February WIPocalypse check in

 I know it’s March, but it’s still early March so close enough, right? Right! 

So I finally managed to get my Night Spirit Studio ornaments stitched up and sent off to friends. The highlighter seems to have come out and I’m pretty happy with the finishing. 

I also managed to get my components finished and assemble Threadabead’s Cardinal box. I’m very happy with the way it turned out and will have to make another for myself someday. 

I was also able to get a fair amount of time in on my HAED. Coppervein’s wing is really starting to take shape. I really wanted to get a page finish but February was just a bit too short. Maybe I’ll aim for two in March to make up for it:)

And last but not least for February is a replacement project for the finished box. I started another Threadabead box, this time an Easter one that is going to be mine. Not far yet but a couple Easter eggs is a pretty good start for a few days of work on it. 

March should be an interesting crafting month. The boys will be heading back to in person classes at school mid-month so I’m not sure if that means more or less crafting time yet. Hoping it means I’ll have a few mornings a week to blaze through a bit of housework and then a few hours to really focus on that dragon and his wing before they get back but we’ll see how it goes. Hope everyone has a warm, safe and crafty March! 

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!

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 WIPocalypse

How did it get to be last Sunday of the month again? Feels like we just posted July yesterday! Lots has happened in the last month. Had a family reunion, trip to WI, another big family party, Josh went back to school and soon soccer and birthday/holiday season will be upon us. Can't believe we're about to have a 9 year old and not one but two 3 year olds in the house! Here they are last month at Mars Cheese Castle in Wisconsin.

 

On to the stitching. It feels like I didn't get a lot done last month but looking at the pictures I did manage some progress. First, a new start- Joe's Garage, a Mill Hill Button & Bead kit.

 

Made the tiniest amount of progress on my chalkboard ornaments.

   

And gave the Vervaco teddy bear a face.

 

Hoping to finish off Joe's Garage this month and maybe the Vervaco piece too. Fingers crossed the trio of snotty boys decides to camp out in front of the TV so I can get a couple hours in this afternoon before Erich comes home tonight. He's been gone this weekend for a gaming tournament and the boys decided to all catch the same cold at the same time so they could use a quiet day before get to Monday. Happy Stitching all!

July WIPocalypse

I think I've got my photo storage and linking problems solved with Flickr, still a little annoyed at the lack of notice from Photobucket on their policy change but I'll continue on with Flickr for now and maybe go back and redo old links as I get a chance. Good thing is the old pics are all still there at Photobucket, the links from here just don't show it because they don't want to do third party hosting without a hefty fee.

Anyway, on to the check in since it is once again last Sunday of the month and WIPocalypse time. I actually feel like I accomplished quite a lot this month. I managed a finish and work on several projects. First up, I finished LHN's America for my Mom. I stitched on a scrap of some unknown evenweave from my stash with the recommended DMC. I was hoping to get it backed and finished off before the 4th but just haven't had the time or been in the right mood.

 

I was also in the mood to stitch over one so I got some work done on Coppervein too. I'm getting close to a page finish but the light colored confetti on the right side of his wing tip goes on forever.

   

The ornament pile grew a bit too with a few additions to the chalkboard ornament pile. Hoping that by starting early I won't be scrambling in December but I'm sure I'd get sidetracked at some point, seems to happen every year! 

 

And finally a birth announcement start. There's a little one coming in October and he needs some teddy bears so I'm going to give him a Vervaco I've had for awhile. I can't find a name for it but I've got the kit# around here somewhere if someone wants to try to find it. This is my second time stitching it so I converted the leftover kit floss to DMC and bought some ivory 32 count Lugano to stitch this version on.

That's it for my July progress. Planning to continue on with ornaments and the teddy bears in August and hopefully finish the bears and replace them with Teresa Wentzler's You Were Hatched. We've got a trip to Chicago/WI planned in a couple weeks so I'll probably pull out some Mill Hill kits for the car that weekend. I've only got a bin full of them waiting to be stitched so not too many to choose from! With the trip and school and soccer starting up again August is looking like a busy month already. Hope you all are having a good and stitchy Summer too.

June WIPocalypse

Hi there, sorry about last month. Life got kind of crazy for a bit but is hopefully settling down again. We had kind of a blur of First Communion, Celebration, end of school, soccer season, and Mom had knee replacement surgery all combined with extra shifts at work to help cover summer vacations. 

I did make it to Celebration and had a wonderful time. There is definitely no other event quite like this around me. I came home relaxed, with new friends, new stitchy ideas, some new stash, and a definite stitchy bug.  I had a chance to meet such stitching celebrities as Erin of  Fairy Tales and French Knots, Abi of you tube fame and last but certainly not least Measi herself. There were tons of other awesome stitchers too but those are the ones I know of off the top of my head with an online presence. A couple quick pics I took since I'm sure everyone has shared bunches already-

I've got lots of WIP pics since I skipped last month so let's dig right in. I got my birth
announcement framed just in time to start another soon for another cousin due in the fall...

There's Dragon Master, where there still is no dragon or master but I did achieve flame...    

 

Then there's Country Cottage Needlework's Love Birds which I stitched mostly at Celebration
and finished shortly after...

One of my stash acquisitions at Celebration was a fat half of Slate linen from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie which I'm using part of for the Hands On Design Chalkboard ornaments that came out last year. I'm thinking of adding real jingle bells to a few instead of stitched ones so Be Jolly isn't quite done yet. Here's where I'm at now.

And finally I'm almost finished with Little House Needlework's America, just in time for July 4th though I don't know if I'll have time to get it display-ready this week. 

Lovebirds and America are part of a series of seasonal smalls I'm hoping to finish for my Mom.
My parents just downsized into a condo and she's gotten rid of tons of her old decorations (non-stitched pieces) so I bought her a small easel for her new mantle (which hasn't been installed yet but will be) and have planned a number of pieces to finish flat to display there throughout the year. I've started another CCN piece too but it's in timeout for being off a single stitch that's going to cause me to frog a bunch to fix. I'll show you that one later when I'm not angry at it anymore. 

Finally, my stitching space. It isn't really all that exciting since I have to hide the stitching stuff from my twins until I'm ready to stitch but this is my recliner in the family room with my favorite fleece blanket since our family room is in the basement and it gets cold down there.
I've got a decent floor lamp with a small adjustable light and a side table big enough for coffee and a WIP.

That's all until next month, stay cool and keep stitching! 

September WIPocalypse

Oops, got busy with end of Summer/start of school and missed August so you get a double dose of stitching this month.

For August I actually had a new start I used to join in some of the online stitching competitions taking place around the time of the Rio Olympics. I made a good start on an eventual gift for my younger brother, HAED's charted version of Coppervein by Ruth Thompson. I got about 3,300 stitches in, not a bad start but still a long way to go!

I spent the rest of my stitchy time working on all things Christmas. I made some good progress on the Brittercups-

Mostly finished my trio of Gingerbread boys (just need to be personalized)-

And started working through Prairie Schooler's Cranberry Christmas. I'm tempted to restitch some of these in a dark blue/white/green colorway but not sure I'll get around to that this year. 

That's all for my stitching progress so on to Measi's question of the month. 

Tell us a story about the journey you took through one of your completed pieces.

I'm going to go with Noah's Sub by Stoney Creek. This one has a story even before I started it. I saw 
it somewhere on one of the online stitching groups in the early 2000's and knew it was a piece I 
wanted to stitch for my eventual child's room. I was in college at the time and already engaged to my husband so kids were coming but not soon. I was pretty disappointed to find it was out of print and going for way more than my budget would allow on eBay. I tried to bid a few times but could never quite win. Christmas rolled around and I was surprised to find the leaflet in a Christmas package from my husband's aunt. Somehow she had managed to be in the right place at the right time and had gotten it for me. Erich bought the DMC as a birthday gift and I was ready to stitch. 

That WIP followed me around for the next few years. It was there when I went to Indy on an overnight trip for a second interview that ended in my first real job as a pharmacist. It was there at our first apartment. It went on vacation several times. I remember working on the half stitches of the colorful sky during my mother in law's cancer surgery (she's fine now). I worked on it on and off through the first few years of trying to start a family when we weren't sure we ever would. It was entered in The Wagon's first Stitching Olympics and won a gold medal. I worked furiously to finish and frame it when I thought we were getting close to finalizing our first adoption. I closed it up in the child's bedroom I couldn't enter for weeks after that adoption fell through at the last minute. It hung as a centerpiece in Josh's room when he arrived and I remember holding him up to it and pointing out all the different colorful animals and it still hangs in the room though the twins occupy it now. I'm hoping one of the three boys will want it back someday for their own kids. 

That's about it for stitchy things but before I go just wanted to share a recent pic of the twins. They turned 2 yesterday and have grown into such big boys! They were pretty wiggly but they almost sat still with me and their new Paw Patrol buddies:) They're getting so close to letting me stitch while they're awake. More stitching time is coming soon!

Can't wait to see what everyone else has been up to! 

July WIPocalypse

Almost on time for once, how in the world did that happen? So last post I left with plans to stitch Christmas in July. I've done pretty well so far. Finished another of the Frosty Forest pieces from Country Cottage Needleworks, Snowman's Cottage this time...

Made a start on some Brittercup designs from old JCS ornament issues. I'll dig out the details when I'm done. Apologies for the sideways pic, Photobucket claims to have turned it around several times but it just won't stick!

And finally I stitched 1 of 3 gingerbread men for the boys' Christmas ornaments. I'm adapting Little House Needlework's Gingerbread Cookie to be a name ornament this year, just have to settle on the charting of the names and the color to use. The fabric is a little washed out in the photo, couldn't get the light just right but I promise the border really doesn't blend into the fabric in person.

So I've been thinking about my stitching plans for the rest of the year and I think I've got a plan. I'm going to use the rest of the month to finish off as many Christmas ornaments as possible and the first couple days of August until the Olympic challenges start. I'm going to go for a distance challenge and work on a HAED for the month, just not sure which one yet. I've got options and they all want attention. My priorities for the rest of the year are to finish Christmas stitching and stitch one more birth announcement and then I can go back to whatever I want for the rest of the year, probably HAEDs.

So that covers my WIPocalypse check-in and then some. Been meaning to share a couple stash additions so I'll tack those on to the end here. First of all I was the lucky winner of a Facebook contest from the awesome ladies over at Weeks Dye Works. I never win these things and was so excited to see my name posted:) Can't wait to find the perfect project to finish off with that wool!

As a Mother's Day present I joined one of the subscriptions over at Stitchybox for an every other month box of semi-mystery stitchy stuff sent to my house which is kind of nice because the LNS is about 45 minutes away so I don't get out there as often as I'd like. Here's what the first box I received contained-

They seem to base the box contents on a colored theme, this one being the picture and color guide in the upper right corner. Looking forward to trying a couple new brands of stitchy things and finding just the right projects for these things. 

That's about it for now, off to stitch until bedtime. Can't wait to see what everyone else has been up to this month!