Quotes is Finished!

Hi all! Big news to share this time as I have managed to finish my Quotes to Live By! I am so happy to have finished it in June. So here was my progress since last time:

And here is a full shot, though it was a bit tricky to get this picture:

I started Quotes on January 15, 2017, which feels a lot longer that it was. For this project, I counted 19,168 stitches (not counting backstitch) which took me 115.65 hours in 103 days. Whew! I didn't stitch two of the blocks as charted though. Blocks 4 and 5 were meant to be full coverage, but I thought that was a bit random and looked a little odd. I was lucky to see some other finishes without the pink background and decided to do the same. And I love the result! It's a little bit odd in size, 12.5" by 17", but I may frame it myself in a standard 16x20 frame. What do you think?

Last month I also managed a page finish on Luna! Last time you saw her I was about halfway through page 12. Now it is complete:

Only a page and a half to complete the row! If I don't manage that this year, I'll feel really lazy. :)

I've also managed to peck away at Elizabeth Oliver enough to move the qsnap. So here is a complete picture of her fresh after a pressing, though you'll have to excuse the poor lighting:

The verse is about the Hour of Prayer, which isn't the most lyrical verse in the world, but I'm not going to change it. Those words do seem really big though, so I guess prayer was very important to Miss Oliver. I believe this is halfway across the sampler now, even though I've hardly made a dent in it lenghtwise, and I'm still really loving it. :)

Well, we're halfway through the year, so my Temperature charts are now halfway done!

June continued to get hotter, but at least there were a few days of mild relief. We actually made it to 100° in my neighborhood last Thursday, but the official Kansas City temperature for that day was 98°, so no new color yet. I'm sure we'll make it in July though. The average temp for June was 87.9, so I've backstitched the month in 608, my darker orange. I love that all the months are different colors on my chart. I'm looking forward to stitching the rest of the year. :)

I know I've already rambled on quite a bit, but since it is the first of July, I thought I'd include a little mini review for the first half of the year. Back in January, I made two resolutions about stitching. The first was to stitch every day, which I have (yay!); the second was to try and stitch 150,000 stitches for the year. So far, I've done 72,731 stitches, so I'm a little behind, but I'm still pleased with my progress. Realistically, I know 150k is a bit out of my reach, but we have to aim high to achieve more, right?

So far this year, I have had 17 new starts (most of which were planned) and 3 project finishes along with 5 page finishes, which I think is pretty good. I'll keep going with my year of starts, so I've got at least six new projects coming, though deciding on which projects to start is becoming increasingly challenging. I'm also trying to rotate through as many projects as possible while still making progress, which is also a challenge.

I've made a new Wips tab to show all my projects -- I think I'm down to 61 since Quotes is finished -- but it's still kind of under construction. Hopefully I can sit down and update everything soon. There's just never enough time!

Well, I think I've truly rambled enough for one post. Hope all of you are meeting your stitchy goals and having a great year. Until next time! :)