December WIPocalypse

At least I'll make one SAL posting the end of the year!  This month has been a complete blur.  There was the holiday stuff, but my Dad had a health emergency on the 10th that is still playing out.  It necessitated a trip and stay in Michigan and possibly another one the end of this week.  He's recovering well from the initial problem (a perforated appendix) but developed some serious pressure sores on his heels which are complicating his recovery process.  Add to that the federal employee furlough and it's been a stressful month. 

So, in my last post I mentioned crafting - here's part of what I did for the holidays.

For my nephew, I made this shirt:

He's a research chemist so when I saw the design in Cricuit Design Space I knew I had to make it.

I did finish and get all three sets of Christmas ornaments finished and mailed out (and they were all delivered by the 1st of December so they really could be used for a countdown).  Here's the book that went along with the ornaments I showed in a previous post.  This is the cover (the decorator paper was perfect)

and here are the first two pages:

I made a bunch of Thanksgiving cards this year (two of each design) and really enjoyed working with a fall color scheme and some new die sets:

And I finished the Christmas cards: 

My parents have partridges that come around their house occasionally - they are no where near as colorful as this one. 

I also made two altered alarm clocks.  I didn't take a picture of either one, but here is the inspiration piece:


I plan to make several more of these in the future and will take a photo of at least one.

The Hubs and I had a quiet Christmas this year.  And the cats celebrated Boxing Day.  Well, Salem's version of Boxing Day:

As the last Sunday of the month/year, it's  time.  Melissa at Measi's Musings hosts WIPocalypse and will continue next year if you're interested.  One of the nice things about the SAL, other than it's emphasis on actually finishing things is that we are given questions or blog cues each month, this month's is Recap Your Accomplishments for the Year.  I'm not sure accomplishments is the best term for my stitching year.  I had fewer finishes than I've had in many years, although every finish is an accomplishment so I shouldn't complain too much.  To see a list of what I finished, look up in the tabs under the header picture for "Finishes".  As far as progress, there was some before my stitching world feel to pieces.  After that happened, I taught myself to crochet, then got involved in making Christmas ornaments, then holiday crafting and life.  My goals were to finish two pieces, neither was finished but there was progress.  The first was the Goldie stocking.  On January 1st, it was here:

and at the end of the last stitching round, it was here:

The second piece was Japanese Zen Garden by Chatelaine.  On January 1st, it was here:

and today it's here:

Next year's stitching plan isn't going to be too very different from this although I do have to finish up the baby announcement sampler which has seen some stitching time.  It went from here:

to here:

And of course, Jack will need a Christmas stocking although he doesn't seem to be too excited by that thought:
 

I appreciate all of you sticking around and reading my blog despite my erratic posting.  I do hope to get back into a regular schedule of it in 2019.

January WIPocalypse

It it's  it must be the end of the month.  WOW!  A weird month - one minute it feels like it flew by and the next it feels like it's been forever. 

No you're not seeing things there were two WIPocalypse posts this month.  Yesterday as the last Sunday of the month was the official check-in, the one the beginning of the month was a warm up and introduction.  If you haven't heard of it, WIPocalypse is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings and is a nice reminder to focus on those pieces we've already started rather than all those siren calls from the stash pile.  Each month Melissa gives us questions in case we can't think of anything to write about and also to get to know everyone.  This month's is: What SALs are you participating in this year? and if you are participating in the Olympic Stitching Challenge, what challenge are you accepting?  What are your goals? 

I can answer the second part of that question quickly - No. I am not participating in the Olympic Stitching Challenge.  I am doing obligation pieces this year again and I don't want to put extra pressure on myself.  I will be cheering all the participants on though.  As for SALs, I am not participating in any that are "release a part a month" although I am very tempted with the Guardians of Notre Dame SAL by Ingleside Imaginarium and will probably cave in a few months.  I am participating in several "let's stitch and post our progress" SALs.  WIPocalypse obviously but also:

• Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching
• TUSAL hosted by Sharon at It's Daffycat
• IHSW hosted Joysze at Random Ramblings and Jo on Facebook
• Smalls hosted by Heather at Lotus Stitching and
• Stitch from Stash on Facebook

You can get to all the groups, except Stitch from Stash, by clicking one of the badges on the left hand side at the top the page.  I've been doing all of these, more or less, successfully for years.  I tend to pick SALs that reinforce my stitching goals for that year.  Basically my stitching goals for the last six or seven years has been to reduce my WIPs.  I started with 28 and am down to 17.  I know that doesn't sound like much of a reduction but I have very limited stitching time, and there have been a few starts in there, so I am very pleased.

Now that I've thoroughly answered that question - progress photos! As I mentioned, I am only working on three pieces this year:

Japanese Zen Garden by Chatelaine.  On January 1st it was here:

and today it's here:

It is stitched on 32-count Summer Sky Jobelan with Martina's DMC conversion.  The package containing my PTB is still "on it's way to destination" I could have driven to Michigan and back faster than it's being delivered so no sparkle for another week.

Goldie Christmas Stocking charted by Heaven and Earth Designs:

January 1st:

And when it went on the frame this evening

This one is stitched on 25-county Antique White Lugana with DMC.  I am stitching 1 over 1.  It is also the most progress I have ever had on HaED in a month's time.  Hoping I can keep up the pace.

And finally, The Sampler Life SAL piece despite the name I didn't count this in my SAL list as the actual SAL was finished almost two years ago:

Good Bye 2017

2017 was a year of big occasions in my family.  The year started with a surgery (my gallbladder removal) and ended with one (The Hubs had his rotator cuff repaired on Thursday).  In between, my parents celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary, DSon moved from Vermont to Michigan and started a new job, DNephew and DNiece were both married, DSis and DBIL celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and The Hubs' niece announced her engagement.  Phew! I'm ready for a bit of a rest.

As it's the end of December as well as the end of the year, it's time for the final  check-in for 2017.  WIPocalypse is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings and is a personal challenge, not a contest, to stay on goal and finish some of those WIPs that most of us have hanging around.  She gives us topics each month for discussion and December's is to recap what we've done through the year.  This is going to be long and picture heavy.  

So for 2017....  I had the same number of finishes, 12, that I had last year.  You can see all my finishes in the tab labeled "Finishes" but I am going to show them here too.  You can see all my small finishes in my last post those I'm not going to reshow.

So first up was wedding samplers. I finished To Have and To Hold Bridal Sampler and Sentimental Hearts both by The Sweetheart Tree.  There are changes made to both samplers - mostly color changes on To Have and To Hold  but a little bit of chart reworking as the names were a bit longer than would fit.  A verse and names were added to Sentimental Hearts.



To Have and To Hold

Sentimental Hearts



After the wedding samplers, I moved onto a Christmas stocking, A Glimpse of Santa from Stoney Creek:

And around those finishes, I also had Winter Wonderland from The Silver Needle which was my first finish of the year and Snowgirls from Country Garden Stitchery:

Winter Wonderland

Snowgirls

I had progress on my Heaven and Earth Design projects.

Shakespearean Fantasy

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

Santa and the Mouse

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

and It's About Time

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

The Enchantment of Winter was a new start:

And Santa's Magic made an unexpected appearance in December.

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

I finished his beard with about 5" of Wisper thread left - if anybody is keeping track it will take more than two cards of Wisper White to finish this piece.  Rather than put in another order for a thread that I didn't really like stitching with, I made an executive decision that any other areas that were charted for Wisper would be done in plain old DMC white.  If I were to do it again, I would probably use B5200 for the charted white and white for the charted Wisper.  I think that would give just enough shade difference to keep it from looking flat.  I got my order of Kreinik in today's mail, but I won't be pulling this one out until I finish my two obligation pieces.

After putting Santa away, I pulled out Japanese Zen Garden.  Yes, it's a little early to start my 2018 rotation, but it kept calling.  It went from here:

To here:

I needed the green border to hold those gold swirls in place.  As they are off center I kept thinking I was off on my count.  Now that everything is neatly contained it is going much better.  I had planned to work on this all day today, but my phone's battery has been acting up (not holding a charge, heating up while charging, etc.) and today was the first appointment I could get.  Word of advice - do NOT go to an Apple store at anytime around Christmas - it was mobbed.  Between the waiting and the fixing and the grocery store my afternoon was shot. I am not planning on going anywhere tomorrow so there should be more swirly bits by tomorrow night.

So those are my finishes and progress for 2017.  I will be participating in WIPocalypse in 2018 and will be back in a week or so to post my goals and hopefully show some progress on Zen and Goldie.

A Small December check-in

Before I forget, I found this post on the 123 Stitch message board regarding the AMAZING piece I showed in my last post:   it was stitched by Kathy Meyers, and this is what she wrote:
"This is my Christmas cross stitch that I made by combining several cross stitch patterns from Lavender & Lace, Teresa Gil and Country Cottage Needleworks and various other designs I had in my stash. It has been framed by Jill & Amber of Rensel studios and I couldn't be happier with it! It is being shipped home to me in time for Christmas decorating!" Someone asked if the framed bell on the wall was from Sweetheart Tree, and Kathy replied that it was. So the mystery is solved.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday - ours was quiet.  I got some stitching goodness this year.  My parents gave me these: 

The ones on the left are The Drawn Thread's Simply Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall with the threads for one of them (can't remember which one) but the colors are repeated in the others.  The one on the right is a Dimension's kit called Maggie the Messmaker (I'm assuming it's referring to the cat in the middle of the design and not me!).  I am going to stitch the seasons as one piece and have found a piece of Vintage Pearled Barley from Lakeside Linens in my stash that will work very nicely.  The Hubs gave me well, we gave me a stitching trip to Camp Stitchalot Stitchers Retreat hosted by Stitches 'n Things in March.  The timing worked out perfectly as The Hubs should be just about healed from his shoulder surgery all is a go for tomorrow and I will NEED the time away anyone that has spent any time with him when he's not feeling well will understand ;-).  I am already planning which pieces to take with me and am very excited as I've never been to a stitching retreat.  When I lived in New Hampshire I went to Celebration of Needlework but it was always a day trip - I've never been to "sleep over camp".

Today is the last check in for

 

I started out the year gang-busters with this SAL but July came along and I fizzled out and didn't post again until November. I did manage to finish seven smalls this years:

Just Nan - Florentine Floral

Just Nan - Holly Bow

Just Nan - Kari's Snowflake

Purple and Gold Corner

Circles

Tiny Tiger

Carnation

I am hoping to get back into a rotation in 2018 and that will include a small stitching slot.  I have my pieces picked out and everything ready to go see at the top about The Drawn Thread pieces.  If you're interested in  click on the badge here or the one up top on the left and it will should take you to Stitching Lotus' page and all the information you need.  As I am focusing on two large pieces, I am looking forward to this SAL as it will give me some variety and hopefully finishes.

SAL check-ins

I'm home!  The training I did last week went well (or at least I think it went well, haven't seen the evaluations yet).  There were only two problem "children" but my training partner and I figured them out pretty quick and kept them under control.

As I mentioned in my last post, no new stitching happened this week, but I do have four SALs that have check-ins this weekend, so new words, old pictures.

The first is .  Sharon at It's Daffycat hosts TUSAL and everyone is welcome to participate. TUSAL is not your usual SAL.  SAL typically means "stitch along" whereas TUSAL is a "save along".   All those end bits of thread, dogears from quilting and whatever other loose bits you have when crafting get saved in a container of some sort, you take a photo and post about it on the new moon. Super simple and it doesn't really take any special preparation or supplies either.

A chunk of this is frog fuzz from Sentimental Hearts but the majority is bits from Winter Wonderland. 

And speaking of Winter Wonderland,  it is my finish for the .  The 2017 Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus.  This is another straight forward SAL - stitch a small piece and post a picture of your finish on the last Friday of the month.  You get to define small and you just have to finish the stitching not finish-finish it.

Here's my January small finish again:

This is Winter Wonderland from The Silver Needle's Secret Needle Night.

The third check-in is for .  Melissa at Measi's Musings hosts this SAL.  It focuses on finishing some of those works-in-progress that you may have sittings around.  Up there at the top you can find a tab that lists out my WIPocalypse projects.  I worked on three of them this month.

Santa and the Mouse started the new year here:

and went to here in January:

Enchantment of Winter was a blank piece of fabric on January 1st.  It ended the month here:

And here are Shakespearean Fantasy's before and after photos:

Melissa also gives us conversation starters each month.  This month's is:  What SALs are you participating in this year?  I am currently doing the three that are in this post, WIPocalypse, TUSAL and Smalls as well as Gifted Gorgeousness.  IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) is on the list, when I can remember and I am doing (so far unsuccessfully) Stitch From Stash on Facebook.  I am always open to new SALs, but have cut back drastically from years past as I tend to over-commit myself.

Speaking of Stitch from Stash, here's my report on that.

Budget:   $10.00
Purchase:  15.50 - The 12 Berries of Christmas (colly birds, golden rings and geese a-laying)
Balance: ($ 5.50)

Not a good month.  $10 USD would normally be plenty, but when I set my budget amount I forgot about the auto-ship for the berries.  Fortunately, the balances, good and bad, carry forward so on February 1st I will be back in the black.  There is a provision to give yourself credit for finishes and if I did that, I think I would have been even for the month, but as the finishes don't generate real money, it really doesn't balance out the real money I am spending.