Kickstarting 2021

 Hello all! Welcome back to another long winded stitchy ramble. :)

I don't know about you, but I love making plans, especially about cross stitch. I usually start planning for the new year around September as I'm always so anxious to see what all I can accomplish and what my goals should be. For this year, I'm actually trying to plan a bit less than my normal obsessive self would like and be a bit more flexible. It's hard. I'm one of those people who doesn't like surprises at all. I'm at my best when I have a scheduled itinerary for the day, and a nice to-do list so I can check off tasks. But last year, what I wanted to stitch started to butt heads with what I was "supposed" to stitch, and the result was usually me sulkily playing games on my tablet instead. 

So this year, I'm being more flexible. Trying to be. I haven't done my usual weekly planning of wips for the year. Instead, I'm making loose plans from month to month based on a handful of goals, and I'm letting myself be more open to changes that pop up in facebook challenges, sals, or just my whims. Right now, my plans for February are pretty solid, but I've left a little wiggle room here and there. I also have definite goals for March, but no definitive plan. But April? That's still completely open. I'm hoping I can have a bit more fun with my stitching this year and stitch on what I'm enjoying at that moment, even if that means some of my goals will not be met. Because that's ok! 

I've already embraced a bit of whimsy by taking on 2 new SALs, both completely unplanned, but both amazing projects. The first is from Quiltify Designs, called Grande Vierlande. 

When I first saw this on Etsy, I just gasped. There's something about they way those circular motifs are arranged that I absolutely love, so I had to have it. This one is a very large project at 493x467. But I think what truly makes it amazing is that you actually get 3 versions of this chart, which he's colored as Red, Blue and Green, so you can pick your favorite motifs to stitch and make your sampler truly unique. I can't imagine how much work must have gone into charting all that, but it's a fantastic concept. Of course, I haven't made near as much progress as I would've liked, but I almost got my first motif done:

My alphabet is from the Red version, as are the first 2 crowns. My first motif is from the Green version. It was really hard to pick which ones to stitch, as they are all lovely. I had some Silks4U in my stash and thought these colors worked very well together, PR132 and PR021. The design is so large, I decided to go with 46ct Latte from XJuDesigns. I know I can't keep up with the sal, but I hope to get back to this regularly.

My second sal is another temperature chart. I really liked Stitchin' Mommy's temperature tree last year, and I may do that next year, but when I saw this temperature library from Kristi's Corner Needle, I thought it was pefect:

I didn't start this until the 12th, so I'm a bit behind, but I love how this is stitching up. Some people have opted to backstitch their books to make them more distinct, but I'm rather enjoying the blobs of color at the moment. Plus, the books are usually different shapes and sizes, so telling them apart isn't difficult.

I've updated my colors a bit from the last temperature chart I did. Aren't they all so lovely? :)

I suppose I should move on and talk about what I did plan for this year. I plan to make a bit more significant progress on a few select wips. I've picked 8-10 of my full coverage pieces, and about a dozen smaller pieces. I'm hoping to get in 6 finishes this year, and maybe 15 page finishes. We'll see. To help with this goal, I've decided to have a focus project each month to work on every day. I don't think I can be monogamous, but at the same time, working long term on a project seems to make me want to stitch more on it, not less. At least, up to a point.

My first monthly project was Kabuki. I had just finished a 30 day rotation on her in December, but I really couldn't wait to pick her up again. I only worked on her for 25 days this month (12 Days of Christmas got the first 5) but I've added 2,931 stiches, and I think she's looking pretty good:

I've almost finished her neck now, just another couple rows until her kimono starts to sweep around her. Once again, I am sad to put her down, but I'm also excited to see how much progress I can make on my other projects. I'm think Kabuki will be out again in June, but no firm plans yet. :)

I've also decided to pick up one of my most neglected wips again this year (although I have quite a few, sad to say) because it just breaks my heart to see these projects languish year after year. I actually picked this up in December and got a tiny page finish, and that has helped to fuel the fire for this year. This is The Favorite Bird from Golden Kite, art by Charles Hue:

I don't really like showing this one because there's nothing to look at yet, and the camera doesn't like all those dark colors. I've started in the bottom right corner, so it's just the floor and the beginning of a couple table legs. But one has to make a start somewhere, and my brain does not like center starts on full coverage, so floor and table it is. My goal is to complete at least 4 pages this year, although I might aim for 9. I've already completed 1 page and started a second, but I doubt this will be out every month since I'll still be focusing on Luna. It'll be a push, but I do love this image, so I think a push is needed.

I haven't decided yet if I'll be focusing on Favorite Bird every year now or if I'll rotate through my other neglected wips. I do have quite a few that are calling to me. I'll likely set a certain goal for each project and rotate when that's done. Probably. Which one would you work on if you were me?

I hope you are are making some good stitchy progress. Until next time!

A Brief, Belated Farewell to 2020

 I know yearly summaries should be accomplished at the end of the year, but here we are, almost done with January, and I'm just now getting around to mine. I feel like time has turned into an express train and I keep waiting for it to stop. Oh well. I don't want to spend too much time going over everything I've done for the year, but I thought I'd mention a couple highlights, and document a few statistics since I like keeping track of those.

My big goal for 2020 was to stitch on all of my wips at least once. I didn't quite succeed, but it was so close, I'm considering it a success. My main reason for doing this was to reacquaint myself with all of them and figure out if any should be ufo'd or become more of a focus. I'm really glad I did that, because I did have a few surprises, and that has helped me rearrange some goals for this year.

I started 2020 with 66 wips (I think) and, after a bit of lockdown madness that started in April and somehow managed to reverberate through the rest of the year, I finished with 77 active wips, 2 finishes, and 6 ufos. Out of all these wips, there were only 3 that I wasn't able to stitch on, and 2 of those became ufos. So, pretty much a success.

Because of the quarantine, I was able to have a very good stitching year. My total stitches for 2020 came to 153,622. (I should mention, I do count tent stitches as 1 stitch.) I think this is my highest total yet. My total time came to 792.4 hours, and I managed to stitch 355 days for the year. Not too shabby.

While I would love to show you all the progress I made on each of my 77 wips, I know that's impossible for one post. But I would like to highlight a few favorites. First up, as always, is Luna:

I had really hoped to finish off the row for the year, but that just didn't happen. But I did manage to add 20,500 stitches to this beauty, so she wasn't too neglected. She's still a focus piece for 2021, so we'll see if I can make up for my lack of progress.

Next is Elizabeth Oliver by Moira Blackburn, I've decided to gift this to my mother this May, which means I need to hurry up and finish her. I'm definitely getting closer:

I've really enjoyed stitching on this one, and I'll miss her when she's done. For the year, I put in 14,899 stitches. Yes, she really is big.

My New Year's start actually became one of my favorites as well, even though I'm only stitching the carpet at the moment. I've loved this image for so long, that may be part of the reason. This is absolute confetti with blended threads, but it's hard to put her down once I've started. This is The Fireplace, art by James Tissot, chart by Golden Kite. (Please excuse the messy threads and terrible lighting):

I've nicknamed this one Sofie, as sort of an homage to Georgette Heyer and her book The Grand Sophy. (My Sofie looks pretty grand too, right?) I wish I had picked this one up a few more times, but I'm glad I got as much progress as I did. Total stitches so far is 8872.

Last, I will show what is probably my oldest wip, Kabuki from Mystic Stitch. I spent a few months watching all of Kim Hollenback's flosstube videos, and she really inspired me to try to make more progress on at least some of my full coverage wips. To that end, I challenged myself to work on Kabuki for 30 days straight with the goal of at least 50 stitches per day. It's not a lot, but it's more than nothing:

I did my 30 day challenge from mid November through mid December, so she got a total of 53 days progress. I managed 2909 stitches in those 30 days, and 6270 for the year. I was really surprised at how much I've enjoyed working on her, as this is a pretty difficult chart. But it was hard to put her down at the end of those 30 days. I've actually picked her up again this month, but that will have to wait for another update.

Hopefully, I can get back on track this year with my updates. (If I can tear myself away from stitching to do so.) Wishing you all the best for 2021. Happy stiching!