Looking Back, Looking Forward

Hi all! Happy 2019! Hope you get used to writing the new year soon, cuz those 8s are really hard to change into 9s. :)

Looking back over 2018 is kind of overwhelming for me. I had so many starts and very few finishes. But I did have a lot of fun stitching! :) I also had a few firsts this year: With Eliza Bell Cox (first pic) I started my first project on 46ct linen (and loved it!). With Marquise de Caumont (2nd pic) I experimented with diagonal stitching and became somewhat addicted to that method. And with The Awakening (3rd pic) I began my first supersized HAED (though I have two other wips that are almost as large) and stitched full crosses over 1 on 28ct for the first time, which I also seem to enjoy.

I only had 3 finishes, but one of them was Quotes to Live by, which is a fairly large project. My Frosty Forest project is far from finished, but since these are individual charts, my Snowy Reindeer counts as one. When We Do, by Lizzy Kate, was a really quick stitch that I gifted to a friend.

Going in to 2018, I had two stitchy goals: to stitch at least 30 stitches every day, and to stitch 150,000 stitches for the year. The first goal was to remind myself that even when I think I'm too tired or distracted or whatever to stitch, it doesn't have to take up a lot of time. Plus, I always feel better after stitching, and always regret it when I don't. The second goal was just me being competitive with myself because I like to aim high. For comparison, my 2017 total was 114,637. So, what is my 2018 total stitch count? Drum roll please... 150,910! Woohoo! I never actually expected to make it, but like I said, I'm competitive. I should also mention I don't count backstitches or specialty stitches, but I do count tent stitches. My total time for all stitches for the year was 765.3 hours, and I did manage to stitch every day. :)

Here's a few more stats (cuz I like to keep track): In addition to my 3 finishes, I finished 9 pages on various full coverage projects; I started 28 projects (told you it was a lot); my current wip count is 70, though 8 or 10 of those are neglected ufos; and I stitched on 62 projects during the year.

I like to end my reviews with a look back at Moon Indigo, which has been my focus piece for 4 years now, and likely will be until she's done. So here's her progress from January to November:

I've already made a start on her 3rd row. The goal is to stitch at least half of that row in 2019.

Looking forward, I'm hoping to make 2019 a year of progress. As I've previously stated, I don't plan on making any more starts this year; I want to enjoy what I've got going, and hopefully get a few more finishes. (Any bets on when I cave in and start something?)

I've got a new monthly rotation worked out this year for my morning stitching, divided into weeks. Week 1 is for my portable HAEDs; Week 2 is for series projects, like Frosty Forest and Sheep Virtues; Week 3 is for a few focus projects I want to make good progress on; Week 4 is for projects I want to finish this year. This isn't a rigid schedule, but more of a guide. I get a planner every year and plot out my morning stitching for the whole year (in pencil) so I have a realistic idea of how many projects I can work on and when. It's really helped me to see which projects are foremost in my mind to get done and make time for them accordingly. This process also helped me to realize I need to stop starting all the things, as there is a long list of projects that won't get touched this year.

My evening stitching is not so organized. I have a general idea of projects I want to work on and goals associated with them, but no schedule, per se. Moon Indigo will still get her 2 columns a month, at least. But I'd also love to start working on Pavonia again. Completing a diagonal every month on Marquise de Caumont sounds good, but I also want to squeeze in time for Elizabeth Oliver and Awakening as well, not to mention my monthly rotation of full coverage pieces.

See what I mean? I may try a 3 day rotation in the evenings for some projects, just to see if I like it. Everything else should find its place. It usually does. :)

Okay, I've rambled enough here. Thanks to all who read this blog. Happy stitching!

Trying Really Hard

Hey stitchers! This year has been off to such a rocky start, I feel like I'm still spinning in circles, trying to find my direction. Moving in with extended family has its own headaches, but I still haven't had time to get things set up just right, including my main stitchy spot. But I am slowly getting there, and things are beginning to settle down. My mother injured her knee just before Christmas, but now she's well enough for physical therapy and she is finally able to walk with just a cane! So that makes a huge difference in how much I do for her, and gives me lots more time to stitch. :)

I've kinda been all over the place with stitching, but I've managed some decent progress on a few projects. I never got around to solidifying my goals for this year, but there is one goal I hope to stick to. I've decided to try and stitch Every Single Day this year, even if it's only 30 stitches. After barely stitching at all last Autumn, I feel like I lost a lot of potential progress, even if I'd only managed 10 minutes of work. So, this year, it's stitch every day! I've already had a couple nights where it's the last 10 minutes before bed, but I feel so much better the next day, knowing I made that small effort.

So, February started off with Flora, though I only managed 4 days of stitching. Last time I focused on the purple iris, so this time it was the pink shawl. There's also a pink/red flower toward the top that's slowly taking shape:

I also pulled out Crystals and Crows, which has been calling to me since last year. This project is so large, it's difficult to get it all set up, but I managed to put a pretty big dent in the sky on page 2, with a little bit trailing into page 3:

I really love that hint of lavender at the top. The colors are blending so beautifully together. There's a lot of sky on this page, so I hope I can get through it fairly quickly and make a start on page 3 later this year. But we'll see. It still amazes me that the original version was done in watercolor.

My Geometric Bunny saw a week of progress, and is now doing a fair imitation of a chipmunk. :)

This one is very relaxing to stitch, and feels good on a stressful day. All the symmetry and solid blocks makes it so easy, I'm gonna miss him when he's done. But that's still a ways away.

Angel of Grace also got 4 days of work, though I was sick for two of those days. However, yesterday turned out to be a really good stitchy day, my first all year I think, so that kind of made up for a bad week. I worked mostly on the flare of dress to the left, and I'm close to finishing some of those pretty pleats and ruffles:

I am so tempted to keep working on this project! I may keep her out a few more days, we'll see. The dress is supposed to be edged with DMC Metallic gold, but since no one has ever had a kind word for that thread, I want to substitute in something else. I thought of using Kreinik, but now I'm thinking Petit Treasure Braid? (I've never used that.) Only they have so many shades of gold! So now I get to have fun picking and choosing, which give this project an added personal touch and makes it even harder to put down. But alas, other projects are calling...

Luna got some love as well, but I think I'll save her for WIPocalypse so you don't get sick of tiny bits of blue. I've been struggling with my Stitchrovia SAL though, since it was an unplanned project. (I haven't even started the quotes yet!) Hopefully in March I can get my act together. I'll also be pulling out Scale pretty soon, as I've really started to miss her. Hopefully I can get another two pages done this year and finish off her lips. :)

In the meantime, I've been kitting up a new project. Another Massive project. And yes, it's a Golden Kite.

This is Palazzo Con Personaggi. It is 896x654, or 585,984 stitches. I plan to tent stitch this on 25ct Magic Guide. I don't know that I'll ever finish it, which I'm fine with, but I really want to start and at least stitch that couple on the left, the woman seated in green, and the man standing in dark blue. I think just those two take up 30 pages or so, but the pages are half the size of a regular HAED. So, for the last couple weeks, I've been slowly amassing materials and making lists of symbols for my Pako organizers, which really help in sorting those blended threads. I had about half the floss on hand, and thanks to a very convenient sale at Joann's, I now have the rest. So now I am slowly bobbinating before I start snipping lengths of thread and filling needles. It's a very labor intensive process, but very worth it once I begin stitching. If you're curious, I'll try to show more of my setup process in a later post. :)

Well, I think I've rambled enough for one post. Thanks for reading. 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! :)

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!

June WIPocalypse

Hi there!

Today is officially the first day of summer, but it's been over 90 degrees (F) here for about two weeks.Ugh! Looking over the projects I've worked on in the last month, it seems like a lot more time has passed since I stitched on them. I've been sooo busy at work, stuff I worked on four weeks ago feels more like two or three months ago. It kind of gives me that surreal feeling like time is going both really fast and really slow. But I guess the year is half over, or just about.

Let's see... I worked on Cass for a while, as she's nice easy stitching when I'm feeling stressed. Here's where I left her in March:

I managed to finish the bottom border and get to the edge of her dress plus the end of her couch, then I rolled her up and stitched a bit more:

I got some more green done on my Tigers, but couldn't quite finish all the leaves. It's pretty close though:

Flora started a new page, which is off to a good start:

I added a couple columns on Moon Indigo (I also did a parking demo with her if you're interested, just click the tab at the top):

I figure if I do just two columns a month on Luna, I'll get another 11,400 stitches done by the end of the year, which is about a page and a half. Not a bad total for just a little attention each month. :)

I also finally pulled out Scale for the first time this year, but only for  a few days so far. Last year I managed to get her massive eye done. This year, it'll be her massive nose:

And last but not least, I had a new start for my birthday (can't believe that was less than 4 weeks ago!). This is Ginger Nova from HAED:

I've got four columns of page one done (large format). Just a few more columns to finish the page (and my goal for the year) but I doubt I'll put her away after that. I really love stitching on her and watching those colors take shape into stars and light and space. I'd love to get into the orange of her inner halo, but we'll see. :)

Phew! Didn't realize I'd touched so many projects since last time. No wonder it feels like more than a month. My stitch total for May was 8,918 stitches, my lowest for the year, but I'm still really happy with that. For the year, I'm up to 67,475 stitches, which I think is awesome! My original goal was 90,000 stitches for the year, but now I want to see if I can break 100,000, which is something I always thought would be impossible. But I am definitely going to give it a try. :)

This month's question is: Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?

I am definitely a winter stitcher. I know in January, I'm all excited about the new year and new goals, which always motivates me well into February. Then in late March, the seasons change, I start my spring cleaning, work gets busier, I go out shopping more, etc., and my stitching mojo gradually diminishes. Usually by May, I'm lucky to be doing any stitching at all (though this year might have turned the tide on that). June and July are usually so hot and awful, everything takes so much more energy and time gets away from me. Then by August, I'm trying to play catch up, and by September I settle down and try to finish up my more important goals. I usually hit my stride by October, then stitch like mad 'til the end of the year to finish as much as possible, then start the whole thing over again.

 I know most people like stitching when the sun is bright, but there's something about stitching when it's dark out that makes it seem more cozy, like there's nothing else in the world outside my lamp and my stitching. It makes it easier to focus. I guess that's why I prefer stitching on a winter evening to summer. :)