April Stitch From Stash and Pie

  It's time for Pie!

I had two new starts for my focus pieces this month.  First up was Evanora from Nora Corbett:

stitched on 28 count evenweave from unknown dyer

Then I moved on to my second new start - Summer from Cricket Collection:

stitched on 32 count Wandering Ivy Lugana from Silkweaver

I managed to complete the first three letters this month, just all the motifs to add to this half now.

Here's my evening pie:

You can see the projects in my Smalls post from Friday.

Finally, Stitch from Stash, a big, fat zero this month!

March Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for Pie!

I spent the first half of the month working on Fairy Idyll from Mirabilia.  She went from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Vinyard Murano from Crafty Kitten

After that I moved on to the Art Nouveau Head, which is my oldest WIP.

I went from here:

to here:

stitched on 14 count white Aida

Here's my evening pie:

You can see the two main projects in my Smalls post from Friday.

Finally, Stitch from Stash, just my two magazine subscriptions, which are exempt from the budget.

February Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for Pie!

I spent the first half of the month working on Cottage Garden Samplings Year in the Woods and have now completed The Swans next to The Fox:

stitched over 1 on 25 count Cirrus evenweave from Chromatic Alchemy

After that I moved on to the Art Nouveau Head, which is my oldest WIP.

I went from here:

to here:

stitched on 14 count white Aida

Here's my evening pie:

The second stocking took a lot longer that the first one.  Partly because it was the Christmas holidays when I started the first one so I had more time to do things in the day which gave me more stitching time in the evening.

You can see the two main projects in my Smalls post earlier today.

Finally, Stitch from Stash, a lovely no-spend month.

January Stitch from Stash and Pie

Regular followers will know I produce a delicious home-made pie to illustrate my focus projects for the month.  I don't record minutes or stitches so this gives an approximate idea of how much time each WIP got.

You can see what I spent most of the month on!

Art Nouveau Head went from here:

to here:

stitched on 14 count White Aida

Obviously a lot of block fill-in which is quicker.  The bottom half is similar but that circle shape and the headpiece is going to be much more time consuming.  I am confident I can get this completed this year though.

I also keep an evening Pie, which looks very varied this month:

This year evenings are going to be dedicated to my Annie Beez Stockings and whatever else takes my fancy so expect some varied pies this year.

Finally, Stitch from Stash.  This is my eleventh year!  I skipped 2016 as it was a Big Birthday Year and I wanted to be able to splurge a little.  But apart from that it's been a huge success and really helped me see where to cut down on my spending.

As I mentioned before, I needed the red beads for the Annie Beez stocking and thought it was a good idea to get the bead pack for the Zodiac Girl at the same time.

December Stitch from Stash and Pie

It's Old Year's Night and time for a look back at the past 366 days of stitching.

First of all, here is the Pie for December:

All three projects were chosen by,my WIPGO Board.  Maria Brovko's Life in the Shire was November's pick which was a finish in the first week of December.

stitched on 32 count Millenium Blue fabric

Shannon Christine's 12 Days of Christmas is still awaiting beads, so I've been focusing on Life in Stitch's Aslan.  I've got some really good progress over the Christmas period to make up for several days of very little stitching prior to the break!

stitched on 28 count black evenweave

Here's the Evening Pie:

Because I couldn't finish the 12 Days design, I carried on with Aslan in the evenings for the last 9 days. 

In my WIPocalypse post I showed you my finishes from my "24 in '24" list and now here are the rest of my finishes for the year:

I am particularly proud of the giant blackwork Zodiac design from Circle Cross.

Let's have a look at the Annual Pie Chart now:

A very different story to last year where one project used over 100 days.  This year was a "Rotation" year and I chose 12 projects which I thought would take about a month each to stitch. 

Those turned out to be the Top 12 taking between 12 and 36 days to complete.

My usual 1 day Marathon was spread over a week due to time constraints.  I also had my A-Z Challenge for IHSW (when I remembered!) so that meant a lot of projects got 2-3 days across the year. 

I came into the year with 14 WIPs and started 29 projects over the course of the year of which only 4 are still WIPs (although one only needs beads).  I also completed 4 projects started prior to 2024.  My current WIPs are:

Prior to 2020     6

2021-23             4

2024                  4

Total                14

How did the spending go last month?  My magazine subscription came out, I also bought some DMC and a roll of aida banding for my Temperature SAL next year.

I also tallied up the spend for the whole year:

Magazines almost exactly the same, I only get Cross Stitcher via subscription and Just Cross Stitch digital subscription plus paper copies of the Halloween and Christmas Specials.

Charts are a little bit down, the big expense was the Just Nan Magical chart which was a Birthday present.  I'm still trying to work on stash charts.
Fabric was also a little bit down, bought another three pieces for the Zodiac Girls.

Threads were a little bit up because I splurged in the sale at the Wool Shop (60p a skein can't be beat!) and "other" included beads for one of the Zodiac Girls.

Looking at the last ten years, this was pretty much an average spend which is good.

Finally,

Have a very Happy Old Year's Night

and a very Peaceful New Year's Day

November Stitch from Stash

 The total spend for November was, drum roll......

Yup, a big fat nothing!  I'd gone into the negative the previous month thanks to the Wool Shop closing down and selling their DMC off cheap and a little treat of two CGS charts when I went to pick up my JCS Christmas Special at the LNS down the road.

So I had to rein things in a little this month.

October Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for pie!

Most of the month was spent on my Halloween Sampler from Cottage Garden Samplings which I managed to finish:

stitched on 40 count Witch's Brew linen from Zweigart

Once I finished the main sampler, I cut off the bottom of the fabric and stitched this little small from the JCS Halloween Special 2024.  This is from Quaternion Creations and is called Nevermore.  I left off the words from the bottom of the design.

stitched on 40 count Witch's Brew linen from Zweigart

I have enough fabric to stitch one or two more smalls.

I added some more of the border to my Blackwork Temperature Tree:

I also started this cute little Skeleton Chameleon from Fil'anthrope:

stitched on 36 count Dark Green linen

The evenings were dedicated to my Steady Thread Halloween Blackwork and my pie looks like this:

It now looks like this:

stitched on 30 count tea-dyed linen

Finally, Stitch from Stash and my spending was higher that expected:

The local wool shop is closing down and were selling off everything at a discount including DMC at 60p a skein.  Yes, my US friends, that is very cheap for us!  So I grabbed the colours I needed plus some of the variegated threads I wanted.

I also went over to the needlework shop in the next town to collect my JCS Christmas magazine and while I was there picked up two of the Cottage Garden Samplings Year of Houses charts.  I won't get all of them, just the ones I particularly like.

I bought these two.

I also like the Hobbit House, the Tree House and the Haunted House.

September Stitch from Stash

 Here's my monthly spend:

I couldn't resist the Halloween Blackwork chart from The Steady Thread and started it immediately on a piece of 30 count linen I tea-dyed.

One of the pieces of fabric was from Chromatic Alchemy's closing down sale and the other two were from a new-to-me dyer on Facebook.

August Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for pie!

As you can see I spent most of the month completing the Joan Elliott Faces SAL, this has been a WIP for 10 years now so I was very excited to finally finish it this month!

Another finish I was very excited by was the third in the Nora Corbett Zodiac Girls series, this is Capricorn:

This meant I was in a good place to start September's WIPGO choice early.  This is a TraLaLa design called Coeur de Sorciere (Witch's Heart).  I forgot to take a photo though, so here's the cover picture:

I also keep a pie for my evening stitching.  This month it was split between The Hare Moon from Circle Cross and the three Halloween Trifles.  Four more finishes!

Finally, Stitch from Stash.

I just had to get the latest Just Nan sampler release.  Firstly because it's the first sampler she has designed in ten years so it's great to see her go back to the format I first fell in love with.  Secondly, it's Limited Edition because of the embellishment packs.  Once they sell out you won't be able to get it again.  It will have to be a Birthday present though.