February Update

Hi all! I think I'm finally settling into the groove of this new year (still writing 2019 though) and feel like I'm getting a good bit of stitching done. I'm even getting used to my rotation again! (Probably because I can't think of a better option.) So, on with the pretties!

I say 'pretties,' but this first one is mostly black. It's my R2 Silhouette I got from Cross Stitch For You on Etsy. I worked on this the last week of January, but didn't get as far as I'd hoped:

I think that Death Star is going to take forever! Still, the goal is to finish it this year, hopefully this month, or at least early March.

Next, I pulled out Frosty Forest and stitched mostly white. (Beginning to think I've been falsely advertising these pretties...) I started block #6, and that border always takes a lot of time:

It was a short rotation this time, just 4 days instead of 5, but I got a good chunk of snow done, so I should be able to start the house next time round.

In my aim to get back to some of my older pieces, I pulled out Pavonia for 2 long stitching sessions and managed about 800 stitches. I'm converting her to diagonal stitching since I think it will help with all the confetti. Took me a while to get used to her again, but I'm still really enjoying her:

Sadly, this pattern doesn't work with Pattern Keeper, since older Golden Kite's didn't come with passwords and that somehow doesn't mesh with PK's programming. (Hopefully that will change in a future update.) But Pavonia is officially back in the rotation! My goal is to finish off the current page this year. (Small steps lead to great strides!)

Last, I want to mention this week's No Wip Left Behind project: Climbing the Dragon Gate from HAED. I started this chart on February 7, 2016 while recovering from a bit of surgery. The thought was that it was an easy chart, and easy stitching was what I needed at the time. I didn't think it would take me 4 years to finish a single page! But yes, on February 7, 2020, I finally managed it:

I remember having to put this down initially because I didn't have all the required floss in my stash. Then later, since it isn't a priority chart, I just never found time to work on it. But I still enjoy this one, and it would be nice to make more progress. I just keep struggling with that urge to stitch on all the things versus my limited ability in what I can actually manage. But I won't be discouraged! Somehow I'll find a way to balance progress and quantity. I know the solution will never be ideal, but I'll take what I can get and enjoy the process. Hope you all do the same.

Happy stitching everyone!

Quote #4

It's been a weird, busy week, but also kind of productive. I pulled out my Quotes to Live By and managed to finish off quote #4:

This one was a really quick stitch (especially since I didn't do the background fill in) and I'm really excited now that it's done. I've got just one quote left! Then a bit of fancy scroll work in the border, and it's done! I'm putting this away for now, but I'll put it back into my rotation in a few weeks. Maybe I could finish it this month? Well, next month for sure. :)

In the evenings, I pulled out Pavonia for this month's 1200 stitches challenge in Full Coverage Fanatics, and I managed a page finish:

It's not a huge amount of progress, but I'm glad to see another page done. I'm glad to use the challenge as a reason to rotate through all my huge wips, but I've put Pavo away for now as I'm really anxious to get back to Luna.

And here's a look at my Temperature charts this week:

I'm closing in on another round on the ornament chart, and I think it's really interesting how the colors on this round are so different for the previous rounds. Anyway, the forecast calls for red and orange for the foreseeable future, so it's kind of boring to stitch. I think if I do this again, I might make my temperature ranges smaller, maybe three degrees per color instead of five. Just a thought.

In other news, I'm planning a new start (again) this Tuesday, because again I like the date: 6-12-18. And thanks to some birthday kindness, I'll be starting this beauty:

Yes, I'm jumping on the bandwagon for Eliza Bell Cox from Hands Across the Sea Samplers. I first saw this a few months ago on Instagram where someone stitched the central rose up top, and I kind of fell in love with the floral border. Apparently there's a SAL for this piece that started June 1st, so I've been teased with images of this all month. It'll be my first time stitching on 46ct linen, so wish me luck! Until next time! :)

My (Belated) 2016 Review, Part One

Whew! I had a lot going on in 2016, including a lot of stitchy stuff. Moving took up a big chunk of my year, (which is why this is a bit late), and there've been some family issues as well, though nothing too serious. It's just been a lot of a lot. I'm still trying to get things back to "normal," which at the moment means getting totally unpacked. Plans kind of fell apart mid December, so it'll be a while. Plus, I'd rather stitch than organize, so all those boxes will just have to wait. :)

So at last, here is my review! It's going to be a long one -- so long I've broken it up into two parts. I had 30 active projects last year, including 19 new starts (went a little crazy), but also 3 finishes! I am a notorious list maker and stitch counter, so I'll start off by dazzling you with my stitchy stats for last year. Ready? Ok!

All told, I did 131,496 stitches last year. Can you believe it? I can't. I never thought I'd do over 100k. I've had a busy needle, I guess. Part of that is doing lots of tent stitches instead of full crosses. Part is also due to my early morning stitching before work. Usually I only get an hour in the mornings, but I guess I'm a fast stitcher (?) as I can usually do 200 to 250 stitches in that hour, so even a few days a week can really add up.

I also know I've stitched about 623.85 hours last year, so my average is 210.8 stitches per hour. Sounds about right. I didn't manage to stitch every day (only managed 10 days in December) but for the year, I stitched 303 days. I would like to stitch every day this year, but over 300 is still pretty good.

I've got more detailed lists and spreadsheets with even more stats, but I don't think any normal people care about all that. You want pictures, right? Right! So here's all my wips carried over from 2015:

First is Pavonia. I had hoped to do so much more on her, but I got kind of overwhelmed by the confetti and had to set her aside. I did manage to get one section done though, and was very happy to get one of her eyes done:

Moon Indigo was a focus piece this year, so I tried to work on her every month. I really wanted to get that last column finished in 2016, but just couldn't make it. Still, I pretty much met my goal with her, finishing up pages 6, 7 and 8, and starting page 9:

Scale is a lot of fun, but can also be a lot of work with all that white! In the end I just powered through it and finished off two more pages this year. My mother now calls this one "Big Nose":

Euphoria is one of my easiest wips, with just 3 colors in the skin, plus she's tent stitched. I finally got part of that flower stitched this year, so it's not quite so boring to look at:

Wisdom is one of my favorites, but I just can't seem to get going on her. I did manage to finish page 1, but not the page beneath it. Halfway is still good though:

Madchen is nothing but sky at the moment, but there's more of it now than in 2015:

Flora saw a good deal of progress this year as I finished off 3 more pages (one was really small though). The bottom two rows are now complete:

Kabuki was kind of forgotten about halfway through the year. I had hoped to get her face done, but the chart is tricky to read, and she's not always fun to work on. But she will be back in 2017:

Favorite Bird is my biggest wip, so I should really try for more progress. But 3 pages last year is good enough for now. But I'm going to be stitching floor for a while:

Cassiopeia is another that wasn't picked up as much as I wanted. She is so easy and relaxing to work on, and I love those colors. Managed to get the bottom border done, and have just started working on her couch:

Tigers was my oldest wip, an old kit from Nature's Window. I was so happy to finally get it finished last year! Yes, it's still sitting in a drawer, but it is still a finish:

So that's it for all my older wips. The only wip that did not see progress was White Queen, which is a little sad. But I will try again this year.

All my other projects were new starts last year, which I'll save for part two of this post, in a day or three. Hope everyone is having a good stitchy year so far! Until next time! :)

It's a Twofer!

Hi all!

Didn't have much to show last week, but now I have not one, but two page finishes to show off! :) I am super happy about these, since they are on my most confetti heavy projects.

First, Pavonia, who was very near a finish before WIPocalypse:

Her eye is completely finished! Love how this turned out, with all the subtle shading. Those shadows are so dark, it was hard to see anything for the longest time. But now it's perfect! It does look kind of odd, since there's no highlight in her eye (I'm too used to anime, I think) but that should look better once the full face is in -- many, many years from now. ;) I am happy to be out of the feathers for a while and have three pages of hair to look forward to, which is not quite so confetti heavy.

Next, I spent last week on Crystals and Crows, which hasn't been worked on since April. This one put up a real fight, but I managed to get the first page done:

Love how those branches turned out, and how they're twisting around each other. Those darker colors really brought the page into focus, and I can't wait to do more. It will probably be a while though. I'm heading across to page two next; after that, I may work down, as I really love all that foliage. And just a random bit of info: page one had 97 colors, out of the total 237. :)

What I did not make much progress on was my Tigers, which only got four days last week:

I had hoped to get much farther on the faces, but there is more stitching there than I realized. More confetti too, though it's not too bad. Though it's sometimes hard to see around all the backstitch lines (there are a ton!). And of course, all the white stitching around the eyes isn't showing up, but it's there. Don't think I'll manage a finish next month, but September for sure! :)

Now, about that WIPocalypse Olympic Challenge... I was undecided before, but now I am committed to give it a go. And I think I'll try the rotation challenge and the distance challenge, since I'm a bit behind on Scale, and she could use the attention. Since I'll be taking most of my rotation pieces to work with me, I might throw in a couple new starts (though I've already made a few this month). So you'll get to see all my smaller pieces that aren't in my normal rotation. Hopefully I can put in at least an hour on each every day. That should show some progress.

Not sure how I'll be updating, as I don't want to save them all for the end. Maybe weekly? Or every few days? How often would you all like to read my ramblings? ;)

Well, that's all for now. I'll be getting back to Flora next week, and she'll be the first of my Challenge wips. This should be lots of fun.

Until next time. Happy stitching!

July WIPocalypse

Hi everyone! I cannot believe July is almost over! Hope everyone is making good stitchy progress. :) Let's see what I've been up to this last month...

As always, Tigers got some love, and a good bit of progress:

All the greenery is finished!! Yay! I've really impressed myself with sticking to this every month. All I've got left are the faces, a few odd bits, and some backstitching. So maybe a finish by the end of August? (fingers crossed!)

Also a bit of progress on Flora, with lots more red:

Next time, I hope to finish up that flower at the bottom.

Scale was on the stand for a while, but progress is still slow, though I don't know why. I'm probably just missing all the fun colors from the upper pages:

It's hard to see my progress since there's a lot of white on white, but I am about halfway done with the current page.

Moon Indigo was out last week, and I managed a page finish!

I know it's boring, but I just love that blue background. This makes three completed pages so far this year (though the last two were partials). Next month I'll be starting page 9. :)

And finally, I've pulled out Pavonia, who is getting some much deserved attention. I managed to push through the worst bits of confetti on this page last month, so I've been stitching away on her skin, which has relatively large swaths of color:

Still a good deal of confetti to get through, but the end is in sight (at least for this page)!

My stitch total for June was 14,281, so my needle has indeed been quite busy. My total for the year so far is 81,756 stitches, a number which quite astounds me.

This month, our topic is to discuss our plans for the Olympic Challenge, or discuss our stitching so far this year.
I still have not decided if I'm doing the challenge, which means I probably won't -- but then again, I might. (indecision!) I would love to try and stitch on one project for a good while, but every time I choose one, the other projects start whining about favoritism. I've gotten into a good groove with my weekly rotation, and I don't want to mess with it. I've also thought about doing the rotation challenge, though that would involve taking smaller projects to work for my early morning sessions. This is still a possibility, since I could use it as an excuse to start a few patterns I recently got on Etsy... Hmm... I guess if I can get organized, I'll give it a go. :)

And, since the year is now more than half over, I think I'll do a quick check in with my goals for the year:

• Moon Indigo: at least 3 pages              Complete!
• Pavonia: 3 pages                               Almost done with 1 page
• Scale: 2 pages                                  Halfway through 1 page
• The Favorite Bird: 3 pages                  Complete!
• Euphoria: 1 1/2 pages                        Complete!
• Wisdom: 1 1/2 pages                         Finished one page
• Flora: 3 pages                                   Finished one page
• Madchen Am Strand: 4200 stitches       Complete!
• Cassiopeia: 6000 stitches                    4500 done
• Kabuki: 5600 stitches                         4445 done
• Tigers: Finish                                    Almost there
• White Queen: 1 page                          Not touched yet
• Crystals and Crows: 1 page                 Almost there
• Ginger Nova: 1 page                          Half page done

Not bad overall, Still some work to be done though. Guess I'd better get stitchin'. :) Until next time!