January WIPocalpyse, Snowzilla and a finish

Do you remember this picture from a couple weeks ago?    It is now under this somewhere  . The press has dubbed the storm Snowzilla.  It is very hard to tell how much we've had as it is blowing and drifting.  See that opening in the upper left of the picture?  That's where the driveway heads down to the road.  A few minutes before I took the picture, you couldn't see it because of the blowing snow.  Just north of here and into Washington, DC and Maryland are in the main path of the snow and wind with upwards of 2' of snow predicted.  Now for those of you in the snowier climes, please give us all a break as we don't have the equipment to deal with a storm of this size, so we'll be slower to recover than you would.  I suspect I will be working from home Monday and Tuesday, but the road crews may surprise me and get to my road before then. 

But you came to read abut  (and yes, I am a day early).  WIPocalypse has been hosted since 2012 by Melissa at Measi's Musings.  The link for 2016 hasn't been set up but I don't believe anything will have changed from last year. No real rules, other than sign-up anytime, make a list of what you would like to make progress on (adjust as necessary through the year) and post about it on the full moon (or thereabouts).  Very low stress.  My WIPocalypse list is posted up top in the tab titled, "WIPocalypse Project List and 2016 Stitching Plan".  I do have to work one more project into my rotation as I told The Hubs that I would have Secret Victorian Garden finished in time to enter into the state fair this year.  So far my stitching plan seems to be working.  I put another 200 stitches into Its About Time:

I would have done more, but I pulled a couple of my wool sweaters from storage and remembered that they had holes in them, so used my needle for darning/mending rather than stitching.  Shakespearean Fantasy got another 360 stitches added last night:

Only 340 more to finish the challenge. I don't even dare think about how many more to finish the piece. 

Speaking of finishes - I have my first of the year.

This is Marc's Samplerlife Rose.  It was designed by Marc Saastad of The Silver Lining for The Sampler Life SAL.  I made a counting error and am off by a half stitch, but by the time I found it, I was too far along to rip it out and start over.   Now that December's entry is done, I will start January's tomorrow which is Welcome Spring from Jardin Prive. 

On the frame for today and tomorrow is Just Nan's Christmas Soldiers

There is a bit of backstitching and beading to be done for this section to be finished and I should have that done this afternoon, then on to the body of the stocking.

If you're still working on your stitching plans for the year, check out the Joyful World SAL at The Snowflower Diaries.  I am saving the patterns but have, so far, fought the urge to start this very cute piece.

January Gifted Gorgeousness

My stitching plan has worked well so far this year - I know it's only a couple of weeks in, but my plans usually fall apart in the early stages of execution - although I had a couple of instances of, "but I don't want to stop stitching on this one!" early, I was able to convince myself that since I will see it again soon, I could stop and put it up for the next one.

Yesterday was the check-in day for  and I had the day off so I could have posted on time BUT The Hubs had a root canal and ten fillings replaced on Thursday so I was busy trying not to throttle him convincing him that it was *not* the worst pain ever in the history of the world making sure he took his pain meds, antibiotics and ate something.  He seems to be better today or maybe he's just not complaining as much (*that* I doubt very much!!!).

Anyway, Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching and is a very low stress SAL that lets us thank those that gifted us with some stitching item by showing them that we are using their gift or showing folks what we are stitching to gift someone or as Jo put in her post this month, "anything you have which was a gift from someone or is going to be a gift for someone is eligible".  She also gives us a shoehorn category for those pieces we can make fit.  For the foreseeable future, every piece I stitch will fit this SAL, it's just that type of year.  If you're interested in joining up or just seeing what it's all about, the badge in this post should be clickable, but if it doesn't work, the one on the left sidebar does.

First up is Just Nan's Christmas Soldiers.  This is a gift for DNiece's boyfriend. I finished one more tree and have most of the second soldier done now.

Stitched on 28-count Platinum Cashel with DMC and Kreinik

It is very strange stitching on this piece after working on the HAEDs in my rotation - 2-over-2 stitches look HUGE after all the over-1 I have been doing.

Next is Shakespearean Fantasy designed by James Christensen and charted by HAED.  The pattern was gifted to me by Pull the Other Thread and was my January 2015 start. 

Stitched 1-over-1 on 28-count Antique White Jobelan with DMC

Ummmm, Susan what are you doing?, I can hear you saying.  Well, HAED is running six challenges this year on their Facebook page and the first is to stitch 1,000 stitches, in blocks of ten, diagonally.  As the last page of the first row of this chart is 100% black, I decided it would be a good page to do the different challenges on.  Because of the page break, there is a column two stitches wide, so the upper left block is 12X10 as I was not going to leave a strip of two stitches.

I was able to put another 300 stitches into Its About Time by Ciro Marchetti and charted by HAED.  Kate from Needles and Haystacks gifted me this chart.  This piece is giving me a very different stitching experience from Shakespearean Fantasy in that I am into colors and design immediately rather than huge blocks of background color.  I know SF will get much more colorful as I move down rows and that keeps me going on it.

Stitched 1-over-1 on 28-count Antique White Jobelan with DMC

My next two pieces are shoehorns as they are freebies from the designer and, therefore, I am saying a gift. 

QS Christmas Presence by Myles Pinkney and charted by HAED was one of the 2015 HAED freebie stitching challenge pieces on their YUKU board. I am making steady if not stellar progress on this one and had another 200 stitches into it this week. 

Stitched 1-over-1 on 28-count Antique White Jobelan with DMC

And finally, The Sampler Life SAL is still rolling along and designers are still donating blocks.  The block for December was done by Mark Saastad of The Silver Lining and is called Marc's Samplerlife Rose.  I have finished the cross stitching of the rose and just need to do the leaves and backstitching.

Stitched on 32-count Vintage Light Examplar from Lakeside Linens with DMC

The Just Nan piece is on the frame for the rest of today and tomorrow afternoon with Marc's rose up for tomorrow morning.  Monday is a holiday (at least for the banks and Federal government employees) so I am not sure if I will continue with the Just Nan or make it a free day and stitch whatever catches my fancy.

There has been stitching!!

Huh, January 9th already? So much for my "post to blog more often" resolution...  Winter is usually the time when I get inside things done, including most of my stitching, but this winter?  Well as someone said, we've had a wonderful spring this winter.  I have these

 blooming all over my yard right now. Yes, that's a dandelion!  There are also some other wildflowers blooming and I noticed that my daylilies are sending up new shoots and my rose bushes have buds on them.  We've had lots of wet weather and with the ground not frozen, it's soaking in so the well is very happy, but it just isn't right.  I am definitely in a waiting-for-the-shoe-dropping mode, I just don't see it staying like this all winter.  If it does it will be the first winter in AGES (maybe ever) that I haven't seen at least a snow flurry.

 

I have fought off the feeling that I should be working outside and started breaking in my new stitching chair (The Hubs gave me a gift card to Amazon for Christmas and I used it for a new desk chair).  Maybe it's the new chair, but I have been more productive the last couple of weeks than I have been in a long while.  I have three column finishes on my Heaven and Earth Design pieces.  Christmas Presence 

 

Its About Time

 



and Shakespearean Fantasy

 

Yes, still a big black block, but it's a larger big black block



All of the HAEDs are being stitched on 28 count antique white Jobelan 1 over 1 with DMC threads.  After we win more than a dollar or two in the lottery, I am going to have a pattern converted to silk.  DMC is a wonderful thread but there are a couple of patterns that I think would be amazing done in silk.

 

I also had some non-HAED progress,   I started Just Nan's Christmas Soldiers stocking on January 1st and after an afternoon of stitching, it was here:

 

 

This is stitched on 28-count cream Cashel with DMC, Kreinik and the included Just Nan embellishments. The pattern calls for Caron Impressions for the trees but I missed it in the thread list when I placed my order and didn't have any in my stash so I replaced it with Thread Gatherers Silk 'n Colors Dark Forest.  This is on my afternoon/evening stitch for today and tomorrow.

 

I also made progress on The Sampler Life block from December.  Marc Saastad of The Silver Lining contributed Marc's Samplerlife Rose to the piece.

 

Stitched on 32-count Vintage Light Exampler from Lakeside Linens with DMC thread

 

I am not 100% sure on this one as the colors just don't seem to go together, but it is probably one of those pieces that needs the backstitching done to make sense.  I will probably add a backstitch border around this one to make it a block.  I am looking forward to starting the January block, Welcome Spring, from Jardin Prive as I have never stitched a piece from that company.

 

I have a chicken in the slow cooker (THIS has become my go to for recipes that call for cooked chicken - thanks  Melissa) and will be making chicken-corn chowder later today, but until then - stitching.

 

And before I forget!  It's  

 time.  I am actually a day early, but it is nice starting the year caught up on my SAL posts.  Daffycat hosts this SAL and if you want low stress, this is the SAL for you.  Just keep all those little bits of thread you cut off, can't use or would otherwise throw away and save them.  Once a month, on the new moon, post a photo.  Super simple right?  Some people are very artsy with their photos.  Me? Not so much.  Here is my January TUSAL photo:

 

 

This is Trouble looking perturbed that I interrupted her bird watching.  Not a lot in there but, in addition to it being the beginning of the year, Spot knocked the jar off the table earlier today and I am not sure I got all the little bits.

 



December Smalls Check-in

My final SAL check-in of 2015 is for . A thank you to Heather at Stitching Lotus for hosting this SAL and continuing it into 2016.  If you are interested in participating, click on the 2016 button on the left and it should take you to the sign-up page. If it doesn't, click here.  I have said it before, but if it weren't for this SAL, I would have very few finishes each year.

All of my finishes can be seen in the "Finishes" tab up top.  I had been using The Sampler Life SAL blocks as my Smalls SAL pieces, but this month decided to focus on Plum Street Samplers 2015 Sunday Mystery SAL instead. Like The Sampler Life, the motifs for the mystery SAL could be stitched as individual ornaments/pieces.  I had toyed with the idea of individual pieces, but I am even worse at finishing-finishing things than I am at finishing the stitching so gave that idea up quickly.  So, as of right now, I am here:

This is still on the frame as I plan to do a bit of stitching while watching this afternoon/evening's football games. I will continue with this piece as my Smalls SAL piece until finished and then back to The Sampler Life pieces.

I did a bit more on Christmas Presence yesterday. I got tired of the parked threads of page 4 (bottom right) getting in my way, so concentrated on getting as many of them done as I could. I ended up going cross country with them, but the majority of them are finished and out of the way. I then worked on the next column of page 2.  When I put him away last night, he was here:

 

It is fun to see this piece in a photo.  Because I stitch this under a magnifying lamp, I only see scattered stitches and bits of color that really don't make a lot of sense, but when I step away and take a photo, there is a glove or a coat sleeve and all the color bits make sense. Santa will be on the frame soon as I would like to finish the column.

 

 

December WIPocalypse

It's a few days late, but as the topic for this  check-in is to recap our 2015 stitching accomplishments, it gave me a few extra days to stitch - which didn't happen but it was a good thought.

2015 was a good stitching year.  I had 18 finishes, mostly smalls, but given the limited stitching time I have, it is quite a lot.  All of my finishes can be seen in the tab above titled Finishes (catchy isn't it?).  I put a list of WIPocalypse projects together about this time last year, unfortunately, there will not be much difference in my 2016 list. From the list, I had two finishes:

Holly and Hearts Sampler by Lizzie*Kate

and Spring in the Air by Just Nan

I had some progress on all the others on my list:

Mirabilia's Santa's Magic went from here:



 to here: 

Elegant Doily by Kayann's Kreations was here on January 1st:



and here when I put it up last: 

Secret Victorian Garden started the year here:

 and ended it here:



Shakespearean Fantasy and Christmas Presence from Heaven and Earth Designs were blank pieces of fabric the beginning of the year and are here today:

 

I kept up with my rotation fairly well this year.  The last couple of months have been "stitch what I want when I want" and very relaxing, but I can feel the rotation calling again, so will most likely start it up after the first of the year.  I also did better than expected with my SALs and checking in - well I did until the end of August when they started to get away from me.  I have pared back the SALs for 2016 to a much more manageable three (if you are interested in participating in any of them, the badges at the top of the page should be clickable and will take you to the respective pages). 

I have this week off from work and have a stitching plan worked out (which I have already deviated from) which could have me finishing one or two more smalls and making some progress on Secret Victorian Garden; however, I will not be too upset if I don't. I do have a new start planned for January 1st, Just Nan's Christmas Soldiers stocking, and have several other pieces that I will be starting throughout the year, or I may start them all in January and create a rotation around them, or something else will come to me in the next couple of days and throw this all out the window.  This is the first year in a long time that I have not had a solid stitching plan in place this close to the new year and I am not sure if that is good or bad.  I suppose as long as I am stitching it doesn't really matter. 

I hope you all had an enjoyable and productive stitching year and that 2016 will bring more of the same.

December Gifted Gorgeousness

It's  time again.  Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching and serves several functions. First of all, it lets us thank the generous folks that have gifted us something stitching related - patterns, thread, fabric, etc. and it also lets us highlight the pieces that we are stitching as gifts.  And the best part is the "shoehorn" category - that one lets us put on our justification hats and tell the world why it fits this SAL.

Soooo, I have two pieces that fit perfectly, Shakespearean Fantasy and Its About Time. Both of these patterns were gifted to me by the very generous Pull the Other Thread and Kate at Needle and Haystacks respectively.

Shakespearean Fantasy looks like this today:

 

And Its About Time looks like this:

Right now, I don't have any pieces that fit into "gifts I am stitching" category, but I will in 2016.  I do have two pieces that I am shoehorning in as they are freebies from the designers and are, in my mind, gifts.  The first is QS Christmas Presence.  He was part of the 2015 Freebie SAL on the Heaven and Earth Designs Yuku bulletin board.  I have put a few more stitches into him since I last showed you. Today he looks like this:

All those ratty ends on the right are the starting of threads for the10X10 square that I finished - very heavy confetti stitching.  The next couple of squares are not as confetti heavy so should stitch up much faster.

The second shoehorn is Plum Street Samplers, 2015 Sunday Mystery SAL. I am slowly but surely working through each day and have it to here now:

I have stitched "Sixth Day" in the next block, but that's all.  I doubt I will have this finished for Christmas but may by Twelfth Night. Thinking on it, as I am stitching this with thread won in a give-away at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe, I think this one actually fits into the "perfect fit" category and not the shoehorn.

As I mentioned, I plan to reduce my SAL commitments in 2016, but this is one that I plan to continue with.

Well, the time went somewhere...

I am unsure how it got to be the middle of December, but here we are.  I missed a couple of SAL check-ins, again, but will not try to make them up, will just have a fail for the year for a couple of them. I took the first week of December off to do all my baking and crafty Christmas things.  I am happy to say I finished everything.  DSon texted to say he got his boxes and was binging on cookies (I send all but a couple of each cookie to him - they look much better on him then they do on me!!). I still have to get the cards in envelopes and mailed, but they are made. I went a bit outside my usual for the cards but enjoyed designing and making them. Here's a not very good photo of a finished one (and the mess that is my crafting area - also known as the dining room table):

Unfortunately, not a lot of stitching happened during my time off or this past week.  My focus piece has been Plum Street Samplers 12 Days mystery. I managed to get it from here:

to here:

The first photo is closer in color to the piece even though the second one was taken in natural light.  Oh well, DSon is the photographer in the family not me. I am using Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe's threads for the first time on this and like the subtle variation in color. I am having an issue with tangles, but I think it's more an issue of my thread being too long (user error) rather than an actual issue with the thread.

We are having ridiculously warm weather.  We're supposed to be near 70 F (21C) today with no major cold snaps predicated - it's great for my electric bill as the heat hasn't kicked on in several days, but it's not doing much for my holiday spirit. Looking out the window, there are still large patches of green in the yard and a flock of about 50 robins (that's the American version, which bears very little resemblance to the European variety) just flew in - they're about six weeks early. 

I am still puttering around with my stitching plans for next year.  I will be cutting back on the number of SALs I sign up for if that sounds familiar, I said the same thing last year about this time, and will be doing some major project changes in my rotation to get the promised Christmas stockings finished for next Christmas and try to get a little ahead on the wedding piece stitching, but for this weekend, I think I will work on Christmas Presence  and the 12 Days sampler.