Smalls, Progress and WIPocalypse

I had another productive stitching week, not like last week, but given the last few year's output, I am very happy.  I am still trying to figure out what has caused the sudden return of my stitching mojo, but am not looking too hard for fear of scaring it away.

So two check-ins this post,  and . 

WIPocalypse is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings and you can find out all about it and sign up by clicking the link or icon up on the left.  Basically, it's a reminder that we should love and maybe even finish the projects we have started rather than looking for something new all the time.  Melissa gives us topics for discussion each month (they are not mandatory so don't hold back joining up because of them) and this month's is:  If you have any pieces on display in your home, which attracts the most plaudits?  I have quite a lot of stitching up in my home, but we don't have many visitors, so none of them really garner a lot of attention.  This one gets lots of comments when people do see her.  Lavender & Lace's Lady of the Thread. 

She is stitched on 18-count black Aida.  I worked on this at work during my lunch break and finished her in 1996.  The frame was an unfinished one I got on clearance at a box craft store.  I bought a DIY gold leafing kit and went to work.  I think this may have been one of my first large frame-it-myself pieces.

On to more current stitching.  Up at the top is a tab with my WIPocalypse pieces and my stitching plan.  I am currently stitching on three pieces on the list: Shakespearean Fantasy; Christmas Presence; and Secret Victorian Garden.

No surprise to those that have been reading my blog for a while, but I stitched more black on Shakespearean Fantasy. This goes back on the frame this evening so I should have a column finish and will be bit further than half through page 2.

Christmas Presence is still here:

but he go on the frame as soon as I finish this post, so there will be some progress this afternoon.

And Secret Victorian Garden is in the homestretch for a stitching finish:

I should be able to finish the border tomorrow afternoon.  After the stitching is finished there are almost 2,000 beads, bi-cones, cubes and other sparklies to add for a finish-finish.  This will teach me to bead as I go!

The next SAL check-in is for the .  Heather at Stitching Lotus hosts this one and it is dedicated to, as the name implies, stitching small pieces.  You get to decide what a small is.  Mine are all 50X50 stitches as I am using the blocks from The Sampler Life SAL as my smalls entry.

I finished Welcome Spring for this SAL 

 and started 50*50 by Susanne Schmidt Farbenfroh

 

I'm not sure why that right corner is wonky but it isn't like that one the frame.  Anyway, this is a pick-your-own thread piece and I am using DMC 4215.  I am trying something different and stitching in a spiral towards the center. 

 

And last but not least a project that doesn't fit either SAL but did have more progress Its About Time.

 

 I am averaging about 300 stitches each session on this one and this week was no different.  I love all the detail in this piece.  I just need to work out a way to better measure over two squares for my starting and stopping threads.  Something to think on while I'm stitching all that black this evening.