Finish It In...2019 - Check In Post for April, TUSAL, and More

 

Welcome to the fourth Finish It In... 2019 post for the year! In this post I'll show you what I've been up to since the last post (except for the still secret stuff), and I have a few additional things I'm adding too for a big all in one post as it doesn't take much more time to add extra information to this post and it all seems to go together seamlessly. Please note that this post is seriously picture heavy so if you are using a mobile device don't open it unless you are on Wi-Fi

Not sure what a TUSAL is? Click the picture!

First I'm going to start by showing you my ORTs - the bits of thread that get cut off and usually thrown away.

It's pretty full this time, but then it is two months of ORTs as the last time I emptied it was February 5th. That means that in here are the projects that you can see in my March Finish It In... 2019 post, what you can see below, AND all of the April SAL stuff that I have already stitched in preparation for the post. I have been pretty busy!

Just how busy you can see above (click to enlarge) I started using the Timesheet app (thanks to Leonore and Carla) on the 9th of March so what you see above is only 23 days of stitching. I stitched an average of 3.47 hours a day every day apparently, though I did take a few days off in between all of it. As you can see with some things I'm well ahead of schedule, especially the Ornaments of the Month for this year as I can't cut the ornaments out till I have the next two stitched due to only having *just* enough fabric if I stitch them 10 stitches apart.

I have used tags to combine things of the same SAL or project together. Green tags are Friday releases, blue tags are Tuesday releases, while the Yellow is for the Spring Mystery SAL, and the pale purple is for the ornaments I'm making for my fiancé's daughters. The 50 x 50 really eats time but then if I stitch both versions of the pattern that's 2500 stitches so it's not all that surprising.

Now on to what I actually stitched last month that I can show you! I'll also show you the things I stitched in February but couldn't show you last time due to the patterns not being released yet.

Having seen how many hours I stitched you will not be surprised that I made lots of progress in my older Finish It In... 2019 projects.

2018 Ornament of the Month:

Last time you saw them they looked like this - cut out and ready for assembly for the most part...

Before

After

Now the February, March, and April square ornaments are finish finished. The February triangle ornament is also finish finished but I'm not so happy with how it came out, it was more difficult to put together than expected and it ended up somewhat curved towards the bottom - not a good look! I'm going to be rethinking how I can do the triangles so they are on hold for now. My plan is to continue working on the rest of the square ornaments and hopefully have them all finished by Christmas. I still need to stitch January and May to December.

2015 Ornament of the Month:

I don't have a before picture of this, nor was I planning on doing anything with them yet but I found one ornament that only needed finish finishing so I did

This is the October 2015 Pink Tourmaline ornament done in orange with the border of the yearlong frame added. I used DMC 720 and 721 to stitch it. For the finishing I used orange seed beads of unknown origin and some drop beads for on the tassel. I still have 7 of the 2015 ornaments to stitch, some in the garland size and some, like this one, with the extra border added. I hope to make some progress on completing this series.

Girlies Ornaments:

Last time you saw the Girlies ornaments I was close to finishing the backstitching on the ornament. I have since completed the stitching and finish finished the ornament so that's one down of the three I have to make!

Front (December 2015 Ornament of the Month)

Back

My plan is to start the next one and hopefully finish it by the summer.

NYE Mystery SAL:

There is no change for this one, I still need to make a back and finish finish it.

Ornament of the month:

Last time I could only show you the January and March ornaments this time I can add the February ornament to the list! The April ornament is also completely finished but.. I can't show you that yet as I don't release the pattern till Friday. At least you don't have to wait long for this one!

Left to right: March and January

February

Mamluk SAL:

Unfortunately all I can show you is the picture I showed last month as I forgot to take a picture of this before stitching the April section of the SAL. The photo I used on my blog post was made by the lovely Carla who did a bit of serious heroing and stitched the March part in less than 30 minutes from the moment I asked for help.

Medieval Owl:

You may remember that I stitched August and September parts so that people concerned about the colours used could see them in stitched form before starting. After that I headed down and stitched the April part so that I could work my way down to the border and do that without risking miscounting as we went down. Now that the March part is released I am able to show you that, as well as the January and February parts since I went ahead and stitched those too!

August, September, and April

January and February borders added, March also stitched.

Blackwork SAL:

Like with the Mamluk SAL I forgot to make a photo of what I'd stitched for March before moving on to the April pattern so no new photo this month. The photo I used on my blog post was made by the lovely Carla who did a bit of serious heroing and stitched the March part for me shortly after finishing the March Mamluk SAL!

January and February

50 x 50 for 2019:
This one hasn't always been going so well for me but then although it's a small pattern doing both versions is still 2500 stitches per pattern so it's not too surprising that I can't always manage it. January still looks the same as it did last time so I'm not going to add it here. Last month I was able to show you the February finish, this time I can show you the March finish - to save time I only stitched the main pattern, not the alternate version. I have already stitched and finished the April patterns but I can't show them yet.

March 50 x 50 for 2019

25 x 25 for 2019:
Last month I showed you the finished 25 x 25... this month I can show you yet another finished one! I only stitched one side this time and left the other side blank. I have already stitched and finished the April pattern but I can't show it yet.

March 25 x 25 for 2019

Friday Freebie:
This month I made a very special Friday freebie - and I stitched it too! You can read all about it and the inspiration here where you will also find the pattern. It's 50 x 50 stitches so 2500 stitches total - and I made eighteen tassels for it too! I only needed seventeen in the end but still... that's a lot of tassels to make! I also made a pattern for a bookmark for this so if you are a bookmark stitcher you know to look for it in the post mentioned above.

NFSAL:
I haven't stitched the April one yet, it's due to be released on Deviant Art on Saturday and on my blog next week Thursday - I'm not sure I'll have time.

The Blue and Yellow Hexagon Crochet Blanket:
I have not had time to work on this project this month, hopefully I'll get a little more done soon.

Spring Mystery SAL:
I can finally show a bit of this for this blog post, although I have finished stitching the front I can and will only show you the first pre-stitch as the rest will be revealed starting April 19th.

Part 1

If you haven't heard about the Spring Mystery SAL yet you can read all about it here. Pre-stitch part 1 is here and pre-stitch part 2 (not shown yet) is here

Then I went and signed up for the TeamKLT VS TeamJodyri challenge - Yes I know crazy with my workload already to take something else on but I thought it would be fun! It not only gave me a new start but helped me actually get round to re-organising my desk as the day two challenge was to show a picture of your workspace... which was almost invisible under all the not yet cleared away paperwork and projects.

This is Shannon Wasilieff's Midnight Sail that I started as my day one new start. Of course being me I had to go and so something more complicated than stitch the moon. I decided it would be amazing done using glow in the dark fabric! So I backstitched the shape of the moon onto glow in the dark fabric and cut that out, then I found where the moon goes on the fabric (Jodyri Designs Indian Ink) and stitched a moon shape there too. Then I cut a HOLE IN THE FABRIC (!) and I whip stitched the two together. Then I started stitching using Jodyri Designs Nevermore thread. I miscounted fairly early on so ended up ripping a chunk out too.

And this is my Nerd Central Command. The rack to the left is new and holds all of my SAL's (I made sure no sneak peeks were possible, sorry) To the right I have glasses and a jar for putting threads and beads into that I've finished with but haven't posted about yet so I can double check which colours I used etc. when I make the post. In front of them is the scissor rack that my youngest son made during woodworking class - it's supposed to be a pen holder but this is so much more useful for my scissors! Behind my screen I keep my printer so it's not taking up desk space that I need as I don't use it much and there is plenty of space for it there. On top of it I keep the document holder that I use with magnets when I'm working on a paper chart so I don't lose my place.

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Now it's your turn! Make a blog post if you blog, make a vlog/flosstube, a post on Instagram or Facebook and make sure I at least can see what you have stitched in the last month!  If you blog or vlog please put a link below - it will be fun to see what you have stitched and who knows... you may gain a larger audience in the process! Not sure how it works? Check out the overview post!

There is now a Facebook group just for this project so you don't have to wait till the first Wednesday of the month to share your progress on a project that isn't something I designed. You are encouraged to start your own photo album in the group so it's easy to see your progress between postings of each project. Members of my main group are automatically accepted others will need to be approved first. You can find the group here
 
I'll see you Friday for the April Ornament of the Month!