss set for free! Problem solved! Except the whole process of messaging her and her mailing the floss fom Hungary took a while, and when I went to put the extra floss with the original kit...I couldn't find it. It wasn't with my other Stitch Basel stuff, or in my box of kits, or with the patterns. I reorganized half my stash looking for it, but nothing! It was driving me crazy. Until, just over a week ago, inspiration struck and I checked my back travel backback I hadn't used in some time, and there it was. Apparently I had packed this as an 'emergency start' for some trip or other, but just never unpacked it! The pattern got a little wrinkly in the process, but I don't care. I had to start this right away (it was my birthday start, in fact) and have since finished the front of this biscornu pattern:

 This is 'Edelweiss Forever' by Vintage Tulip designs, stitched on the kitted floss (the special Stitch Basel Color and Blanc silk) and fabric (Rustic Driftwood) by xJu Design. This is the front, the back will have similar motifs, but is a lot simpler, so I hope I can get this fully stitched and finished soon. It's super pretty and very fun to stitch, and I think it was worth all the hassle of looking for it. Freshly sorted stash is a bonus, too!

Japanese Moss Garden - 10 Hours

To celebrate successfully defending my thesis last November, I treated myself (well, and my grandma sponsored me) by kitting up my first Chatelaine, something I've wanted to do for years! I had decided on a pattern a long time ago - Japanese Moss Garden. So I bought the pattern, I made good use of a Black Friday sale at Casa Cenia to order most of the specialty floss at 25% off, and I commissioned a a big enough piece of hand dyed fabric from xJu Design. It took a while for everything to get here, and then I was intimidated for a bit, but in mid February I finally bit the bullet and started stitching! 

I'm working on this very slowly, but really enjoying it - trying to get in a couple stitches every weekend. Ten hours in, I finished the inner-most medaillon (except for beads, which will cover all the blank spaces) and outlined the next layer. I hope to finish part 1 this year, but if I don't, I don't - no set schedule on this one! 

March Gifted Gorgeousness

It's time for one of my favourite SALs again, hosted by the wonderful Jo and focused on all things gifted and giftee! 

I am, once again, busy making gifts for all the babies in my life. I haven't managed to finish any recently, but two new starts to report progress on!

One is a blanket I started for my new niece, born to Felix' brother and his wife, just over a week ago. It's a simple reversible knitting pattern (so it looks good from both sides) in 'sage green' - the yarn looks very gray most of the time but in this picture I was, apparently, able to capture it in the perfect light to show it's actually green-ish. This is just 1 1/2 of a total of 8 1/2 repeats of the pattern, so plenty left to go!

 

The other one is Lupo the Lamb from lalylala for the newest of Felix' cousins babies (who turns one in May - I better hurry up!). I did Fibi Fox by the same designer for her sister a couple of years ago.

I only finished the main part - that is legs, body and head - so far, so he's still missing his arms and the hood with the ears. I'm trying to get him done by Easter, so plenty of time!

 

Red Riding Hood - 10 Hours

I know it looks like I'm having a lot of new starts lately, but this one was actually started last September, I just didn't work on it a lot back then! I was meeting up with my friends Sam and Giselle for the Stitch Basel retreat, and we were talking about having a new start together, but we couldn't settle on a pattern - until The Witchy Stitcher came out with the Red Riding Hood pattern and we all fell in love with her! I bought a new piece of fabric from xJu Design, a gorgeous 40ct Evenleave. I think the colour is called 'Old Linen'. It's a big piece, so when there are any more releases in the Grim Fairytales series that I like, I'll be ready!

So my first ten hours of stitching were mostly focused on the big bad wolf, so LOTS of black! But it stitches up quickly and I'm already more than 23% done.

 As it's a 40ct, I'm stitching with one thread of DMC, and the coverage on the black isn't perfect, but it actually looks better in person than in pictures, and I'm happy with it. I think next time I pick it up, I'm going to work a bit on Red herself!

March Fully Finished Gallery

This month for Rachel's Fully Finished Gallery, I finished stitching, then finish-finished Hetty the Hedgehog that I introduced in my last smalls post.

After finishing stitching the second side, I deviated a little from the finishing instructions in the magazine. I didn't want to draw on the fabric, so I freehanded her face, which worked...let's say half decent. Her nose/snout turned out a little more pointy than intended, but then I also didn't have quite as much fabric to work with as I wanted (the instructions said to leave 1cm of a seam edge all around her...well...even though I almost perfectly centered my stitching on the fabric, there wasn't even quite 1cm of empty fabric arond her nose and backside!).

Either way, I ended up redoing her face a couple times until I was content, then I stuffed her and sewed the green felt to the bottom - that part, although free handed as well, turned out really nicely! The little beady nose and those darling leaf pins were a great detail to add, and overall, for a free kit that came with a magazone, I can't complain about this one!

 

SAGA - 30 Hours

It's been a while since I showed my progress on Long Dog Sampler's SAGA which I started at stitch Basel last September, although for much of last winter, I was pretty obsessed with it. I had that grand plan that I'd only show it here whenever I finished one of the arches, but the one I am currently working on already took me almost 20 hours - and this is the second smallest size! It is almost done now, but if I waited until the next one is done, I probably wouldn't be able to show another updates this year - so switching to ten hours chunks of stitching it is!

The arch itself is only the half-arch with the house, the second arch with the column/tower/?? is part of the 'grid' that is repeating for all the arches in one row. The next arch down the side is one of my favourites, but it's also where the sampler is supposed to be dated - and even though the pattern already reads '2027', I don't dare put that in yet! So I'll have to get creative about leaving it out and remembering to fill it in later.

 This is just 4.64% of the design, but already over 4.8k stitches! 

February Smalls SAL

Linking up with Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher for the February edition of her Smalls SAL!

I swear I've had my entry for this SAL ready for a week, and yet here I am, posting it way late again...my blogging discipline is starting to slip again, but here we are at last! Someone, I think it was Jo, gave me the idea to pick up some of those small kits that come with cross stitch magazines, as I have several of those in my stash. I had wanted to stitch this one for ages, but as it has two seperate sides to stitch, it was always just a little big too big for when I needed a quick, small finish. Now I'm working on it during my Pen&Paper groups and progressing reasonably quickly.

This is Hetty Hedgehog from Cross Stitcher Issue 291:

As you can see, I finished one side and made a good start on the other. Hopefully, she'll be finished soon! She's very cute but I strongly dislike the floss that came with this kit. The lengths are cut WAY too short for my tastes, and I think it's 100% plastic. But it stitches up nicely enough, so I didn't bother swapping it out for such a small kit.