Knitting ufo, stitching wips and haul

I have a few knitting finishes to show. Some I finished earlier this year and a couple I finished in May.

This is the Billie jumper,  pattern by Sari Nordlund. Knitted in peer gynt

I'm pleased how this turned out. 

The next one I'm very disappointed with.   This is the Tecumseh sweater by Caitlin Hunter.  From the photos I didn't realize the armholes were so deep.   It's about the size of a tent and I look ginormous in it.  

I also finished a pair of socks this month.  This is in gallipole in a discontinued colourway.

On to stitching.  

I made a couple of project bags for my cross stitch.

This month I've still been bothered by shoulder pain.  I have a physio appointment at the beginning of June.   At least until then I think I need to rest my shoulder so wont do any cross stitching or knitting.  Even though I made a conscious effort to not stitch as much I still managed 17296 stitches, 14942 of which were my full coverage.  I worked on 11 projects. Only cat nap did not get any stitches.

My focus piece is Mini At the steps.   I put in 4156 stitches

It is now at 40444 out of 62500 and is 66%

My daily thread is the Four of bees.  I put in 2354 stitches  and it is at 4564 out of 19785 for 23%.

I'll add a photo later.

For caricature I put in 1482 stitches

It is now at 15495 out of 80089 for 19%.

Pandemic had the 5th colour added which was 1010 stitches

It is now at 2940 stitches out of 77287 for 4%

I had a new start, this is Alice's Rabbit from Stitches Sew Beautiful.  Artist is Alisa Smith Williams. Im doing the small version. I usually start in the upper top left, but wanted to see her face, so started there. I put in 978 stitches. 

She is now 978 stitches out of 62500 for 2 %.

I decided not to aim for 6 page finishes for Fairytale.  I have enough charts i want to work on, so really no point pushing myself for the HAED sal charts.  I put in 1850 stitches. I havent got a photo to add.  It is now at 19592 stitches out of 88650 for 22%.

I had a second new start.  This is Big Smiles by Stitches Sew Beautiful, artist is Serr. Kai quill and ink.  Their charts are retiring at the end of the month and there was a sale so I bought a couple.  I put in 1666. This is going to be one of my focus pieces, replacing Fairytale. 

And a third new start was The Gold Lady by Stitches Sew Beautiful,  artist Eder Jose Rosa. I put in 1109 stitches 

This is now 1109 stitches out of 120400 for 1%.

Gertrude got 937 stitches

She is now at 3383 stitches out of 30000 for 12%

Finally Gloria and the Gargoyle got 1754 stitches 

So when im able to continue stitching my focus piece will be At the Steps. My focus wheel has Pandemic, Big Smiles and Caricature.  All others are on my non focus wheel.  So I stitch on Steps, then focus wheel, then non focus wheel and back to the beginning.  When a pattern is spun it blocks out on the wheel so wont be spun again until all patterns have had a go 

I also bought Markup rxp last week.  So far Im just doing pandemic and four of bees.  It shows backstitching so is better for Long Dog Samplers than PatternKeeper.  My plan is to do new starts through Markup. Those that have recently been started, once a complete pages is finished in PK I'll switch to markup.

This is the other pattern I bought from Stitches Sew Beautiful.  It is Bound 

HAED also had a sale and I bought a Josephine Wall pattern Heart and Soul

I also used Chatgpt to add all my pets from the last 30 years into 1 photo and then used pixel stitch to create a cross stitch chart

Woolfest happened last weekend. I bought 4 sock yarn and 2 mohair for a Stockholm vest

It's been a busy month.  If my shoulder doesnt improve I may not have much to show for June though

April update Flirtation finish 2 framed and 2 new starts

 I have a finish.  Flirtation by Long Dog Samplers. 

The design size is 115x151 and had 7643 stitches. I stitched it on 18 count Aida in Silks4U PR147. This was my one strand a day and I started it on 14 January 26 and finished on 8 April 26. Total stitching hours were 39.

As I was getting it framed,  I also framed Sans Soucis that I finished in 2020.  I used the same colour silk thread but a darker background and just don't like the look.  There is not enough contrast between the silk and the fabric. 

For the rest of my stitching month i put in 16078 stitches, 13084 were on projects other than the Four of Bees which is my one strand a day project.

The Four of Bees is my new one strand a day to replace Flirtation.

Im using these colours from Silks4u

Progress so far,  I've put in 2210 stitches. Stitched on 18 count Aida

Another new start was another Long Dog Sampler.  Pandemic was put out as a free pattern during the pandemic  and ive often thought of doing it.  I saw a lovely rainbow colored one on Instagram and decided I wanted a rainbow one.

This is the pattern

And progress so far, 1930 stitches and 4 colours

I am using a rainbow set from Silks47 and 18 count Aida

On other projects I did 2170 stitches on cat nap.  This is now  18880 out of 179000 and is 11%

Gloria and the Gargoyle got 1355 stitches, is now 12472 out of 160000 at 8%

Fairytale got 4658 stitches, now 17742 out of 88650 and 20%

I didn't do much on caricature,  just 353 stitches. Now at 14013 out of 80089 17%

I had another new start.  This is small Gertrude by Stitches Sew Beautiful. 

Progress so far,  2546 out of 30000 8%

I've gone back to stitching on q snaps with my lowery.  I really like how embroidery looks in scroll frames and loved the painting fairy stand.  However I found my right shoulder was getting very painful.  I use my right hand underneath the fabric and somehow was holding my shoulder in a way that became very painful.  Im much more comfortable using qsnaps with my lowery.

I also tried diagonal stitching on a couple of pieces, but found that slowed me right down.  So have gone back to a typewriter type method, where I stitch within a page, pick the next colour on a row and stitch until thread used up, or no more stitches on the page.

Im also going to try a new rotation in May. 

 FIRST ROTATION 

I have one main focus piece,  fairytale.  I work on this for 2 days. 

SECOND ROTATION 

Then switch to one of my other focus pieces, cat nap, at the steps,  pandemic or caricature.  Spinning a tiny decisions wheel to decide which one to do.  The wheel deletes the picked one so they will all get a turn before starting again. 2 days or minimum 5 hours.

THIRD ROTATION 

Then spin a wheel to select a category, at this stage large and small. I will add SSB freebie and HAED SAL when I have projects for them.  Again I spin a wheel to select a project within that category.

Then back to focus piece in first rotation. 

March update

In March I decided to spin a wheel to select projects and how much time to spend on them.  My focus piece was Mini At the Steps and I decided not to focus on the 6 page finish for the HAED SAL Fairytale.  

For At the Steps I put in 5712 stitches for a total of 36288 stitches, or 59%

For Fairytale I put in 1777 for 15%

On Cat Nap I put in 2023 stitches for 9 %

on Gloria and the Gargoyle i did 7404 stitches for 7%

On my 1 strand a day, Flirtation I put in 2886 stitches and 90%

I had1 new start, this caricature of me and my dog. This is what it will look like when finished

There was a lot of white around the outside which i am not stitching, so my count is wrong.  There are 11722 stitches i am not doing.  I put in 1938 stitches for 8%.  Here is what it looks now

On my full coverage I did 18854 stitches, plus 2886 on Flirtation.  

Plans

I have made changes again.  I've decided I do really want all the SAL charts, so need to do 6 pages by the end of the year on Fairytale.   I will have that as my focus piece, and put At the Steps into my rotation. Instead of spinning for thr amount of time to spend on each project, I will do 2 days, or a minimum of 5 hours or 1000 stitches.  What I mean by the minimum is, if on the second day ive done 4 hours and reached 1000 stitches, the next day I'll spin for the next project. However if  ive done 5 hours,  and not reached 1000 stitches, then I can stop.  Each week I will do the amount needed on Fairytale to ensure a finish of 6 pages by the end of the year.  At the moment that is about 850 stitches a week. 

HAUL

I spent a lot in March.  I bought a scroll frame from Painting Fairy and an embroidery stand from them.

I also bought some silk thread from Silks4u for long dog samplers.  I bought a rainbow pack to make a rainbow pandemic.  This will be my birthday start in April.

KNITTING 

I finished a couple of things. The first was a jaunty shawl.  I havent yet taken a photo.  The Billie called jumper, again no photo yet, and the Zipper vest

Until next month, keep those needles dancing.

February Update

I had a good stitching month in February. 

Mini At the Steps was one of my focus pieces. I stitched on this for 8 days and put in 3424 stitches which took me to 50%

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo and have started already for March

Fairytale, the HAED 2026 SAL was my other focus piece.  I stitched on it for 7 days and put in 3440 stitches which took me to 12.67%

I made good progress on Cat Nap, finishing the second page I put in 4971 stitches over 7 days,  and im at 8%.

Flirtation remained as my one strand a day project. I put in 2392 stitches and worked on it for 22 days.

I had a new start.  This is Gloria and the Gargoyle,  artist is Alisa Smith Williams, charted by Stitches Sew Beautiful.  I'm doing this as part of their monthly sals. If you meet the minimum number of stitches per week, you get a reward chart.  As I do tent stitches,  the minimum is 500 per week.   I put in 3713 stitches out of 160,000 over 5 days and have a page finish and am at 2.32%

This is what the chart will look like when finished

In total i stitched 15,548 full coverage on 27 days and 2392 on my Long Dog.

I decided to start temperature knitting.  I've heard a lot of people doing temperature stitching, where they assign projects a number from 0 to 9 and when the temperature ends in that number, then they work on that piece.  I've a number of knitting projects that aren't being touched, so I thought this is a good way to get a little progress on them.  When their number comes up, I do half an hour on them.

In February I worked on

Douglas cardigan   8 days

Socks 6 days 

Jaunty shawl 8 days

Cosy blanket 4 days

Jigsaw blanket 1 day

Rain or Shine blanket 1 day

I've decided to change how I do my focus pieces.  I'm not going to continue with Fairytale as a focus.  While there are charts I would like if I complete 6 pages for thr SAL, Stitches Sew Beautiful have a lot of charts I'd rather work on.   At the Steps will remain my focus piece.  However I'll stitch on it each Sunday to get the required number of stitches to finish it in November.  At the moment that is about 800 stitches .  If I don't get all the stitches in on Sunday, I'll continue until I do.  I'll then start rotating projects every 3 or 4 days. Between rotations I'll do 500 stitches on Gloria to meet the Sal requirements,  so that will be a  secondary focus piece.  I'm not entirely sure how many days to stitch on focus pieces, or whether to stitch a certain number of stitches, or even spin a wheel with either the days or number of stitches,  maybe I'll even try applying temperature stitching to it.   I need to ponder on it.  

See you next month.

January update

Well my plans changed again.  But only by a little bit.   I'm still working on Fairytale for the HAED SAL and aiming for 6 pages, still working on Mini At the Steps, aiming to finish in November  and working on Cat Nap.  However I've changed my mind about starting both the Aimee Stewart Sanctuary for stitchers and Lakeside Cabin Crop.   I know Aimee Stewart patterns are hugely popular, but I feel a lot of detail is hard to make out, even in the super sized versions. I would never do a supersized version, as I want a chance of finishing and even the regular sized version is bigger than what I want to work on.

I toyed around with cropping the Lakeside Cabin crop, but it was still too big and do I really want a huge picture of basically an armchair, on my wall. So I abandoned that idea.

 So here is what I did in January.

Mini at the steps.

In January I put in 5829 stitches over 10 stitching days and did 28 hours.  This takes me to a total of 27,152 stitches out of 61,200 and 44%

Cat Nap was started on Xmas Day and this is what it looks like now.

I have a page finish.  I've done a bit more than in this photo, but havent taken another picture.

In January I did 5561 stitches over 7 days and did 22 hours.  In total I've done 9826 stitches out of 179,000 for 5%.

On 1st January I started Fairytale for the HAED SAL.   

I've done the first page for a total of 7795 stitches out of 88,650 for 8.8%. I worked on this for 12 days and spent 22 hours stitching. 

  I had a yearning to do another Long Dog piece.  I decided on a small one called Flirtation, from their Peccadilloes range.  This is what the finished piece will look like.

And this is what it looks like now. 

I'm using Silks4u left over from Sans Souci and it is 2 x1 on 18ct Aida, full cross. I started on 14 January. 

I am stitching 1 thread a day on this, which gives approximately 100 stitches in 30 minutes. I've so far done 1581 stitches and worked on it 14 days for 8 hours.   1581 out of 7643 for 21%.  This is a small project so I expect to finish in April.  

In total for the month, I did 20,766 stitches, 19185 on full coverage,  stitched on 29 days and a total of 101 hours.

Plans, continue working on the above. In February I am going to start my first Stitches Sew Beautiful pattern.  The one I want to do is Gloria and the Gargoyle by Alisa Smith Williams.

I just love this picture. It just makes me feel happy when I look at it. 

I will be entering the Stitches Sew Beautiful Sal. The conditions are to stitch either  250 full cross or 500 tent each week for a month and get a reward chart at the end. I will be doing my usual 25 count 2x1 tent. 

I also finished a knitted garment, the zipper vest by petite knit.  

This pattern calls for a bulky weight yarn. I used Southlander from Skeinz in the colour oatmeal.

That's all for now.  I will update again at the end of February.