April WIPocalypse

I have only worked on one project all this past month, namely my Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome. I'm taking my sweet time with it too! Here's are a few progress pics.

As you can see I've completed the bulk of this with the exception of the border, a few snowflake motifs on the bottom left and the large grassy area at the bottom of the house which will contain the wording. That in itself is going to be time consuming! The over one on 40 ct was a first for me. It went better than I expected as can be seen in the last pic above. The border will still take a bit of time since I have to finish all the small flowers along it. I'm growing tired of this now and have been kitting up projects over the last few days. I'm waiting on some linen to begin some choices which unfortunately is taking longer to arrive than usual because of the pandemic. Gentle Art floss is becoming more difficult to find too as they have had to temporarily close because they are a non-essential business. Consequently they can't dye or ship floss until they are allowed to return to work.

I started a small Blackbird Design project called Her Fair Work from their OohLaLa book but I've run into my usual problem of changed dye lots and I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with what I have or change it. Time will tell as I put in a few more stitches on it. Not enough progress yet for a pic. 
As most of my friends are stitching up a storm during the pandemic, I find that I'm slowing down. Stitching has always been my stress buster but during these unusual times I find myself turning to other pursuits. I'm reading more and watching TV more with my hubby. Generally we watch very little TV but now are catching up on some programs we've wanted to see. Because we live in a small rural community we can go out for walks frequently without coming into contact with many people. We try to get out a couple of times each day.
When I think about it, most of my stitching is usually done when I'm by myself and my husband is away at work. It's quiet and I can think freely as I stitch. Now Bob is home all the time and I find I can't settle for long with my stitching.

Hopefully I'll have some progress to report on next month. The weather is starting to warm up and we've just finished opening and cleaning out our gazebo. Outdoor stitching may be just what I need!

March WIPocalypse

Wow, what a month! I'm sure that no one in their wildest dreams could have imagined where we'd all be when it came time to post this month. We are doing well in our third week of self isolation. My husband is going out weekly to get groceries as I am considered compromised due to previously existing health conditions. So for me, as I'm sure it is for many of you, my needlework helps me pass the time. Mind you I do find that it's more difficult to concentrate these days and I find myself frogging more than usual. However I'm still grateful that I have this ability to help pass the days.

On a positive note, I finished my Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler before the month's end. She is a beauty and I have already sent her to a dear friend who does framing.

Sorry about the quality of the photo. I really had a difficult time getting a good picture because this piece is so wide.

I took a break for several days after finishing this before picking up anymore stitching. I kind of lost my mojo for a few days. I have picked it up again but progress is slow and I spend more time frogging than I would like. I resumed stitching on Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome. I haven't bothered to take it out of its frame for this picture but here's my progress on all the motifs.

I can't make up my mind what I want to start next. My Needlework Market order arrived today so perhaps I'll find something from those charts. It's not as if I have no stash to choose from, lol! I may even decide just to continue working on Yuletide Welcome for now.
Until next month I hope you all remain well and safe. Keeping you in my thoughts!

February WIPocalyse

My original plans for this month were to only work on my Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler along with a small stitch. I started out the month this way but decided I had also better spend some time on PSS Yuletide Welcome. What I ended up doing was alternating weeks on these two and eliminating a small stitch altogether. 

The house on Plum Street Samplers Yuletide Welcome is now complete. Yahoo!! There was plenty of solid stitching on this house and I'm glad to have it finally behind me.

I love the flower basket on the roof! It's one of the things that drew me to this piece in the first place. Now I'm starting to enjoy all the many motifs that are in this design. I hated putting it down when it came time to switch.

Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler is a real treat to work on though. The ease of a monochrome sampler is a nice contrast to Yuletide Sampler. 

As you can see I've finished the second of the three parts of this and am now ready to start the final pages. 

My initials and the year have now been stitched into the design as I can see the finish line in the near future, hopefully by early April at the latest.

This has been a really difficult piece to get an accurate pictured of in terms of colour. It either appears too washed out or too dark. I wish I could show a true colour of the fabric as it is so lovely.

The Nashville Needlework Market will be underway this coming weekend and I've been drooling over the previews that I've viewed so far. I love Brenda Gervais' in particular Token of Love and Manor at Quaker Hill. I think these two will make their way into my stash. Check them out at this link.

There are so many lovely samplers being released by various designers however I'm anxiously awaiting the release of some by my dear friend Lianne of 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers. Lianne is not at market. Perhaps she will be at some point in the future. She is fairly new on the scene of reproduction samplers and I just know she is going to do well. Check her out on her Facebook page. At present she has an Etsy shop and has three releases however in the near future she will be adding 6-10 new reproductions to her shop. 

I'm so thrilled for her and plan on adding some of her lovelies to my stash.

Winter is slowly fading as the days are growing longer and the temperatures milder. This weekend the time springs forward once more and the promise of summer is all that closer. Hope to see you next month and that it's a productive one for us all!

January Smalls

I'm off to a good start on my smalls for 2020. I have two small finishes this month. These are both Prairie Schooler ornaments from the leaflet Winter Wind. 

Although they're a little more time consuming than some ornaments I have always loved the look of the PS ornies and I would love to stitch a couple more in the future. I will either finish these as small pillows or I have often finished them with felt backgrounds very much like Vonna's finishes. If you're not familiar with Vonna, she is an amazing finisher and all you need to do is follow my link under her name. She has graciously shared all her finish techniques free for anyone who wants to learn.

I'm working on two large projects at the moment which can be seen in my previous post. These are taking up much of my stitching time but I'll try to squeeze in a small here and there. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to. See you next month! 

January WIPocalypse

I'm a little late to the party with my January stitching but things are now progressing well. The illness I had for most of December resurfaced just after the new year so I was down and out for the first two weeks or so of the new year. I'm just starting to feel like I'm getting back to my old self now. 

I started off the new year with a Christmas stitch! If you read my WIPocalypse goals under the page beneath my header you will see that I had several Christmas stitches listed as a possibility for the coming year. I decided to go with A Yuletide Welcome by Plum Street Samplers.

This is a fairly large piece, one which I had actually started several years ago not long after it was released. I wasn't happy with my fabric choice though and didn't get very far into the stitching before I ditched it. I love this design and it's one that can really be left up year round. So I dug through my stash and found a suitable fabric on a higher count than my original.....40 ct Lakeside Linen Buttercream.
Because it's a larger project, I decided to get started at it now while there was still snow on the ground and I felt like working on a Christmas stitch. Normally I would put it aside sometime around March and bring it out again in the fall to finish. However I know that I'll never get it done this year if I do that. The plan is to stitch on this for at least one full week every month until it's finished. The house is huge and I'll start stitching the roof of it in February. So far I'm much happier than with my original start.

The rest of January I have alternated A Yuletide Welcome with a WIP from last year. Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler is another larger project which I'm really enjoying. It's a monochromatic stitch and I've chosen a limited edition Gentle Art floss called Cardinal. I'm stitching it on 40 ct Silkweaver Burmese Beige.  I've included a pic of my 2019 progress as well as this month's. The second pic is a more accurate capture of the colour of the fabric.

I am thrilled with how this is turning out! The floss looks so good on this particular fabric and I wish I could stitch on nothing else.

I also managed to complete 2 small winter ornaments which I will be posting on the final day of January as part of the 2020 Smalls SAL. Hope you'll drop by then!

January WIPocalyse goals

I thought that I had posted this earlier in the month but apparently I hadn't! For those of you who don't know me I'm Kearnel (Lynn) and I live in Ontario, Canada just 45 min southeast of Canada's capital city, Ottawa. I'm retired and have been cross stitching for 40 years now. Wow! I didn't realize it had been that long! 

I've been a part of the WIPocalypse group since it's very beginning. I find that having to post a monthly update keeps me motivated and on track, for the most part. 
Rather than listing all my goals on this post I have put them all in a page at the top of my blog. The WIPocalypse 2020 page is right under my blog header photo. You can also visit the page for last year's goals to see how much I accomplished. 

I look forward to this year's stitching and checking in on everyone else's progress. Here's to a great year!

December WIPocalypse

Since I was ill during most of December I only managed to stitch during the first week and now, during the last week. Even so I completed Foxes Few for my granddaughter and completed the final finishing on it as well as the Tired Trio.

I originally had planned on giving these to the girls for their birthdays but changed my mind and gifted to them at Christmas. Each was finished with a lovely backing of velvet from Dames of the Needle and I attached a small charm to the back of each. One was a fox and one a small sloth.The girls loved their stitches!

 

I started a couple of new pieces at the beginning of the month which I'm just getting back to now. The first is called For You by Plum Street Samplers and I have too few stitches to show you yet.
However I've much more progress done on Stacy Nash Merry Christmas Pinkeep.

I only have the remaining first half of the alphabet and then the border to complete. I'm not sure it will be done by year's end but that's ok. Sorry about the lighting in this pic. It's extremely overcast here today as we are being hammered with a winter storm of freezing rain.

I also picked up a finish at the framer this month. This was my first finish of 2019, The Good Shepherd by Prairie Moon.

On review of my WIPocalypse list I had set out I found that I completed the 3 pieces carried over from 2018 and in addition I completed 22 other works for a grand total of 25 completed stitches. I'm happy with that number. As in the past I really only completed a few of the choices from my original list and added many others that struck my fancy throughout the year. That's usually the case for me. I can never stick to the original plan. My stitching is based on my mood which seems to change rapidly, lol! You can always see my completed finishes on the separate page of 2019 finishes.

Now it's time for me to pick out a few finishes that will make up my list for WIPocalypse 2020. Over the next few days I'll browse through my charts and compile a small list. Hope to see you and your lovely stitches once again in the coming year. 
Happy New Year all!