background

Monday, December 30, 2013

Ornament Check-in and a Year in Review (a bit early)

Despite me initial doubts, I did it!!  I managed to stitch twelve ornaments this year as part of Stitching Lotus' Ornament SAL.  I did stumble a bit and not finish one in September but I made up for it by finishing two in November.  You can see all my ornament finishes in the 2013 Ornaments tab.  So without further yakking about it, here is my final ornament for 2013:

1999 Schooler Santa from The Prairie Schooler.  Stitched on an unknown 28-count blue evenweave with called for DMC.
I left out the backstitching on the front of the coat as I did not like the look, but I think it turned out okay without it.

So my slightly early recap of my 2013 stitching. Other than missing IHSW during the summer, I didn't officially participate, but I did stitch those weekends, I think I kept up with all the SALs that I was a member of.  It did help that none of them are really stressful ones and mostly provided me with the incentive to keep stitching.

I was going to post all sorts of before and after photos, but I kept track of my finishes and progress in those little tabs up top there, so decided to save us all from a huge, picture heavy post and just link to the tabs.  I don't have a lot of stitching time, but I was able to finish 17 pieces this year. If you'd like to see them, they are in Finishes tab. WIPocalypse and YOTA were great helps in keeping me focused on finishing four of my long-term WIPs, making progress on two others and reducing my WIP list to 18 and the Ornament SAL filled my need for a new start and quick finishes.  My WIPocalypse recap can be seen in the 2013 WIPocalypse tab.  I am looking forward to participating in YOTA and WIPocalypse again in 2014, as well as all the other SALs that I have signed up for.

I normally start a project on New Year's day, but this year, I didn't wait.  My parents Thanks Mom and Dad gave me this

for Christmas. It's Three Tulips from With Thy Needle and Thread along with the called for threads and fabric.  I immediately had to adapt my stitching plan Kevin at Cabbages and Kings discussed plans and resolutions so much better than I could.  I decided that as I now have five pieces in my rotation and I am off work this week that I would stitch on a different project each day and start my stitching plan on Sunday - I will work on my Smalls project on Saturday.  Three Tulips went on the frame first and is coming along quite nicely - it will be difficult to stop working on it, but I want to give some time to the other pieces in my rotation that have been neglected since about July when I went OAAT (one at a time) with 99.

Currently, my 2014 stitching plan is to do a one week rotation, Sunday through Saturday, with Sunday mornings and my compressed Friday (I am scheduled to work 44 hours the first week of the pay period, 36 the second and have every other Friday off) set aside to work on smalls.  As I am participating in the Just Nan SAL, a Just Nan project will be in the rotation every month.  I haven't yet decided if I will designate a specific week or just randomly tuck it into the rotation.  I am leaning towards random, but the plan is a work in progress and subject to blowing up dismantling being ignored revision at any time.

And before I forget, again, Welcome to my new followers and an apology to anyone that may have commented and didn't receive a response.  Yahoo! revamped things and went to a conversation format - they lumped all emails with the same topic into one list.  I suppose it makes sense if you have only two people involved in the conversation but with blog post comments, it was hard to keep track of who I had responded to and who I hadn't.  I wasn't ignoring any of your comments, just not dealing well with technological "advances".  I have finally figured out how to turn that feature off, so there should not be a repeat in the future.

8 comments:

Shelly said...

I really like that Santa. His coat looks fine without that backstitching!

Kate said...

lovely ornie and what a pretty gift! :)

Mouse said...

ooooo Santa is nice and looks fine with out the back stitch .. to be honest wouldn't have know it should have had some if you didn't say ...lol
good luck with the rotation and wishing you a very merry stitchy new year :) love mouse xxxxx

Zeb said...

The Santa looks lovely, and I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on Three Tulips.

I decided to get organised about what I'd stitch for the Just Nan SAL. I know if I don't I'll be all over the place and indecisive about what to stitch, too many choices!

Giovanna said...

Congrats on reaching 12 ornies, and a very happy stitchy 2014.

Anonymous said...

That is such a great Santa (I'm embarrassed to admit that I started it 2 years ago and haven't finished it!).

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Congratulations on the Santa Happy Dance and on completing all twelve ornies this year.

I'm off to read your tabbed pages now!

Looking forward to SAL Just Nan next year too.

Faith... said...

All of your ornaments look great! Congrats on getting in so many for the year.