Finally Fully Finishing Fun for January

 

Hosted by Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher

This SAL is designed to motivate us all to do something with that box of Finished pieces instead of just storing them under the bed.  We will all be linking up on Rachel's blog on or after the 10th of each month (10 Hour Stitcher - 10th of the month).

This is what I typed on my January post in 2020, which I copied into my January 2021 and 2022 posts:

Let's start the year off as we don't mean to go on - doing nothing all month and realising on the 9th that you have one day to FFO something, anything to show on the 10th.

Guess what?  Same thing this year!  Why break the run now?

I did have a piece planned luckily, I just didn't intend to leave it to the very last minute.

But here is the fourth in the Seasons in the Square series by Just Nan:

Winter in the Square

It's in a simple raw wood box frame like the other three.  I didn't have the charm for the centre but Christine sent me some lovely snowflakes to use so I chose one of them instead.

Here are the other three in the series:

Spring in the Square

Summer in the Square

Autumn in the Square

And here are four much older finishes I like to get out this time of year.  Technically they are Christmas themed but they seem more Winter to me and I don't have so many Winter pieces.

L-R Mistletoe, Holly, Juniper, Pine

They are all from Shepherd's Bush and I stitched them some time in 1998.

Finally, I will be running the Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop on Valentine's Day.

Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop

It's really very simple, all you have to do is email me a picture of something you have stitched which is suitable for a stitching friend on Valentine's Day.  It could be a heart, or a pair of cute creatures, or the word "love" or anything which warms your heart.  Really anything you think a fellow stitcher would like to receive in her email Inbox.  It can be something you've stitched in the past or something you've made especially for this year.  It could also be quilted or sewn this year as I know some of my followers do other crafts too.

Send me the email by 10th February.

When I have all the emails I will randomise them and send one to each participant on 13th February. Then on 14th February you must post the picture you receive onto your blog under the heading

Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop

There will be a list on my blog of everyone joining in, so check out all the blogs and find out who got your picture and identify yourself in their comments as their

Secret Stitching Sweetheart

Does that make sense to everyone? I hope so!

If you'd like to be involved then leave a comment on this post or send me an email if you are "no-reply". I'll be putting little reminders up from time to time and will email on 9th February to make sure you send the pic in time.

January WIPocalypse Introduction

   

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World. Measi always gives us a topic to discuss too.


January - Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year


Since 2011 I have chosen a number of projects to focus on that year, starting with my "11 in '11" and increasing to "23 in '23" for this year.  For 2023 the list includes some older WIPs, some BAPs and some partworks as well as seasonal stitching.

This is my WIPs collage, which represents 11 of the list::

This is the full list of 23:

1. Joan Elliott Faces SAL (1 block)
2. Kustom Krafts Little Snapdragon
3. Chatelaine Gardens of London
4. Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas
5. Carriage House Samplings Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow
6. Mirabilia Fairy Idyll
7. Hands on Designs Scary Apothecary 9
8. CCN Halloween Village 8
9. CCN Halloween Village 9
10. CCN Halloween Village 10
11. Nora Corbett Taurus
12. Cottage Garden Samplings Year in the Woods 1
13. Mani di Donna Halloween Stitching Basket
14. Art Inspirate 31 Potions
15. Nicole B Hicks Discworld Objectiva
16. Just Nan Halloween design TBA
17. Stitch it Picasso Temperature SAL
18. Circle Cross Blackwork Tarot
19. Amanda Butler House 2
20. Amanda Butler House 3
21. Amanda Butler House 4
22. Amanda Butler House 5
23. Amanda Butler House 6

And this is the New Starts collage, which again represents 11 of the list:

Then there is one which is TBA - my Dark October Just Nan focus piece.

I am also taking part in WIPGO again.  This is a FB Bingo group.  You choose 25 goals for the year and each month the Admin pick two numbers to focus on.  When you have met your goal, you tick off that block.  You can give yourself rewards for completing a row or a column.

Here's my WIPGO board:

For January the numbers 6 and 10 have been called.  You can see that Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow and Fairy Idyll share 10 squares.  The plan is to focus on H@HRH until it is done and then switch to Fairy Idyll.

The planned rotation this year will be:

Week 1 - stitch Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow / Fairy Idyll

Week 2 - stitch Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow / Fairy Idyll

Week 3 - stitch a WIPGO number or a "23 in '23" project

Week 4 - stitch a WIPGO number or a "23 in '23" project

The WIPocalypse posts are the last Sunday of each month

My other SALs are

The People's Choice - posts on the first Saturday of each month - theme in sidebar
Fully Finished Gallery - post anything fully finished on the 10th of each month
Gifted Gorgeousness - post anything gifted on the 15th
Smalls SAL - last Friday of each month

The TUSAL - post on the New Moon each month


Finally, I will be continuing with the ever popular Blog Hops this year. We will have Valentine's, Easter, the Summer Postcard, Hallowe'en and the Advent Calendar.  All at the appropriate time of the year.  I will be posting about the Secret Stitching Sweethearts for Valentine's Day very soon so watch this space.

The People Chose Designers for 2023

 

This SAL is all about what you want to see on the blog.  I asked for suggestions for themes from followers of my blog and then put them up to the members of the IHSW Group on FB to vote for their choice.  We are currently working our way through the choices.  This is what was chosen:

January - Designer for 2023

(a designer you are keen to stitch in the coming year)

February - Way With Words

March - Science

This is the time of year when all my plans have been made, my lists have been written up, goals set and projects ready to go.  It's also a time when someone releases a new design that wants to boot several other off the list and make those plans go awry before we even start the year!  But that's another story...

2020 was my Year of Focus followed by a Year of Rotation in 2021 and another Year of Focus in 2022.  This saw great progress on my chosen piece - Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow so I plan to continue to focus on that until it is done and then move to Fairy Idyll.  2024 is scheduled to be another Rotation Year as I have plans around "24 in '24".  Don't judge LOL

An unexpected theme of 2022 turned out to be 3D buildings which was great fun and I still have a number I would like to work on.  But so far the muse for 2023 has been Blackwork.  I was in a couple of groups for blackwork and suddenly the patterns became very tempting.  But which to choose?  Then this designer appeared in a group:

Circle Cross 

She is designed a series of Tarot cards in the SArt Nouveau style.  I'm not that into Tarot but I do love the artwork.  Did I need a full set?  No.  Death was fun as it featured some cats - "CATS ARE NICE", but then she released the four elements and I discovered she was going to release the full Zodiac signs.  And there was a Half Price Offer.  So that was enough for me!

The Zodiac will be out later in the year.  So my plan is to stitch the four elements in a row and then the relevant Zodiac signs under each one.  So Aries will go under Fire, then Taurus under Earth and so on.

I'm doing Stitch from Stash again, so this was a chance to use one of the larger piece of fabric I've been hoarding saving for a special project.  This is a piece of Silkweaver 28 count Jobelan.  It's an unnamed Solo but is a sort of blue mottled sky colour.  Not very variegated but very pretty.  This was a gift from a blogger at least 10 years ago so about time it was used.

I'm just using 1 strand of DMC 310 so it's nice and easy to pick up and stitch a length.  It's like drawing with thread and I'm loving it!

She has also designed this amazing Gothic Cathedral Window as a Temperature SAL

If I wasn't already doing the Stitch It Picasso Temperature SAL, I would absolutely be doing this one!

There are various other designs on her website so do check them out.

The Discworld Objectiva is in a similar drawn style to this and I plan to catch up on the motifs I have missed from December and then keep up with that.

For more "traditional" Blackwork there are at least 3 other SALs I am saving the weekly motifs:

The Steady Thread Botanical SAL 2023

Peppermint Purple 2023 SAL

xx Infinity Stitches xx

Various SALs and freebies on Facebook

LD BlackStitch

Some gorgeous all over designs, beautiful gates and scenes

Now it's over to you.  All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Designer for 2023, mention The People's Choice SAL (you can copy the picture I used at the top of this post and in my side bar) and my blog. Please link up using the URL of the actual blog post, not the home page of your blog.   I look forward to seeing what you all post.

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Finally, I need your suggestions for the next poll.  Anything, no matter how obscure, weird or random will go into the poll.  Keep the theme suggestions to a single word or two - so you could have Cats, or Green, or Holidays, or Warmth etc.   Really anything which could be illustrated in cross stitch.

December Stitch from Stash and Pie

It's Old Year's Night and time for a look back at the past 365 days of stitching.

First of all, here is the Pie for December:

I spent most of this month working on the 7th shop for my CCN Main Street Halloween conversion.  Here is A la Robe where the fashionable witch will be getting her dresses and robes for the Old Year's Night celebrations:

You saw Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow in my WIPocalypse post so here is my Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas.  I didn't quite manage to finish Day 4, all those leaves need the couched backstitch in green added.

stitched on 32 count grey linen

I did finish my 3D Haunted Mansion by attaching all the roof pieces to the walls.  Which was time consuming and fiddly.  I still need to stuff it and attach a base to finally FFO it.  But I have until 10th January for that!

Ignore the hanging threads, they will be sewn in to secure them.

Here's the Evening Pie:

The Stitchonomy Christmas Banner is growing nicely, you saw that on my Smalls post, along with the Amanda Butler Edinburgh House.

In my WIPocalypse post I showed you my 12 finishes from my "22 in '22" list and now here are the rest of my finishes for the year:

Look at that - six 3D finishes!

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

The top three individual projects were:

Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow - 133 days, more than a third of the year

CCN Main Street - 34 days for 3 shops

Nora Corbett Virgo - 27 days

and various Just Nan projects - 30 days

Everything else got 1-3 weeks on it.

I came into the year with 18 WIPs and started 18 projects over the course of the year of which only 3 are still WIPs.  I also completed 6 projects started prior to 2022.  My current WIPs are:

Prior 2020	9
2020 2021 Total	3 3 15

How did the spending go last month?  My magazine subscription came out and I spent my Christmas money on a blackwork series from Circle Cross which I am very excited about.  You'll see more of that in 2023.

I also tallied up the spend for the whole year:

Magazines are up because I got the digital subscription to JCS and the sub for Cross Stitcher leapt from £8.72 a quarter to £12.99 a quarter!  I had a legacy price from when I subscribed to Cross Stitch Collection which hasn't increased for years.  They finally noticed LOL.  It's still only £4 per issue.

Charts are way up, among others I bought the rest of the Nora Corbett Zodiac Girls, Shannon Christine's 12 Days of Christmas and 11 of the CGS Year in the Woods, some Ukrainian designers to support them and the blackwork from Circle Cross which was half price off but still expensive.  Wait until you see what you get though.   A lot of my chart spend was Christmas or Birthday money.

Fortunately, fabric, threads and "other" were down on last year.  I bought one single piece of fabric the whole year!

Finally,

Have a very Happy Old Year's Night

and a very Peaceful New Year's Day

December Smalls

           

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Mary's Thread

My Small series for the year was Jardin Prive's 12 Days of Christmas.  After stalling on them, I finished the lot in November but have yet to FFO them all.

I didn't really stitch a lot of smalls in 2022, it was the year of the Large Project.  Looking back I included these projects throughout the year:

May - Just Nan-athon

October - Just Nan Miss Stitchy Witchy Mouse

November - Mani di Donna Halloween Sewing Basket

As well as some others which will feature in my End of Year Round-Up tomorrow.

For this month I have my finished Edinburgh House by Amanda Butler from Cross Stitcher magazine:

stitched on 28 count grey evenweave

I'm also stitching the Stitchonomy Christmas Banner to be super-small.   The piece of fabric I had in my stash wasn't cut straight so the margins would have been too tight.  I thought I'd try stitching over one so it will be a quarter of the size of the original design!

stitched over 1 on 32 count grey linen

Finally, here are some photos of my Ornament garland this year:

December WIPocalypse Annual Review

   

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.

Since 2011 I have chosen a number of projects to focus on that year, starting with my "11 in '11" and increasing to "22 in '22" for this year.

1. Joan Elliott Faces SAL (1 block) - Goal Met
2. Kustom Krafts Little Snapdragon  - WIP
3. Chatelaine Gardens of London  - WIP
4. Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas  - WIP
5. Carriage House Samplings Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow - WIP
6. Mirabilia Fairy Idyll - WIP
7. Amanda Butler Alice in Wonderland  - Finish
8. Just Nan Christmas Elegance - Finish
9. Just Nan Mermaid Heart  - Finish
10. Stitchonomy Cabinet of Curiosities   - Finish
11. Hands on Designs Scary Apothecary Skeleton Polish - Finish
12. Hands on Designs Scary Apothecary Snail Slime - Finish
13. Hands on Designs Scary Apothecary 9
14. CCN Halloween Village Post Office  - Finish
15. CCN Halloween Village Grocery   - Finish
16. CCN Halloween Village Dress Shop  - Finish
17. Jardin Prive 12 Days of Christmas  - Finish
18. Nora Corbett Virgo   - Finish
19. Stitch It Picasso Dragon #2  - Finish
20. Stitch It Picasso Dragon
21. Stitch It Picasso Dragon
22. Stitch It Picasso Dragon

Only 12 finishes again this year plus one Goal Met, but that was because I spent nearly half the year focused on my Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow project.  Which went from here:

to here:

stitched over 1 on 25 count Cassia Rose evenweave from Chromatic Alchemy

The plan now is to focus on this for two weeks of each month until it is completed and then focus on Fairy Idyll.

Here are the other BAPs:

Chatelaine Gardens of London

from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds from Crafty Kitten

I'm thinking it would be nice to finish this one on it's 10th Anniversary in 2027.

Mirabilia Fairy Idyll

from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Vinyard Murano from Crafty Kitten

This will become my focus after Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow is complete.

Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas

from here:

to here:

(still working on this one!  Final photo to be shown in the last post of the year)

Kustom Krafts Little Snapdragon

from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Evening Sky Murano from Crafty Kitten

He's on the WIPGO Board twice next year so I'm really hoping to finish him in 2023

I achieved my goal of another blockson the Joan Elliott Faces SAL.   The 2023 goal is to add a large block:

stitched on 28 count Snapdragon Jazlyn from Crafty Kitten

There were four projects that didn't get touched.  The final Scary Apothecary will roll over to next year.  The three Stitch It Picasso Dragons lost out to my passion for 3D buildings!  Which rather took over my evening stitching.

Here are the 12 WIPocalypse Finishes - I did have more finishes this year, these are just the ones from my "22 in '22"

I've been putting together my "23 in '23" for next year and also my WIPGO Board which is a FB group where you make a Bingo Board for 25 of your projects.  The Admin calls 2 numbers each month and you reward yourself for completing rows or columns.  And just for added fun, I'm doing the 23:23 in the WIP Warriors group (formerly No New Starts).  For that challenge, I have to keep my WIPs below 23.  I currently have 15 so I can start 7 new things but after that I have to finish something before I start another thing.

Finally, I do hope you are all enjoying this time of year - the planning for the New Year, when everything is possible!  The fun of going through our stash and working out what we would like to start.  The promise to work on those older projects and keep up with the SALs too!