First Post of 2015

I love blog reading this time of year - it is great to see what everyone accomplished in 2014 and their plans for 2015 - it is inspiring and enabling at the same time. I always see something that I haven't seen before and of course I just *have* to have it! Fortunately, Stitch From Stash started yesterday, so I am held in check for a while.

I have joined a couple SALs, A New Stitchy Start and Crossed Stitches' 2015 HAP SAL, that ask us to show our starting point on January 1st. Well I missed the 1st but where I am today is pretty much where I was yesterday. For the majority of my current pieces, you can see their current state in the "WIPocalypse & YOTA Project List and 2015 Stitching Plan" tab up top; however, Shakespearean Fantasy only shows the cover photo, so here is where it was yesterday:

Yes, I am still gridding. The piece is HUGE (450X867) with lots of confetti stitching, so gridding made sense, but it has taken a while. No, I don't have any time estimate as I do a bit here and there as I can and a few hours each night (thank goodness for audio books as watching TV is out). To try to keep some order, the vertical threads are wound, by page, on bobbins. I do a side bar's length at a time and then do the horizontal ones. In a previous post I showed the piece with all the marking pins:

The ones across the top worked perfectly; however, the ones along the side just got in the way, so out came all the yellow ones. I left in the blue (page length) ones that were contained within the area. That worked perfectly and also gave a very doable goal. I have found the whole process very relaxing and should have the gridding done this afternoon and hopefully some actual stitches in tonight.