WIPocalypse 2018: The introduction

Hi all! In case you’re landing here for the first time I’m Sara and I’m a stitcher, wife, Mom to 3 little boys, and retail pharmacist (gotta pay the bills and buy the stash somehow). I am participating in Measi’s WIPocalypse SAL again because it’s fun and my goal is of course to stitch all the stash. I have a bit of a BAP problem and apparently have quite a few more projects kitted and started than I realized before I recently combed through them all, unkitted the ones I’m not interested in any longer, and organized what was left. It would take years to finish the current WIPs if I stitched nothing else and I’m mostly ok with that because I’m not on a time limit except for one that is a gift.

So let’s get started. First off, my helpers...



That’s Christopher, Joshua, and Benjamin (L-R). The twins are 3 and Josh is 9. They love that I stitch and are convinced that all pieces belong to them. They also love to help and are finally all old enough that I can stitch when they’re all awake though my progress is sometimes slower than I’d like.

The current favorites in the house also happen to be my two focus pieces for the year, Watergarden and Coppervein. Watergarden is a Chatelaine and was started forever ago. It is mine despite Christopher’s claim that it is going to live in his room. It is likely destined for my living room wall and I kind of fell in love with it again recently so I’d like to get it done and hung sooner rather than later. I’m stitching on opalescent white even weave with most of the called for fibers except I did swap out the NPI silk for DMC and am happy with the results. I am a little farther along on the right side now but this is the most recent pic of the full piece.



Coppervein is a HAED I’m working on as a gift for my little brother. I promised him I’d stitch him a big piece when he graduated high school and moved out on his own. He took some time and picked it off the HAED site and I’ve been slowly working on it. I’d like to make some good progress on it in 2018 but I know it’s not feasible to finish it.



And then there’s the bin.



It holds quite a variety of unfinished projects including but definitely not limited to...

The Jim Shore angel I started and really should finish for my MIL.



The Shepherd’s Bush ornaments I never finished for my tree.



The class projects from last year’s Celebration of Needlework.



And so many more which hopefully you will see in 2018. I’m not doing a strict stitch from stash year but I’m trying to work on WIPs more than new starts. That said, I do have a few new starts planned.



They are some of the Mill Hill sleds from last year and Russian Nights Sampler. These are actually for the kids. I try to stitch them an ornament each year so that they will have some of their own when they eventually leave and move out and this year they picked out the sleds. The sampler is an old, out of print design gifted to me by a dear stitchy friend (thank you Darla!) for my Josh who we adopted from Russia as a toddler. I have a few other Russian themed pieces I’d like to eventually stitch for him but at the moment he is fascinated with the look of the Cyrillic alphabet and St. Basil’s so this piece is perfect. I do have in stash Chatelaine’s White Nights of St. Petersburg, Terry Nolan’s Enchantment of Winter, a Thea Gouverneur (I think St. Basil’s), as well as a couple of kits we picked up while in Russia but please feel free to comment and point out any awesome pieces I may have missed. I hope to do a Russia wall someday and if Josh wants some of the pieces he will be welcome to take them when he moves out.

I think that’s a pretty good intro for today. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to and getting some work done on Watergarden so I ave new pics for you next time.