Finish #2

 I made a big push the last few days, so I was able to finish Wonders of Space today! So happy with how this turned out:

I made a few adaptations to leave out the words that were charted, and I think it looks pretty good. She's got another version of this chart where each square is a solid block, but I rather like the speckled look. It should fit nicely into an 8x8 frame, so hopefully that will happen soon. If you're wondering, this is from Climbing Goat Designs on Etsy. She has another stitch along for this year, but I'm happy with this one. :)

I've been stitching other projects as well, but they're still a bit haphazard as I'm still working on the History challenge in Full Coverage Fanatics. But I did manage 3 days on Crystals & Crows and added about 350 stitches:

I'm kind of struggling with this one a little bit. I love it, I want to stitch more on it, but my progress is just so horribly slow. I don't know if I need to adapt my stitching method again -- though honestly, I do like this one best -- or if I should just go back to my 18ct version. I'll persevere with this one a while longer, but sometimes it's hard for me to enjoy a piece when I'm constantly questioning my methods. I guess I just need to have patience.

I'm almost done with my History challenge (just 5 to go!) so I should have the random bits done this week. I still need to get in my stitches for the counting portion though. I'm also planning to switch my focus piece to Elizabeth Oliver until she's finished. I still can't believe I'm almost done with her! I guess that's all for now. I gotta get to stitching! :)

Going with the Flow

 I had a plan for March. I had a handful of wips to work and focus on. But then along came the March History Sprints in Full Coverage Fanatics, and I got all swept up in the challenge. So while part of me is a bit upset that goals and plans have been pushed back, the other part of me is saying, Hey, this is fun! And wasn't that the ultimate goal for this year? To enjoy my wips and go with the flow? So I'm trying. It's still hard to be flexible. But I've managed to take on the challenge, rearrange my mindset and adapt my current stitching to some larger goals. So that's success right? I'll take it!

So the History Sprints basically gives you 20 dates for March with historical events. The challenge is to either stitch on a piece for the same number of stitches as the year, or to match a prompt based on the day's historical fact. Because I have so many wips, I'm attempting to do both, sort of. I've picked one date and one wip to match the number of stitches, and for every other date, I'll match the prompt with a small stitching goal. Simple enough, right?

My goal for the prompts is to stitch on each wip for at least 30 minutes, which is very doable, but it still takes over my evening stitching. I've stitched on 7 different wips so far and matched 9 of the prompts, so I'm about halfway there. I'm not going to show all those tiny bits of progress here, but I do want to share one wip that I started at the end of last year and haven't shown here yet.

This one is called Summer Breeze by The Cross Stitch Studio. I was enabled to visit them through Flosstube, and I would highly encourage you to check them out. Many of their charts are quite large (this one is 869x649) but they do have some smaller charts as well, all full coverage. I started this on December 20th, and it's 2x1 tent stitch on 25ct Lugana:

I'm not really big on beach themed stuff, but I really adore this image. Something about the color palette and those big clouds makes it seem really calming to me. I don't have any definitive goals for this one, but I at least want to get that first page done. It'll be a while before I get to those clouds though.

I am still doing a focus project for the month. This time I'm back to my Wonders of Space SAL that I was so enamored with last year. I was working in block 6, the Andromeda Galaxy, when I put it down last June. I think I was really stressed at the time, and the confetti and I were not getting along. But I've made some good progress this week and got 2 blocks done:

I've had to make some adjustments to this chart, which might be part of why I put this away for so long. The SAL version was charted with words that cut across some of the images. It's nice and all, but I just didn't care for that version. So I've filled in some gaps to make it a nice 3x3 square. I only have 2 blocks left, so I should have this done pretty soon. :)

That's all for now. Next week I'll keep sprinting and hope for a finish. I still have a lot of stitching to do! Hope you all are staying on track with your goals. Happy stitching!

Hi's and Lo's

 I didn't do quite as much stitching last week as I would have liked, but honestly, isn't that always the case? I did try my best to get some good progress on my current Frosty Forest block (which I started last February) but it was much more work intensive than I anticipated. So instead of finishing off this block and getting a good start on the next, I didn't even manage to complete the one:

In all honesty, this project started to drag me down after a few days, and I found myself not wanting to work on it. Nothing against the project, but it's on that very stiff Wichelt, and it after typing all day for work, it was a bit hard on my hands. I had been really looking forward to stitching the house (love stitching houses!) but stitching that variegated thread one stitch at a time is not my favorite, but I liked the effect too much to stitch in rows. Plus, I found my thread a bit tangly, so I used my trolley needle for most of the house. It looks much nicer, but slows me way down. So I hope I can find more time for this one later this year and finish off a couple blocks. That house needs to be done!

I've also put a few more days into Elizabeth Oliver to meet my goal for the month:

I am so happy to have most of that green block done, and I've got her name in! That makes her officially official in my mind, and she's in the home stretch. I'm really hoping to finish her in March, or at least early April. Fingers crossed!

When I didn't want to work on Frosty Forest, I turned to my Temperature Library instead and surprised myself by catching up:

I added 4 colors for that very cold week we had (a new color every 3 degrees) and chose a really pale purple down to the very dark gray-purple for our 0 day. That way it's easy for me to spot. Then a week later we hit 69, so I got to stitch my first yellow. I really thought about trying to mark the days when it snowed, but my official weather station doesn't record trace amounts, and I haven't been keeping track. But next time I do a temperature chart, I may find a way to indicate some weather.

So that's all I worked on last week. My March plans are a bit all over the place, and I have a crazy notion I'll be participating in the Full Coverage Fanatics challenge for History Sprints. It involves switching to different projects almost every day to match a prompt, so we'll see how that goes. I'm kind of excited to try though. Guess that's all for now. Happy stitching!