2013, a review

At the beginning of this year, I had a whole pile of WIPs I wanted to finish.  I think I did a pretty good job of meeting those goals.  I thought I would share a pictorial review of my progress this year.

1900 ABC  finished 1/20/13

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Iris B  finished 3/24/13

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Chatelaine's Deep Blue Sea finished 4/11/13

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Bygone Stitches One Nation finished 5/20/13

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Sticklounge mystery finished 6/23/13
since this was a new start this year, there are no before pics

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Chatelaine's Summer Knotgarden finished 7/19/13

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HAED's Lust

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Watergarden

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Dorothy Walpole

a new start so no before pictures

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Earth Song

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Loara Standish

a new start so no before pictures

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HAED's Nightshade

a new start so no before pictures

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Chatelaine's Rose Garden Mandala

a new start so no before pictures

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XMas ornaments

new starts so no pictures.  

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Here Comes Santa Tree Skirt

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One Nation

Obviously, I haven't ironed it and probably won't since pinning and lacing will take care of the wrinkles, but I wanted to share One Nation finished!  This one is three years in the making almost to the day!

Now, I think some Dorothy Walpole is in order since I haven't visited with her for a couple of months.

Just a few stars

to go.  This is from Tuesday night at one of my kids baseball games.  They both played so there was lots of time to stitch!

This morning, before it started to rain off and on all day, Jakob and I put up a dog run we bought yesterday. The panels are 10 feet long so once I get some other kind of coop up, they will have lots more room since I'm planning on a raised coop so the ground underneath it is available for them too.  

Then, before I started stitching today, I took another picture of One Nation.  Here there are 12 stars to finish.  Right now, I have nine left.  Of course I have to add the blue to each star but that's only four stitches per star.  Just a couple more hours right?

Chickens and Baseball

Hey all!  Hope everybody had a happy Mother's Day!  We went out to my Mom's to help her do some more work at her house.  We also got to see the new house.  She's moving back to my hometown hopefully by the end of the year.  The new house was built in 1993 and it's pretty obvious that it hasn't really been updated since then.  Yikes!

We did bring back a few things.  Here's the biggest.  Dad built the coop last year sometime and it wasn't being used.  AND we thinned Mom's flock a little.  There are 5 laying hens in there.  Turns out it wasn't enough to keep the dog out though.  She managed to get one of the hens last night so my more permanent solution is going to have to be figured out sooner rather than sometime this summer.

Here's the first egg just hours after being set up!

We've also been busy with baseball.  Practice started in April with games starting last week.  

8 and under game

10 and under game

I have been making some progress though.  One Nation has mostly been out at work over lunch.  I have finished the star that was in progress here.  

The Master has seen a little progress.  When we've gotten home from ball practice all I want to do is get the boys to bed and read for a little while until I go to bed.  

I used to be a OAATer

 Once upon a time, several years ago, I used to stitch projects one at a time and my stash wasn't threatening to take over my basement.  I'm only kidding, I think, but wow!  What a difference 6 years makes!

So lets' take a look see at this week's progress, shall we?  First up...Summer Knotgarden.  I finished the second corner.  I thought about just moving the q-snaps and starting on the third, but I don't want to burn out on Chatelaines and interrupt my progress on my current WIPs.  Especially since there's only this one and Watergarden.

For variety, I pulled out One Nation and corrected the star that I stitched wrong previously and made some progress on a couple more stars.  It even went to baseball practice with me tonight.

A week or so ago, I read a blog, that of course I can't find now so I can link to it, that had a chart from a company that I hadn't heard of before.  Tilton Crafts converts art work to cross stitch similarly to Heaven and Earth Designs  Tilton's big draw for me was a new release called The Master.

I was in love.  Since, at the time, there was a buy 2 get 1 sale, I had to pick out two other charts.  This is the one I had to have though!  During the course of last week,  I got the chart and printed off my floss list, dug through my floss boxes to see what I had and made a trip to Hobby Lobby for what I didn't have so I could start.  While I was downstairs doing laundry today, I zig zagged my fabric for a new start. I haven't been interested in a new start so far this year.  I mean, I've finished three projects and am so close on two more.  Why do I need a new start.  But, I guess Master Yoda was using the force cause I started tonight.  Here's where I'm at with under an hour into it.

stitched on Antique white 28 ct Monaco 1x1

Now, I'm going to go pull another color and get another half hour into it before bed.

Later!

Stitcher's ADD

After my last update at the in-laws, I moved my q-snaps to the stars and started on them.  I got bored of the white fairly quickly.  Then I discovered one of the stars had a mis-stitch that I was going to have to frog and restitch or it would bother me forever.  So, instead of fixing it and restitching, I put away for a bit.

I pulled out Dorothy and discovered that she was on a very similiar color fabric to One Nation and I really didn't want to stitch on it.  Put that away too.  Have I mentioned I usually take several projects when we go to the in-laws?  Then I pulled out Coat of Arms.  Haven't had this one out for a while.  I made a little progress while we sat outside watching the boys play.  Then on the way home Tuesday, I discovered that I can stitch over two on 28 ct just fine in the car, but over two on 36 ct was a challenge I wasn't up to.  So I put CoA back in my bag and pulled out Summer Knotgarden.

I'm done with part 3 and 4 on this corner.  Parts 5 and 6 should be fairly quick and I'll move onto the third side of this and some stars on One Nation.

Seeing stars

I just finished page 8 so I jyst have 42 stars to go. Hopefully in the next day or so I can get them done.  

One page and stars

I finished page 7 sitting in the car at baseball practice. In order to get a decent picture I had to spread it out over the hood of the car. Now there's page 8 and 42 stars to go.

One Nation update

I finished page 6 over the weekend which admittedly, was about half way done when I picked it back up, but a page finish is a page finish.

I've gotten the first two stripes on page 7 done with another almost there so I'll be back in a day or so with page 7.

See you then!

2012 WIPocalypse

Since this is my last post for the 2012 WIPocalypse, I thought I would share some before and afters of my WIPs.  I didn't get as many finishes as I would have liked, but I did make progress on most of them.

1. Chatelaine's Spring Knotgarden finished 7/3/12

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2. Chatelaine's Watergarden about half done  

I don't think I even touched it this year.  Here's the top gate.

3. Petit Sampler (with Sticklounge) finished 2/12/12

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4. Bygone Stitches One Nation about half done 

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5. Mirabilia's Garden Verses might have to restart

Didn't even touch this one much less make up my mind what I want to do with it.

6. Chatelaine's Summer Knotgarden part 3,4,5,6 in progress

Before:  There was a little more done, but not much.

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7. Stained Glass Window (Sticklounge) finished 12/5/12

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8. Adriana B (Sticklounge) finished 3/20/12

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9. Christmas tree skirt (kit) approx half done

This one hasn't seen any love either, though I did pull it out of the bag and look at it at one point.

10. Chelsea's block   finished 6/16/12

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11. HAED Lust third row of stitching page 14 completed

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12. Chatelaine's 2012 Mystery Deep Blue Sea part 7complete

This was a new start so there's no before picture.

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13.  1900 ABC (Sticklounge) part 19/24 complete

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So, I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked, but since I'm no longer an OAAT stitcher, I think the progress I did make is pretty darn respectable.

Now on to the 2013 WIPocalypse!  May it bring you many stitchy finishes and may the frog stay far, far away!