Last update of the year, and the year in review!

So here's my last update for the year (and you know what that means, New Year - New Start - decisions decisions).
Cara Mia is growing, although in a slightly grey way, although I suspect that will be the theme of this piece... who'd have thought it!








And secondly, the year in review... what has and hasn't happened?

This blanket was started while I was away as a nice portable project, I'm willing to accept that it hasn't really grown yet.

This is Belle, more commonly known as 'The Beast' and she was 2016s New Year - New Start

Cara Mia, Mon Chere was a restart after making a mistake in 2016

Cut Thru will be a gift and is probably the only new start that I can actually justify

Dragon Rider before

And after, not a big difference, but at least there is a difference!

This was my wedding present to Ben, and was the bane of my life, but I'm quite proud of the result.

This was a baby present for the friend, the border was also not my favouite by the end.

Yet another blanket

And yet another, there's a chance that I need some kind of intervention

Sailor Moon, yet another new start.

Spirited Away, I have a problem, this may have also been a new start

This one has been about for years, and I finally finished the second lady, thanks to a SAL with some friends.

 

Wedding crafts, you would not believe how long all the flowers for my bouquet took to make

And finally, the wall of shame, here are the things that have not been touched this year! There's a chance that I hadn't realised quite how shameful my wall of shame actually was... but, my stitching and crochet makes me happy, so I'm just going to hold on to that fact, and in the mean time, here are the pretty pictures to look at. I should probably be ashamed of how many you can't actually identify from their picture but never mind... I love my hobby, and hopefully I will have more time this, with not having a wedding to organise, and I'm hoping that work will settle down at least a little bit this year!

 

2017 targets achieved and setting for 2018

So, how did I do on last years targets? Not great if I'm honest, between the wedding and work I swear there were months where no time of spent on my own projects, especially my stitching.

Stitching:

Dragon Rider - 4 pages - HAHAHAHA - I managed one.

Howl’s Moving Castle - I did start this, but I was unsure about the charting so I'm waiting to see if I can get a more reliable version.

Cara Mia - I'm working across the entire bottom row at once, so it's difficult to tell, but I'm going to call it a page

Disney Princess - I probably did manage about a page on this

Merlin - Nope

Princess and the Dragon - Nope

Spirited Away - 1 page, woo hoo!

Princess Bride - Nope. although this is planned as my New Year, new start

Ex Machina - nope

Crochet:

Finish a couple of blankets - Baby blanket x 1 and Bens blanket, yup!

Finish the bunny - Nope

Finish the sheep hat - I did, it looked like a cross eyed cat, but I did.

Make the second damn sock - Oops, no!

Virus shawl - not in the yarn that I intended, but I did start it

The rest of my life:

Another attempt at the 200 words a day average - HAHAHAHA

Get my run up to 5 miles - the distance is up to 5 miles, I'm not running all of it thought (and I have been quite lazy recently).

2018 Targets

Stitching:

Princess Bride x 1

Dragon Rider x 4

Heather Theuruer x 1

Ex Machina x 1

Cara Mia x 1

Cloudsfactory x 1

Heroes and Heroines x 1

Family Values x 1

Ice Queen x 1

Crochet:

2 blankets (I'd like more, but I'm being realistic, I've got 5 in mind)

A bit more of the virus shawl

A Whirl shawl/scarf

Start a toft project

Rest of my life:

Yet another attempt at 200 a day

Improve my time per mile on my run (I currently sit about 12.30) and try to run more of my route (which will help my average time).

Build up (or, you know, start) Geek Girl Yarns.

Ooopsie

I know, a bit weird to be posting this on Christmas eve, but I'm trying to keep it up.

Another new start ma have appeared in my life, but in many ways this isn't a new start, it's a restart, after this one was put into the naughty corner about a year and a half ago when I made a mistake on it that would have taken me far too long to unpick and redo. I am not, technically past where I was when I threw a strop at it originally. So, they're back, I do love this chart!

And finally...

The page that has taken me a year and a half is finally finished... I have officially finished 10 pages and so am very close to being half way through! Woohoo! There is a chance that I finished this page mostly through stubbornness, far to many of the final stitches were one stitch of a colour where I'd missed it the first time, and I may have *cough* fudged a couple of the colours.

And I don't think my stitching is deformed, I'm fairly sure it's some slightly warped perspective (I hope)!

Sooo close!

He's progressing, I can see it. I have a theory that each page works in three stages, and this one is definitely in the third stage. Stage one is when you start a page, it's a big blank space and therefore it doesn't take much for you to see progress because you're starting with nothing and creating the shape of the page. Stage two is (for me) a bit of a slog, it's no longer a new page and it feels like you're not getting anywhere fast, you work for ages and nothing happens. Stage three is when you're suddenly filling in those little gaps. You work on it and the white gaps are noticeable smaller, that's when you know you're on the way to a page finish. Once again, I'm hoping I might finish this page this week, which, seeing as I started it in September 2016 is a pretty appalling record. I have to finish this page. Also this page is nearly half way, he's 21 pages and this is page 10. When I finish the next page I'll be over half way.

Lookie

Look who's back, I'm going to finish this page by the end of the year if it kills me. I've actually managed a small chunk this week, although my plan for finishing the page this week was a little on the optimistic side. although I'm glad to see some progress, this poor wee guy is feeling a bit unloved, and despite the love hate relationship that I seem to have with it, I do rather like him. I'll finish him one day. He's got more chance than anything else of being finished first anyway.

Page finish!

Hello again my dears, can you believe that I'm posting again, and I've got a page finish as well, who would have thought it a couple of months ago? The worm continues to grow, I'll give in now and own up to what it is, seeing as they're now being tucked away for a while, this is Spirited Away by Jonas Joedicke from Geckorouge. I love it, all the more that I've actually managed a half decent page finish for the first time since goodness knows when. I love the Studio Ghibli films, and am always glad to see charts come up, so I've got both of Jonas, and as soon as I get a Howl's Moving Castle chart I'll be so happy!

Second up my ripple blanket is growing, although at the moment it is distinctly more scarf like than blanket like. I'm wondering how many different dyers I can get into one blanket. So far I've got Truly Hooked, For the love of Yarn, Rhapsodye Yarns and All Wool that Ends Wool. I have many others to add to the blanket, loads of Verity's and a few other dyers as well. Sadly I've run out of black and black dye, so I'm waiting for my latest dye order to arrive so that I can get some more black dyed so I can carry on. It's been less than a week and I'm already missing this blanket so much. Despite the fact that I love the blend, this is also my first time actually working for silk blends, oh my word, it feels so lovely! A have a few more silks in the stash for this project so I look forward to using a few more of them.

EDIT: I'ven just gone back and looked, my last proper page finish (a decent sized page) was July 2016, that's horrendous. Right, let the stitching commence!

Progress

Firstly, FOUR WEEKS!!!! Four weeks in a row, you have no idea how happy I am about this. I have missed my stitching so much. Secondly, the worm is definitely getting fatter, and darker, but he is still distinctly work like. After the excitement, I don't, unfortunately have much else to say, I'm just happy that it's there at all.