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!

December Wrap Up

Hey guys! December was another all over the place kind of month for me and I've got another ton of projects to share. I hope I can keep them all straight. ;)

First, I managed to meet my goal with Elizabeth Oliver, and I finished off another row:

This one took a lot longer than expected. That tall plant alone took about 4 hours to stitch. I don't know if I'm that slow or if she's just that big. She is now technically halfway done, but realistically, that house is gonna take forever! Still, I'm aiming to get the next row of pages done next year.

I've been trying to work on my Marquise de Caumont a few days every month, so I've managed to finish 3 pages this year. It's still all background though, which is why I never show her:

I really like stitching this diagonally, as it keeps it from being too boring. One more row would actually start the top of her head, but I think I'm gonna dip down to the second row and keep working on the background for now. I'm still organizing her threads, so sticking to the background is super easy.

I can't remember the last time I've shown my Angel of Grace. I do know I've neglected her again this year (a sad affair that will likely continue) but I've managed to finish off this middle section that I've been stitching on for three years. (Can you sense the eye roll there?):

I'm not sure when I'll get around to making her a focus piece (maybe 2021?) so I'll just keep plodding along on her for a while. It would be nice to finish off the bottom section next year. sigh

I don't think I've ever shown my Palazzo con Personaggi. This is a massive Golden Kite design that I started back in May 2017. Unfortunately, that was just before a lot of major life stuff happened, so I just got around to a page finish this year:

I started on page 96 for some strange reason, which is the top of the bench on the left side. I don't expect I'll ever finish this design, but I'd really like to stitch the woman in green and the man in blue next to her. If you look closely, you can just make out the edges of the lady's fan and her sleeve.

On Christmas Eve, I pulled out my Chatelaine again. I don't know why, but I always want to work on it this time of year. I had a goal to finish part 1 this year, but then I haven't touched it since January. But I was a lot closer than I thought, and now I've got a good start on part 2:

The funny thing is, part 1 still isn't done. I just need to backstitch the leaves around the lily pads in the middle, and then there's another border outline to do. But since that is intertwined with part 2, I'm just stitching them together. And who wants to backstitch when there's so much awesome stitching to do? Hopefully I can finish off part 2 next year, and then the really fun stuff will begin. :)

The last thing I want to share may be kind of surprising, especially if you've been following me for a while. Back in 2016, I started a really awesome design by Omar Rayyan called Crystals & Crows from HAED. I couldn't decide if I wanted to stitch it on 18ct Aida or 25ct Lugana. I went with 18ct, which seemed fine, but as the years have passed, I've kept thinking how blurry the design was looking. Going back to it in November, I just felt really dissatisfied, so I thought, why continue if it makes me frown every time I see it? So, I restarted it:

18ct version

25ct version

I had around 12,000 stitches in on the 18ct, which was about 3 years of stitching, so it will take me a while to get back to where I was. However, I have no regrets about the restart. I do wish I had gone with 25ct the first time, but I think the confetti would have overwhelmed me. Stitching diagonally, the confetti makes it slow for sure, but it's relatively easy for me, and it keeps everything nice and tidy. The image is still a bit blurry -- it's just part of the design -- but I definitely think it looks better, and I'm enjoying it more. But maybe I'm just biased. :)

Wow! I really need to stop making these posts 10 miles long! Hopefully I'll get better at that next year. I hope to have a goals update soon -- if I can decide what to start on January 1st. :) Happy Stitching!

November Wrap Up

Well, I was waiting to have enough stuff to make a decent post about, then in the last few days I got caught up on a few things and now I have a lot to show. So let's get to it!

November has been an all over the place kind of month for me. The year is winding down and I'm really trying to make some last minute progress on a few projects that I skipped over this summer. I started off with Frosty Forest, and surprised myself with a quick finish on block #5. So here's how the whole thing looks now:

This won't be out again until February. I don't plan to finish it next year (you guys should know by now how I like to drag things out) but definitely the year after. Snowman's Cottage is up next, and those houses do take a while to stitch.

Next, I pulled out Jim Shore's 12 Days of Christmas, really cuz I was just in the mood for it, but I did want to try and finish block #4 this year. So here is my start on 4 Calling Birds:

This block has a ton of purple in it, which is really quite pretty. I don't get to stitch with dmc 550 very often. It's going to seem very bright with those greens and some deep reds coming up. This will be out again at Christmas, so hopefully I can finish this block this year. (Fingers crossed!)

I'm still a bit behind on Elizabeth Oliver by Moira Blackburn, so I worked on that for a few days and managed to finish of a section. Now the whole verse is done:

This is hard to get a good picture of. But I've just got the final section left for this row: the basket, another tall flowery plant and the border. This one always takes longer to stitch than I think, so it'll have to be a focus project in December.

Over the course of the year, I always pull out random projects to to work on outside of my rotation, but I only show them when I think it looks like something. I've managed some decent progress on my Supersized Awakening from HAED, though in the scheme of things, it's really nothing at all. But my last diagonal finished up about half of the first page, and it's looking really good:

This is only 2490 stitches so far (out of 622,377, but who's counting?) but it's taken me almost 32 hours to stitch. This is one of my first diagonal projects, and the first with so much confetti, so it's been a lot of learning in a short time. But I am getting faster and really understanding how I like to actually stitch it, like where to start and end my threads, etc. When I first started, I was only doing about 40 stitches an hour. Now I'm up to 140 to 160 stitches an hour, and the process has become much more enjoyable. Originally, I planned to do each page individually, but I think I'll start extending my diagonals across the first row, and perhaps into the second. I really want to stitch that orb thingy on top of the pillar, so I'll be doing the first two pages on the first and second row first.

Last but not least, I've made some really good progress on Luna this month, so much that I think I can finish another page by the end of the year:

Check out her wing! I really love how this is stitching up. For November, I finished off four columns and started the next pair, 4340 stitches in all. If you look really closely, you might be able to see the very tip of her shoulder curving down. So yes, this column will be her arm, and next will be her dress. I'm so excited!! I still have to rearrange furniture every time I work on her, but it's worth it. Hopefully I can keep up this pace in December. :)

Whew! That was a lot. It seems I always stitch a lot more at the end of the year, probably because it feels like a deadline is looming. I hope you all have a great stitchy month, and enjoy the holidays! Until next time!