December WIPocalypse- Recap time!

I’m sure you’re shocked that I missed November’s check in. Nothing crazy happened except for the normal dash to the end of the year through the holidays. It was fun but I’m tired and have had way too much good food and am ready for some quiet, snowy days to craft and recharge.

I feel like I didn’t stitch near as much as I planned this year but I fell deep down the beading rabbit hole and did craft a lot overall. Glad I didn’t really set specific goals since they would have been completely out the window. I do wish I would have gotten round to the Russian sampler I had kitted at the beginning of the year so I think I will try to alternate it and HAEDs in my 2019 stitching. I don’t plan on much in way of goals since I’m apparently easily distracted but want to spend some time in the WIP pile for sure.

For now, how about a WIP/finish recap for 2018? I tried to find the earliest 2018 pics on the WIPs for a before/after. See you all in 2019!

January WIPocalypse Check In

Happy almost February everyone! Thanks for all the happy and stitchy 2018 wishes. I tried to hit as many blogs as 3 kids in the house allows last month and loved seeing everyone’s WIPocalypse plans. I did okay in January though of course my original plans were immediately derailed in favor of a few unexpected projects. 

I made it a couple weeks on Watergarden and then kind of stalled out here...

Got about halfway down the right hand side, not too bad for one round. And not to worry, stitchy bug wasn’t gone. The stitchy ADD kicked in because I found Castles in the Air on the WIP pile and decided now would be a good time to start the lettering so I have at least a little progress to show in May at Celebration. As you can see I’ve opted for some alternate text. It will eventually be the Thoreau quote about castles in the air. I’ve always liked that one and this seems a pretty appropriate piece for it. This one is being stitched on 32 count Lupine linen with DMC 712.

My final project for the month has been to start something not so stitchy. I’ve been following a few Facebook stitchers who have been turning out beaded stars like crazy (pattern here) and decided that these should be Christmas gifts. I’ve never done this sort of beading before but I have not had any trouble after figuring out the start. So far I’m almost done with the first one done in size 11 Delicas as the pattern suggests and I started a second with a red/pink mix of Czech glass beads almost the same size. They’re not quite as precision cut as the Delica brand but I saw them at Hobby Lobby and loved the color mix so I thought I’d give them a try. I haven’t seen anyone do anything but solid colors in the main part of the star but I love the way the first section looks so far, both colors and the way the beads are lining up. I see quite a few more stars in my future as several people have already requested them as Christmas gifts, my boys included. I know I said I was doing Mill Hill sleds for them but that may turn into a 2019 plan. Chris has already claimed my blue star and Josh has eyes on the green beads I bought but we’ll see when I get a few more done. 

I do have some stitchy plans for the next month, we’ll see if they stick. Hoping to continue the stars and finish at least the blue one if not the red one too.  I plan on trying to finish the lettering for Castles or at least getting as far as I can before the Stitching Olympics start and then picking up Coppervein for the rest of the time before check in. It’s going to be February so no kid sports and the weather is likely to be cold so hoping for lots of stitchy time as long as I don’t get derailed by the Nintendo Switch. I got the newest Legend of Zelda for my birthday this month and it has seriously eaten into my stitching time despite being passed between my husband, oldest son and me. 

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.

August TUSAL

Thanks for all the kind words on the stitching and well wishes for all the boys too:). We made it through the first couple days of school without any problems and Josh seems to like it so far though I think his backpack weighed more than him on the first day! Here's a quick pic we snapped before we left on the first day...



It's also time again for TUSAL, that fun time of month to show off your ort jar...



I realized while taking this that I've been stitching some really boring colors so far this year, almost all blues with various shades of brown and gray thrown in, so I made my next rotation choice a more colorful one and decided to go back to Chatelaine's Watergarden for a week or two to save my eyes from the over one of Space Traveler and bring a little color to my jar for next time. Here's where I'm leaving Space Traveler for now...



I made it through the first full page so 2 pages down now with a bunch to go and yes, I did work on it while watching the Doctor Who season premiere the other night. Very happy to finally see Peter Capaldi in action!

That's about it for now. Not much baby news to report since last time, going to hit 33 weeks in a couple days and all seems to be well outside the normal complaints of getting uncomfortable and not sleeping a whole lot. I do have possibly our last ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow so excited to see the boys and how big they've gotten. Very excited to be so close to seeing them in person!