February WIPocalypse Gadgetry

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  For me, this will be my "18 in '18".  Many of them are part of SALs so I will be working on them each month.

This month I have stitched on 10 of the 18 projects!

1. Lavender & Lace - Enchanted Alphabet Spooky Conversion:

stitched on 32 count Tiger Lily Murano by Sparklies

2. Chatelaine Designs - Gardens of London:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

3. Just Nan - Summer in the Square:

stitched on 32 Light Mocha linen

4. Donna Kooler - Zodiac:

stitched on 32 count Millenium Blue linen

5. Jardin Prive - Happy Hallowe'en Night:

stitched on 32 count Cognac linen

6. Dam Good Crafts - Dracula:

stitched on 32 count Amortentia by Chromatic Alchemy

7. Just Nan - 12 Days of Christmas:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain Linen

8. Satsuma Street - Libra:

stitched on 28 count Black Jobelan

9. Mrs Peggotty - Alice and Flamingo:

stitched over 1 on 25 count blue evenweave

10. Just Nan - Diamond Bouquet:

stitched on 28 count lilac evenweave

Measi always sets us a discussion topic:

February – Gadgets! Show us your favorite stitching gadgets!

Strangely enough, I am not really a stitching gadget person.  I have my scissors (of course), my ORTs tin with a needleminder on top to hold the needle when I change thread.  I have a few projects bags made by friends and that's about it.  I stitch in hand so no frames or hoops.  I don't use a fancy light, natural daylight or the house lights are good enough for me.

I wonder if a spreadsheet is considered a gadget?  I do use a lot of them!  

One tracks my spending for Stitch from Stash:

February
5 Satsuma St charts	£20.16
Mr Linky	£3.69
Cross Stitcher sub	£8.72
Total	£32.57

Satsuma Street were having a sale so I decided to get the next four Astrology signs and the new Easter Goose chart.

Mr. Linky is another gadget, purely for the benefit of you lot so I can run more than one link-up at a time.  It's free if you only need one at a time or £3.69 for 13 months silver membership.

Pie is not a gadget, although I do use my spreadsheets to make it.

A focus on my Chatelaine and then a couple of days for all the other SAL projects.  Exactly as per the plan at the start of the month.

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Finally, I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!  If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.  On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral). We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2017

The Easter Hop is the second peak of our Five Hops Challenge.  Everyone who joins in with all five hops this year (either as a participant or as a commenter) will be entered into the Five Hops draw at the end of the year.

Let's Go Round Again

AKA the new phase of the rotation starts on the 26th of each month.

Why the 26th?  Because there are 26 letters in the alphabet and I'm stitching an Enchanted Alphabet conversion.  The original design is by Lavender & Lace and features some beautiful coloured letters and the frilliest child in the entire world.

My conversion features black and lots of it!  Eventually there will be more spiders, bats, ghosts and pumpkins but for now it is mainly DMC 310.  This month I added a T:

stitched on 32 count Tiger Lily by Sparklies

The colours are a bit off, the fabric is brighter than that.  Only 6 months to go and I can start on the embellishments!

Because my February rotation has restarted I have put away my Chatelaine.  I was really pleased with the progress I made this month and have almost completed the stitching on the central garden.  The first task next time will be to complete the Dense Rhodes Stitches and then lots of grey pavement. Hopefully I will be able to move on to one of the corner gardens!

This is where I left off last time I stitched on it:

And here is where I am now:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

Some close-ups of the speciality stitches and the metallics:

All those gaps are going to be beads!

And just to give you some idea of the scale of this piece, here is the full design!

On the theme of going round, my Temperature SAL is still going round.  It appears that I have not mentioned this before!  I discovered this SAL via Katy who linked to Hetti's Blog XX Stitches in Blue XX.  I have wanted to do a Temperature SAL for a while and I just love this one!  Hetti has designed a mini sampler with each 5 x 5 block representing a different day.  Each month spirals out from the centre of the piece.

She recommends some variegated threads to go with the temperatures but I used a different chart as our daily temperatures do not vary much with the average being between 8 and 20 degrees.  I am using the maximum temperature to choose the colour for each day.

I completed a block and started the first row of the next block. 

stitched on 22 count white hardanger

A new lowest high temperature of only 2 degrees C (35.6 F) and another snow bead.

Blues are the coldest days moving through turquoise into green.  The warmest days are that olive green which will move to yellow, orange and red (if the temperature goes over 25 degrees).  If we don't get above zero on any day I can use purple!  The white beads represent a day when it snowed.

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Finally, I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!  If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.  On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral). We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2017

The Easter Hop is the second peak of our Five Hops Challenge.  Everyone who joins in with all five hops this year (either as a participant or as a commenter) will be entered into the Five Hops draw at the end of the year.

February Smalls SAL

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Stitching Lotus

This year I am showing my Just Nan 12 Days of Christmas blocks for the Smalls SAL and also my 30-a-day projects.  All smalls also by Just Nan.  It's a Nan-a-thon year!

stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain Linen

This is Noah's Rainbow which I had completed last month but hadn't got the charm yet:

stitched on 32 count white evenweave

Last week I completed Painted Lady:

stitched on 32 count white evenweave

I made a few changes to this one as it was charted for green fabric.  The main Celtic Knotwork was an olive colour so I changed it to 3041/3042.

I used the charted beads but reversed the colours for the ones in the centre of each side compared to the ones in the middle of the flowers.

I also used a charm from my stash as I did not have the official JN butterfly

Then I started Potpourri:

stitched on 32 count white evenweave

All of these smalls were started last March for March Madness.  Here is the collage I did back then:

I have completed all the ones on the left hand side and I am now starting the ten on the right hand side.  So I started looking at what I have left in my Just Nan stash.  There are enough smalls to do Stitch Maynia this year!  So that is the plan.  For the whole of May I will start one of the smalls each day and do a minimum of 30 stitches.   I am averaging one finish per 3 weeks so it will give me enough smalls to do the 30-a-Day for the next 3 years!

🐇 🐇 🐇 🐇 🐇 🐇 🐇 🐇

Finally, I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!  If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.  On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral). We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2017

The Easter Hop is the second peak of our Five Hops Challenge.  Everyone who joins in with all five hops this year (either as a participant or as a commenter) will be entered into the Five Hops draw at the end of the year.

February IHSW

This weekend was International Hermit & Stitch Weekend and once again I was working on Sunday!  Never mind.  I got lots done today instead.

On Friday I went to my Crafty Coffee Morning and took Mrs Peggotty's Alice with me.  Here is where she was last IHSW:

And here is where she is now:

stitched over one on 25 count blue evenweave

The purple on the right is the start of her skirt.  The top right green stitch shows the extent of the two pages I am stitching.  In order to complete this in a year I need to stitch two pages per month but there is plenty of time to catch up and Linda had restarted her's last time I checked!

The second piece I have been stitching this weekend is my focus for the month; Gardens of London by Chatelaine.  Here is where I started on Friday:

And here is where I stopped today:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

I have finished all the plain xxxx in this part and have started the speciality stitches.  Close up of Rhodes Stitches and Algerian Eyelets:

The next IHSW will be 16th - 18th March so make sure you note the date in your diary or come and join us in the Facebook Group - IHSW on Facebook.

Finally, our thoughts are turning towards Spring which means only one things - Chocolate Eggs!
NO - Easter Blog Hops!  As usual I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!   If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.   On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral).  We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2017

The Easter Hop is the second peak of our Five Hops Challenge.  Everyone who joins in with all five hops this year (either as a participant or as a commenter) will be entered into the Five Hops draw at the end of the year.

Happy Dance with the February TUSAL

It's TUSAL time, the Totally Useless SAL where we all show our ORTS and link-up on Daffycat's blog.

Here is my TUSAL jar with two current projects:

What's that you say?

The borders on Dracula have joined up?

Does that mean a finish?

It most certainly does!

This is Dracula by Dam Good Crafts (chart no longer available)

stitched on 32 count Amortentia from Chromatic Alchemy

The fabric was a gift from Tiffany and looks absolutely stunning with the solid black stitching.  I plan to photocopy the finished piece and make that into a book cover as I did with Book of Spells.  Then I will frame the original piece.

The other piece in the photo is my Chatelaine, Gardens of London:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

Making nice progress going round and round with various shades of green!

Finally, the Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop was a great success, I believe everyone now knows who their Secret Stitching Sweetheart is and hopefully has some new friends.  Here are the collages of the designs sent in, some absolutely gorgeous stitching and a cute dragon too!

Don't forget to leave a comment on the original post if you want to be included in the Five Hops Challenge this year.

Gifted Gorgeousness February Link-Up Post

Welcome to the February Gifted Gorgeousness link-up.  The link-up date will continue to be the 15th and I will keep the link-up open until the end of each month so you have plenty of time if you are late posting.

The format remains exactly the same, there is a list of rules on the main sign-up page if you want to check what is required but basically anything connected to the word "gift" is allowed, whether it was a gift TO you or is a gift FROM you.

I have stitched on quite a few Gifted pieces over the last month and received a Gorgeous Gift too!

The main focus for January was the Discworld Mappe by Lyndisfarne Designs - chart was a gift and this will be a gift for my older son:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom dyed by Sparklies

12 Days of Christmas by Just Nan - chart was a Christmas present:

 

Stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain linen

Diamond Bouquet by Just Nan - chart was a gift:

stitched on 28 count lilac evenweave

My Chatelaine was a gift for my special Birthday in 2016 and will be my focus piece for the rest of this month. Here is two day's progress:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast from Crafty Kitten

I am focusing on the plain x stitching for now. When I finish the green area I will go back and fill in the speciality stitches and metallics for the centre.

I was lucky enough to receive two gifts myself this month. The first was the lovely hearts from Wee Witchy Steph I showed in my Valentine Secret Stitching Sweetheart post:

The second was this amazing book pouch the incredible Christine from The Alchymyst's Study made especially for me. I won her annual competition to guess the number of finishes, books and shoes she has in each year and my prize arrived this week.

Smaug and the Lonely Mountain!

The cutest tag: 

The reverse of the bag, in Middle Earth map parchment:

I love my bag, I don't know who the designer is or if Christine charted it herself, she is a very talented person!

Now it is your turn to show us your Gifted Gorgeousness for the month. Please use your name or your blog name in the field and NOT the words "February Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month. And link to the actual post, not just your blog.  It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.

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Make sure you go and visit the other participants and leave comments.  The lovely Katie Jeremiah's Mom is hosting another giveaway this month so watch out for her post for a chance to win something gorgeous.

Finally, don't forget my Five Hops Challenge.  The first Hop this year was the Secret Stitching Sweetheart previously mentioned.  If you leave a comment on that post letting me know you've been visiting the Sweethearts then you get an entry into the Five Hops Challenge.  Participants are automatically entered.