May's Intimidating Designers WIPocalypse

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings
Also linking up with 17 in '17

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  I have chosen my "17 in '17" which are the 17 projects I want to focus on this year.  You can see the full list on this page here.

This month I only worked on six of my projects BUT I did get a big Happy Dance for one of them so that's a bonus.

1. My spooky conversion of Lavender & Lace's Enchanted Alphabet:

stitched on 32 count Murano in Tigerlily by Sparklies

2. Oberlin Sampler's Witches:

3. Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas:

4. Just Nan's Spring in the Square:

5. Brooke's Books' Stitcher's Alphabet.  I actually stitched V last month but I'm not showing W until next Saturday so here's V:

6. Jannlynn Designs' Gathering Honey was my Happy Dance:

Measi always gives us a discussion topic.

May - Which designer's projects do you absolutely love, but are too intimidated to try?

Short answer - no-one!

Long answer.  I had a good think about this one and at the end of the day, all designs are basically putting the needle into the fabric and pulling a thread along with it.  Purely and simply.  A large or complex design may look daunting but it is still one stitch after another.  

Some charts make it harder to stitch a project (see the backstitch guide on Gathering Honey!)  but you just work your way through the instructions, one sentence at a time.    If you look back at my Happy Dance blog you'll see my 3rd project was on black aida, my 4th had metallics, my 5th was this one:

And then I moved on to Teresa Wentzler.  Who probably shares the crown for complex designs with Martina from Chatelaine.  The only reason I hadn't stitched a Chatelaine until this year was price and too much choice!

Then I thought about the bigger picture - what does intimidate me?  Not much really!  I have reached the point in life where I know what I can and can't do.  If I know I can't do something I'm not going to waste time trying and failing.  I'll find an alternative.  I can remember the last time I was really nervous about something - presenting an assembly on Road Safety to 250 Primary School children.  That gave me butterflies, children are very open if they are bored by what you are saying!  The funny thing was that the previous week I'd spoken at a meeting about cuts to public library funding to a similar amount of adults with no nerves at all.

I think there's a lot of truth in the phrase "that which does not kill us, makes us stronger" (Nietsche).  I went to a state comprehensive where people attempted to bully me for the twin sins of being poor and clever.  You were allowed to be one or the other, but not both.  Free meals kids were not supposed to be in the top set, according to certain wealthier, less intelligent students!  Note I say "attempted to bully me", they soon learned I wasn't an easy target and wandered off to pick on someone else.  There were a lot of people came out of our school with very low self esteem.  But for the lucky ones, we feel we are just as good as anyone from a better school or background and we do have that certain bolshie attitude!

NB I am not convinced this was a good thing, I would rather we had all come out feeling confident because we'd been nurtured and well taught!

Anyway, back to the stitching and Chatelaines.  Martina is celebrating her 200th design and 20th Anniversary with this beauty:

Finally, it's a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, rain is probably forecast for tomorrow so there'll be plenty of time for stitching instead!