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.

Three weeks in a row...

I know, I'm posting, and I have something to show, for the third time in as many weeks, who'd have thunk it?

Anyway, this particular picture is just to prove that stitching has happened, as I won't be working on it again. It's a design that I love, but I bought it from a slightly less reliable source, and it turns out that I just feel really guilty about it, so I can't quite bring myself to work on it. I am a fool, and I don't know which bit I'm calling myself a fool over. Anyway, there has been a conversation with a friend, and they are going to contact the artist in question and see if they would be interested in something slightly more official, so I'm hoping that a proper version of this will come out at some point in the future... watch this space! 

Secondly is some stitching that hopefully will see the light of day again, even if it does look suspiciously like a worm at the moment, although that's not as far off as you'd think so again, watch this space. Hopefully I'll get a little bit of time on this this week and it'll look like something, but I wouldn't count on it any time soon, but, lets see if I can make it four weeks in a row shall we? (Shocked face!)

And finally, just to prove that crochet is still happening, and although some of you may be sick of the sign of my hooking, here's my latest project, it's a blanket, just for a change! Not that I'm obsessed with blanket making or anything. This is something that I've had in my head for a long time since seeing a picture of a similar idea, and so far I'm absolutely loving it. I've been collecting lots of lovely hand dyed yarns, and although I'm only on my third colour so far, they're all making up really nicely so far. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't match what I had in my head, but thus far I'm pretty happy! For those that are interested I'm using Lucy from Attic24's pattern, but only doing 1 row of each colour as I worried that the coloured yarns would jumble their colours on the second row.

STITCHING!!!!!!!!!

Excuse how excitable my title is, but I'm really excited by the fact that I've actually managed some stitching... enough stitching that there is recognisable progress, and enough progress that I've got two page finishes, granted they're both partial pages, but considering how little stitching I've actually been able to do this year, I will still take that as an absolute win.
Also, this is quite an excitable chart. More and more of my stitchy projects are showing my geeky side, partially because more and more designers are picking up geeky designs and artists, and partially because I'm becoming more comfortable with the geeky side of my personality.
Anyway, here is my wee start of Sailor Moon, so happy. I know it doesn't look much like Sailor Moon at the moment (check low down the side bar if you want to try and work out what this is) but, in the dark and distant future (as is often the case with my million and one projects) there will be the Sailor Moon girls as well.
Happy stitching my darlings!

Shock horror!

Two posts in as many weeks, could this be a new leaf for me? And even more shocking, there's stitching involved as well... it's quite sad just how excited I am about this!

And, there's almost recognisable progress as well, the smallest room is now completed, well, the cross stitch is, I accept that there is still back stitch to do.

Anyway, hopefully I'll actually manage to keep this up for at least another couple of weeks, you never know, stranger things have happened!

I finally finished the blanket

I did it, I finally finished the blanket after a fairly major push this week, I seem to have spent all of my spare time this week darning in the ends, and, as much as it drove me insane doing it, I do rather like how it's turned out. It gives a ruffle to the edge of the blanket, which I'm sure that I'm not meant to like, because it really means that I've not worked it out properly and tried to fit too many stitches in, but in practice I like the shape it gives it, so I must just be a bad crocheter.

And just to show off, this is it all bundled up, waiting to be gifted to the little man who is now nearly two months old.

This picture means that I can now work on other things, I have other crochet projects lined up, of varying colourfulness and variety, and I have assorted stitching plans. I have that new started I showed about two months that I still haven't properly announced I don't think, I have the presents I'm making for friends, Dargon Rider is due some love, and my SAL with a group, this months theme is Halloween, so I ought to do something on that as well.  tad ambitious by my current standards, but let's see what happens. If I can manage more than one post a month I'll be doing prety well.

A stitch or two...

My little castle is progressing... not much I admit, but a bit. A lot of my time this week has gone on the blanket, as the little dude that it was being made for has now been born. But as I'm so close to finishing that I don't really want to post another pic until it's done. So instead you get the couple of hours stitching that I managed to do earlier in the week. Soon other projects will be out.

Oh, and it's Yarndale this weekend, so there will almost certainly be yarn porn pics next weekend as well :-)

Crochet heavy

Firstly, I've been rubbish again, I know, I am still struggling for time a bit, but I'm hoping to have a slightly more productive week this week... and I'm also aware that the continuing progress of a blanket isn't always the most exciting thing to show. However, this blanket is finally coming together, I'm on the border, I've done a row in doubles in white, just to tidy it up, I'm now doing a row in triples in the yellow, and I've got a floofy border planned in green and purple. It's a border that I've seen made but never seen a written pattern for, so that could be an interesting experiment for me.

As is often the case when a project is nearly finished (especially a project that I'm making as a gift, so it's become a bit of a duty project), I'm starting to think about other projects. So I have given myself the odd half hour to work on other things this week. Not quite enough time to justify getting my stitching out, but a simple crochet project. This yarn is beautiful, it's the softest thing I've ever felt. I originally bought it at Yarndale and Kerry and I literally crossed the aisle to stroke the beautiful feeling yarn while going 'oooooh'. I think it's alpaca, although I'm ashamed to say that off the top of my head I can't actually remember. It's really chunky as well, so it will be one of the snuggliest blankets ever made!

And finally, a bit of a play with a pretty yarn... it's sock weight, which I've never worked with before, but I've been wanting to try a virus shawl for a while, so this seemed like a good idea. And I'm ashamed to say that for all the pretties I own, this is actually my first time working with hand-dyed as well... I have many plans for the ones that I own, I promise, there will be more hand-dyed pretties posts coming in the (okay, maybe slightly distant) future.

And finally, for those of you who are sick to death of yarn posts, I'm hoping to get some stitching in this week. I'm currently debating the project I should be working on or the project I want to work on, but either way, hopefully there will be some stitches in my (not so distant) future!