A Bit Random

So it's been 5 weeks. Returning to work has been quite an adjustment, especially where my stamina is concerned. My first week back, I was all but useless after work, and my first foray into overtime required naps afterward. But things are getting back to normal-ish, with only a few bumps here and there.

I haven't been stitching much, but I've still managed to stitch almost every day. However, my rotation is pretty much random as it seems picking up something I'm not feeling results in a loss of my stitchy bug. Kind of worrisome, since that hasn't happened in a long while, but I haven't lost it yet.

So here's some of my random selections. First, I was inspired by the Bingo event in Full Coverage Fanatics on Facebook to pick up Scale, which I unfortunately hadn't touched in two years. I moved her from a scroll frame to qsnaps, so I can treat you with the full image of where she was before and a close up of where she is now:

Overall, I didn't get very much done on her, but I'm very happy to have worked on her again. I love working with all those vivid colors.

Next, I couldn't get Jim Shore's 12 Days of Christmas out of my head, so I made a start on 6 Geese a-Laying:

It feels like I barely made a dent in this block, but at least I managed to get the nest of leaves done, which is probably the most stitch intensive part of this block. I'm looking forward to the checkered egg, though there's still a bit of confetti there. Hopefully I can finish up this block in December.

I haven't stitched on Elizabeth Oliver since June, but I love this wip and I'm making some good progress on the house:

Hopefully next time I show her, the house will be done. It's really going pretty quickly. If I can just carve out a little more time to stitch.

I think that's all for now. I've been stitching here and there on several other pieces, but I'll show them once I get a bit more progress in. Hope you all are doing well and staying sane in these crazy times. Happy stitching!

Quotes SAL and Scale

Hi gang! I managed to finish off this week with a small finish on my Stitchrovia Quotes to Live By SAL. So here is quote #8 all done:

Once I got past the outer borders, it really stitched up quick. Even the back stitching only took about an hour. So now there's only 2 left! Here's the full piece so far:

I know the border will take me a while, but I'm still hoping to have this totally done at the end of August. I'll be working on quote #4 next, and plan to put in a couple more days of work ahead of my next Year of Starts project on the 18th. :)

I also made some semi-decent progress on Scale, though she is looking a bit weird:

Her cheek is green! It's kind of creepy, but it looks totally fine in the full pic, so I know it will work itself out. Still, she's green! I haven't decided if I'm going to continue with her next week or switch to something else. Pastoral has kind of been calling me since last week, so I might indulge in that. I guess I'll just play it by ear.

And on my Temperature SAL, you know how I've been waiting to stitch some orange? Well...

There's orange! Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all in the low 80s, so there's a big blob of 970 to commemorate the occasion. This month has been really wacky with up and down temps though, since once again, it snowed today! Third Sunday in a row, in April! And it looks like next week will be a rollercoaster as well. Oh well, at least I got my happy orange. I don't think I'm quite as anxious to get to the reds. :)

Hello April!

Well, I was supposed to get back to Cassiopeia last week, but that didn't happen. Lots of little reasons why, but I think one big one: it rained ALL week. Every single day, 4 days straight. We had a break Friday and Saturday, then today, it's snowing. So happy April Fools Day from Mother Nature, right?

Anyway, what I did work on last week was Hillside Travelers, another from Little House Needleworks. This was among my year of starts last year, but I don't think I've shown it here. It is one of my favorites though, and is among the few projects tempting me to be a one-at-a-time stitcher. So here's what it looks like and where I got to last year:

And here's what I did this year:

Of course I wanted to keep working on it, thinking "if I could just get those pine trees in" or "hey, I could start the verse at the bottom!" But at least I got the people and animals done, and most of the little hillside filled in. I need to find a good blue for the pond though. The pattern calls for 3022, which is the color of the gentleman's jacket. Definitely green. I know it's a mossy pond, but I want my water to be blue! But that will wait til next time, which will definitely be this year. :)

Since it's a new month, I've pulled out a new focus project for the evenings, and this time it's Scale. I haven't worked on Scale since Nov. 2016, and I really did miss her. I remember trying last year, getting her set up on the frame, but I never got any stitches in. So even though I usually stitch on Luna on Sundays, I just had to work on Scale today, and managed a little over 400 stitches. Not much, but a good start:

So yeah, I've moved down a row  of pages again, this time to work on her lips. Seeing her like this though, I can't help but think of my mother's name for this one: Big Nose. :)

I didn't finish my Temperature charts for March since the website I get my temps from hasn't updated the last two days yet. (Frustrating!) So here they are up to March 29th:

See those spools on the ornament chart? I think they're pretty cool. It's hard to see that the thread and spool are different colors on the first one, but I still like it. I'll be on this round for the whole month of April, so I hope I get some good colors. :)

Well, that's all for now, I guess. 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! :)

An Update? So Soon!?

Hi all!

Just had to do a quick update, because I have finally finished my fourth page on Scale! So happy to have all that white done. Here's how she looks:

I wish I could say I was done with all the swaths of white stitching, but there's more on the pages beneath, though not quite as much. I was actually sad to put her away, but I think it's for the best. I've met my goal on her this year, and I want to spread the love to my other wips before I'm occupied with moving and unpacking. Next year I'll start the two pages beneath these and work on her lips. Lots of color there! :)

I've also managed to get a bit of progress going on Flora, which I haven't touched since August. I worked on her 4 days last week, and it's already made a difference:

I've finished the yellow flower and the berries (cranberries? holly berries? I dunno.) and some leaves in the middle. I'm almost done with the grapes and the rose. Then there's a bit of her shawl and the bottom of her elbow, and a bunch of easy background on the left, and this page will be done! Hopefully I can accomplish that very soon. The end of the month maybe?

Today I pulled out Luna for the first time in a long while. I've really missed my rotation, and it felt really good to get some stitches in her, though it was only about 300. I'm not sure if I want to use the rest of the year to catch up on some of my goals (Cassiopeia and Kabuki are really close) or if I should relax and enjoy what little stitching time I have for the moment and stitch on whatever screams at me. (Probably a bit of both.)

Have you started planning for 2017 stitching? :) I did a bit of "shopping" in my stash and pulled the charts I really want to start next year. I know I have somewhere around 25 wips going at the moment (crazy!) but so many are screaming at me, I thought a few more wouldn't hurt. I was trying to be conservative, but somehow I ended up with 33 charts waiting to be started! I blame Floss Tube and Facebook for enabling me, but the designs are so wonderful, I'm not complaining too loud. I may whittle down my list, but here's a few that I definitely want to start:

I hope to start Angel of Grace on New Years Day. I bought my first piece of hand dyed fabric just for her, though it turned out a little darker than I hoped. I want to test the darker reds and greens to be sure it's okay, but I think it will be fine. I wanted something to really show off the skirt and wings, and those colors looked great in a floss toss. As for which fabric I'm using? That will have to be a surprise! :)

That's all for now. I'd like to hear which charts you can't wait to start. Until next time!