January Update

Why does January always seem so long? Yet somehow, I also feel like I can't get anything done. One of those great mysteries, I guess. :)

I've been trying to get into the groove of my rotation, but I'm being difficult. I sort of rebelled against my rotation for most of the year last year, and now I'm trying to do it again. The benefits of sticking to my rotation are obvious: I get to touch all my wips in an organized fashion and make decent progress on my focus pieces. The downside is I'm not always ready to switch projects, so it takes me a while to get accustomed to the new piece. I've thought about longer rotations, but I don't think that's the answer either. Hopefully I can stick with it this year, but next year there might be some changes.

Okay, on to the good stuff! First up is Kabuki, by Mystic Stitch. I think this is my oldest wip, and my first full coverage piece. Shame I haven't finished her yet, but I'll keep trying. I did manage to finish a good bit of her face finally, and she's looking good:

I really do admire the way Mystic Stitch charts things. There's a ton of confetti and "weird" colors everywhere, but stepping back, the effect is amazing. She will be out again next month. Hopefully I can finish a page or two this year.

Next is Elizabeth Oliver, which you'll be seeing a lot of this year. I've started a new row, and will eventually get to that house in the middle, hopefully around May. For now, I've got the border and a good start on the first arbor:

Those flowering plants take a long time to stitch, but I'm really enjoying this. Hopefully I won't feel burned out when it's time to stitch them again on the other side.

I am participating in another stitch along from Etsy this year, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. This is the Wonders of Space SAL from Climbing Goat Designs, and will feature 9 blocks of images from space. I have no idea what to expect, but the first block was the Ring Nebula, and it is really awesome:

I had a lot of fun stitching this, and can't wait for the next. They come out on the 15th every month, so if you wanna join, you won't be far behind. Each block is 30x30, so it's not too big, but it does call for 45 colors. There's also a description of each wonder in the pdf, which is pretty cool. I was really in to astronomy for a while, so of course I couldn't resist this project. :)

Last but not least, I managed to finally finish page 17 on Moon Indigo:

Isn't she awesome? I am super excited to be stitching her dress at long last. Hopefully this next page will not take as long since there's not as much confetti, and I'm using Pattern Keeper! Truth be told, I'm not looking forward to her hair and the moon as that always stitches slowly, but maybe it'll be better with the app.

Quick note about Pattern Keeper: if you stitch full coverage charts, get it. End of story. No debate. There simply is no comparison to any other app. Hope that helps if you're still thinking about it. :)

Seriously though? This is the first time I've really been able to stitch without paper and been comfortable with that. It really has made a difference and made things so much easier. Especially with my diagonal stitching. (Should I note I wasn't paid to say that?)

Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm still working on my No Wip Left Behind project, but I think I'll keep those updates on Instagram, at least for now. One hour of progress isn't really much to look at, and if I post them here, I'll ramble on and on about each project. Unless I made separate posts about them... Hmm... Anyway, back to stitching. Happy Lunar New Year! :)

January Blahs

Hi all! Hope everyone is having a good start to the new year. (Although Australia is on everyone's mind, and it's really terrible.) My stitching feels like it's off to a slow start this year, probably because I'm getting over holiday vacation blahs and trying to get used to working again. But I'll go over what I've done so far.

First off is my 12 Days of Christmas by Jim Shore. I managed to finish the stitching on 4 Calling Birds, and it turned out pretty nicely:

I was really happy with how my french knot turned out in the bird's eye:

The flowers were kind of fiddly, but I do think they're pretty. And of course, everything will be better once the beads are in. So here's a look at the piece so far:

And that's my start on 5 Gold Rings. I'd hoped to be a bit further along than this, but I had a major frogging incident on my first ring (about 100 stitches) and I missed a couple days of my rotation just from being too busy with holiday stuff. But hopefully #5 won't take too long. My goal is to finish 5 and 6 this year.

Next is my New Year's new start, although this one didn't exactly go as planned. I guess I'm out of practice with new starts? :) I had originally planned on starting the Village of Hawk Run Hollow, from Carriage House. It's been on my list for several years, but little things keep setting me back. Meanwhile, I'd been prepping another huge Golden Kite piece for several months (like the 6 I've got going isn't enough) and couldn't keep from starting it any longer. So here she is! This one's called The Fireplace, artwork by James Tissot:

Tissot is one of my most favorite artists. I saw this chart about 5 years ago and thought it was too big to do. I bought the chart anyway about 2 years ago. And now I've started her. This one is 562x849, 156 pages total. I started at the bottom right corner on 18ct Aida using my diagonal stitching method, which is slow, but a great method for heavy confetti. It doesn't look like much since I'm just stitching carpet, but I'm excited to see the different bands in the design appear. (I'm working on filling in the first red band now.) I've stitched 1180 stitches so far, and would love to keep working on this. But, I'll be moving along in my rotation, so I don't know when this will be out again. (sad face)

Last week, I spent my mornings working on Angel of Grace, but I only made minimal progress, probably because I kept oversleeping. Still, it's a start on her lower skirts. I'm hoping to fill in the ruffles this year:

I am happy to have the last bits of garland done on her skirt. Most of the stitching is pretty simple blocks, which hopefully won't take too long (if I can actually devote some time to her).

Last is a project I started this year to help me work on all of my wips at least once this year. I'm calling it "No Wip Left Behind." Each week, I'm pulling out a wip that otherwise wouldn't fit into my rotation to work on it for at least an hour (hopefully). First up was one I hadn't touched since January 2014. This is Tea Party, another from Golden Kite:

In all honesty, I thought this would be a give up. I stopped working on this one because I wasn't happy with the detail in the wallpaper. When I first started this, I thought I would be a little more realistic and go with the smaller version, but that strategy seemed to backfire since I became really unhappy with it and put it down. Now though, I'm thinking I need to stitch on it a bit more before I can really decide if I want to stop, because looking at it again has made me really happy, and working on it was unexpectedly fun. In fact, I managed to finish off page 2 (first page finish of the year!) and would like to finish the page beneath it. Now I'm thinking I need to reorganize my rotation (again) and fit this in. Ah, dilemmas, dilemmas...

Well, I think that's all for now. My first post of the year and I'm already super rambly. I'm trying to get back to posting on Instagram again (@impstitcher) so you can follow me there if you'd like more pictures with less rambling. I'm still not good with social media though, so we'll see how it goes. Okay, back to stitching. Until next time!

2019 Review

Hello again and welcome! My reviews are more statistics than pictures, but feel free to skip the reading and just look at the pretties. :) I have so many wips, it would be impossible for me to do before and after on all of them; however, I did make a concerted effort to update all of my wip pics, so just look under Wips and More Wips to check out all 70(!) of my lovelies.

For 2019, my stitching resolution was to have more finishes than starts for the year, and I managed it! Here were my 5 project finishes:
#1) and #2) My temperature charts for 2018:

These felt like cheating since there were only a few days to fill in on each, but they still count. :)
#3) Stars by The Drawn Thread:

Loved stitching this with silks and all those specialty stitches!
#4) and #5): Two charts by Little House Needleworks, A Stitchers Prayer and The Virtue Sampler:

I also had 6 finishes between the Frosty Forest series and Sheep Virtues:

It feels pretty good to say I finished off 9 charts in 2019. I also had 9 page finishes on various full coverage projects. I only had 3 new starts for the year (compared to 28 in 2018). Stitching time was super scarce in July and August, but I still managed 109,690 stitches for the year which I think is really good. My total stitching time was 536.7 hours, quite a drop from last year's 765.3. Also, out of 75 wips, I only managed to work on 39 of them, so there's still lots of room for improvement.

As always, here is a look at my Luna for the year:

I ended up about 4 columns short of where I'd hoped to be for the year, but I did manage to make up a lot of missed stitching in November. I'm still hoping to finish off the row in 2020, which means almost 29,000 stitches. Wish me luck!

For 2020, I've got 5 starts planned, but I may add a few more. However, I really enjoyed focusing on current wips (for the most part) in 2019, so I'm trying to find a balance between the old and the new. My stitching resolution for 2020 is to work on all of my wips at least once. I think it's time I got reacquainted with some of my older wips and perhaps reevaluate my rotation. We'll see.

I'll leave you with a little teaser of my planned starts. Since it seems I've been thoroughly bitten by the sampler bug, I'm starting a bunch of huge ones all at once (typical Imp Stitcher fashion). I actually took some money out of savings to indulge in a couple silk kits (from Sassy Jacks Stitchery) and I'm slowly kitting up a few other lovelies. So here are the first three:

That's Anne Thomas and Ann Uffindell from Hands Across the Sea, and Ann Dale from Shakespeare's Peddler. I kitted both HAtS samplers with 46ct fabric and will be using 100/3 silks for the first time. (I hope it's nice!) Ann Dale is on 40ct with the called for NPI, plus a couple Gloriana and a Belle Soie. I really can't wait to dive in to all this luxury! I'm starting Ann Uffindell on February 29th, a special date for a special sampler. The other two will begin in May.

I think that's all for my review! Thank you to all who read and follow this blog. 2019 was a year of transition for me, and I feel like I'm still trying to find my footing. Wishing everyone all the best for 2020! Happy stitching!