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.

IHSW Recap

Thank you all for the kind and encouraging comments and welcome to my new followers.  I had a very relaxing weekend, which is probably what I needed more than anything, the stitching portion was just a huge plus.

We had our first official snowfall of the season considering how the rest of the winter has been, this will probably be our *only* snowfall.

We didn't get a lot, maybe 3" or 4", but it looks so pretty this morning

And the sky is the most amazing shade of blue

Unfortunately, it is supposed to be close to 50 F today and 70F by Thursday so it will all be gone in the next couple of days, but it snowed so my New England brain is finally content.  Some day I hope to get myself acclimated, I thought I was close this year but apparently not.

As you didn't come to an IHSW post to read about snow, here is what I stitched this weekend:

This

Snowgirls by Country Garden Stitchery
Stitched on Silkweaver's 28-county Mulberry Mix with Weeks Dye Works Threads

is Snowgirls from Country Garden Stitchery, as I mentioned in my previous post, this is a new to me designer and I really like the whimsy of the design.  I pulled the fabric from my stash I belonged to a Fabric of the Month a few years back and this was one of the pieces as the pattern called for Weeks Dye Works Light Khaki and I wanted the design to show a bit more.

My focus for the weekend was Secret Victorian Garden by Chatelaine.  This is my before:

And here is where I stopped last night:

Secret Victorian Garden by Chatelaine
Stitched on 32-county Carol's Meadow from Silkweaver's Fabrics with recommended Fibers and Beads

To accommodate my stitching style I turned the piece over so the bottom left in this photo is the upper right in the first photo.  The fabric is actually a very light green with hints of pink/purples, not beige or blue.  I was able to finish half of part nine and get a start on part 10.  I have today off it's President's Day here in the states, so I plan to continue with part 10.  As the last parts are divided by quarter, I will continue on to parts 11 and 12 before moving on to the bottom left.

I have also been contemplating my WIPocalypse plan.  As the idea is to finish things, I think that once I make one rotation through my list I will pick out two or three pieces to focus on and add the others in as I have finishes.  I do reserve the right to change my mind again, as I rather enjoying seeing a different project each week.

A Stitching Weekend

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend is this weekend if you're interested hope on over to Joyce's blog and not only is it my short week at work it's a holiday weekend to boot!  Four days of potential stitching time! I do have a few housework items to take care of, but by and large I am free to engage in a weekend of stitching I even planned slow cooker dinners, so little fuss and bother there.

Thank you everyone for the encouragement on Tree Farm I was very disappointed in myself for not focusing and getting more done and I appreciate your reminders that every piece starts with one stitch. 

Welcome to my new followers, I appreciate that you all take the time to stop by my corner of the blog world.  I am still working on my email issue, I thought I had it fixed but it still doesn't seem to be working, so for now I'll be doing my thank yous here.

Before I get started on my IHSW plans, here's what I worked on this last week:


Blue Ribbon Designs' Countdown to Christmas
Stitched on Lakeside Linen's 40-count Magnolia with Gentle Art Sampler Threads


Here's the before:

I will mention again, I am very glad that I have that magnifier - this would be thrown in the trash a UFO without it.

On my plan for this weekend is a new start tomorrow with Snowgirls from Country Garden Stitchery a new to me designer and the rest of the weekend will be spent on Secret Victorian Garden by Chatelaine.  I started it back when it was a mystery in 2007.  I kept up with it through June or July but that was the year I moved to Virginia and between packing, things being in storage, buying a house and moving in and then my available stitching time being greatly diminished I never finished it.  I have stitched on it a few times in the last five years, but it has been in hiding for a good two years. It will be nice to see it on the frame again.