WIPocalypse February 2020 Check-in An Adventure in Parking

 Hi Everyone,

It has been a great stitching month for me! I decided try parking again.  And I realized that it depends on the project I am working on if like parking or not.  Lets look at my progress in February!

Starting with SK Sunny! Such a colorful stitch, I thoroughly enjoyed working on her after a prolonged period of no progress!

 

The pics don't give it justice to the vibrancy of the colors.

So happy with this finish!


Update on my Facebook group Sals:

Ultimate Cross Stitch Group 

  

I was supposed to work on Ganesha, unfortunately  I never got much progress done on this one. I was too busy with other projects this month. I hope to change that this month!

On the counting challenge each day a number was given to be stitched. Total for 24 days was 5050 Stitches. I was able to stitch that and more, I completed 5443!

At the beginning of the month, I was here:

 

And  at the end of the month I was here!!!!!

So this is where I thought to pick up the parking again. I have had my ups and downs with parking, I love it, then I hate it. However, with this project I loved it.   I decided to park by working on 20x20 blocks. Which meant once I finished one section, that meant I finished 400 stitches!!

Full Coverage Cross Stitch Group

I was able to sneak in just enough stitches on SK Winter Wings

Full Coverage Fanatics Group
I just had to show my progress on SK Winter Wings in this one.

I started her here at the beginning of the month

 

 And ended the month here

For the other sals I used World Travel bookshelf.  I really enjoyed stitching on it and really got in a groove for parking with it.

Question for February WIPocalypse

In honor of "Leap Year", tell the story of a time you had to make some sort o "leap" in stitching - taking a chance on a new style, attending a meetup or class, etc.

Hmmm, a leap that I have taken this year....I thinkn that the leap I have taken this year is with the parking technique.  In the past I have dabbled in it, but this year I have leapt into it with gusto.  Hoping I continue to like it as much as I have this past month!

My plans for the month of march are:

1 - Work on SK Winter wings for the Full Coverage Fanatics Around the World Sal.  This month is Canada!  What better project to pick than Winter Wings!  We are still in the middle of a very snowy winter.  This is from just yesterday.

2 - Continue with my 20 in 20 challenge for Full Coverage Fanatics using World Travel Bookshelf.  As of the end of February I had 6578 stitches complete!  Only 13422 left to complete this challenge!

3 - For the 2020 in 2020 challenge in Full Coverage Cross, I will be stitching on Ganesha, I really need to get to the end of the top row.  Its been a dull/easy stitch but I want to push myself to finish it and move down to the next row.

4 - For the Just Show Progress challenge for March with the Ultimate Cross Stitch group I will use Ganesha again.

5 - There is a counting challenge in the Ultimate Cross stitch group as well, I think I will use World Travel Bookshelf.

6 - And if I manage to make solid progress on these pieces I will pick up another Wip! Or maybe a new start????

Happy Stitching!

~~~Vani~~~

February 2020 Stitching Plans

I am so looking forward to stitching this year, the last month was great. I am really enjoying my self.  I've got plans for my stitching for February, and they all revolve around the SALs that I am participating in.

First a quick update on the last week, I got some stitches in SK Sunny.  Will continue to work on this one periodically until I get the page/Project finish.

SALs update:

For the month of February I will be participating in the following SALs

Ultimate Cross Stitch Group 

1 - Show your progress:
Red Velvet and Lace Cupcake Challenge
(Ganesha)

2 - Counting:
I Love Cross Stitch Bingo
(World Travel Bookshelf)

Each day another number will be revealed for that amount to be stitched.
Day 1 - 325 Stitches
Day 2 - 280 Stitches
Day 3 - 210 Stitches
Day 4 - 300 Stitches
...
(there are 24 days!)

Full Coverage Cross Stitch Group

1 - Complete 2020 Stitches in the month of February.
(SK Winter Wings)

Full Coverage Fanatics Group

1 - Monthly Theme SAL, Brazil, I chose to use a color from the flag, Blue.  I will be stitching on SK Winter Wings

2 - Valentines Weekend SAL, Love is all you need weekend Challenge.

Stitch on something that represents Love.  I chose World Travel Bookshelf.  I just love the detail and colors.

3 - Year Long Sal - Stitch 20,000 Stitches in 2020.
(World Travel Bookshelf)

Since I will be using the same project for multiple challenges, here are the start pics for all of them.

1 - World Travel Bookshelf

2 - SK Winter Wings

3 - Ganesha

Happy Stitching

~~~Vani~~~

Progress, Rotation and a Snow Storm!

I wasn't sure how much I would get done this week, I thought I would maybe get a couple of extra stitching hours because we were expecting a snow storm resulting in a Snow Day from work.  The snow storm we got was the biggest snow storm of the century.  Resulting in a City wide State of Emergency!  So I got a few more stitching hours than expected.  I took full advantage, we had enough food, and the power thankfully only went out once for a short period.  All we could do was stay home until the City was dug out.  

I am back to work today, as I work in an extended Health care clinic, however much of the City is still shut down.  Kids have been home from school for a week now, exams have been postponed, not sure what will happen next week.  There is so much snow, its not safe to be out, most streets have been reduced to one lane.  City had to call in the military, they have been a huge help.  Helping people shovel out of their homes, bringing equipment to take the snow away.   Its been quite a week!

So from my last blog post I was working towards another page finish, this time on World Travel Bookshelf. This is where I picked it up:

I always find it hard to go back to stitching on 25 count after working on 18 or 22 count.  I eventually got into a groove and finished the page!

The page:

The whole project:

I was going to just continue, but decided to pick up another instead to give myself a break from the 25 count.  I decided to pick up Ganesha,

Its nice to slowly get back to our regular schedules, however I really miss my extended stitching time!

I did at least 1200 on Ganesha before I got tired of the same old stitches, so I picked up SK Sunny for a bit.  

I think I will go back and forth between the two until I finish the top row on Ganesha and the final page on Sk Sunny.

Here's what I got done so far,

Sunny Page 2 Finished!!!

Another goal Finished!!!  So happy, I might have a fighting chance to get all my goals done by the end of the year!  Here is the second page finished on Sunny, which was the goal.

On to QS Terra Fairy Sprite!

Cheers!

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny

So it was another couple of days before I am to pick QS Siberian Forest, So I thought to stitch in Sunny!  So mostly from the last time I had her out it was filling in some holes and moving forward slowly!

Here is what I had before I started on her again...

And here is after a few days...

Tonight its back to QS Siberian Forest!

I wanted to answer some things that some of you were curious about. 

I work in rotation because I dont' want to get bored with a certain chart.  Because they all take so long I know that there is that possibility.  Plus I have so many that I want to stitch and that I have started that this way they all get a little attention! So I have a focus piece which I will work the most.  So I start with my focus piece and then i rotate that with all my other pieces. So every second time I switch projects it will be my focus piece. And I work on that say 20 days at a time, and then the other big pieces I will work on about two weeks at a time.  All the little ones like SK Winter Wings and SK Sunny I will work on when I have a few days in between the other projects, like if I reached a milestone within my rotation time. 

 So to answer demeter83 - Unfortunetly SK Winter Wings was only out for a couple of days and I dont' know when she will be out again.  Depends on how well I do with the others!

Dot - Yes all my WIPs are HAED!  Some one once called me a HAED head!  Thats me!

Happy Stitching!

~~~Vani~~~



SK Sunny 10952 / 21370

This is the last update for Sunny for this round! 

She's coming along nicely!

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny - 10711 / 21370

So Sunny has been slow going the past few days, life got a little busy.  But I managed to put in a few stitches in her.

Her arm is all filled out and her hair is getting fuller!  Love the shades in her hair. I think her neck looks weird, but I will probably have to wait until the otherside of the page get done before she starts to look normal!  And I just noticed that you can start to see the outline of the flower on her shirt! I love it when that happens!  I am hoping to get more done on her tonight before I put her away.  Tomorrow as well as being the start of IHSW I am also participating in a two week Fairy day SAL on the HAED BB which starts tomorrow!  Its to celebrate Fairy Day which is on June 24th!  I will be working on Forget Me Not exclusively for the next two weeks.

On a side note I would like to tell you about a contest posted by Bev on her new blog, Click Here. To celebrate her new blog address she is hosting a contest and offering some wonderful prizes!   Check it out!

Until the next stitch...

~~~Vani~~~ 

SK Sunny - 10554 / 21370

I have been working on Sunny this past weekend.  She is so bright and colorful to work on that its so much fun to stitch her!  Although she is full of confetti!  You wouldn't think it to look at her but she is!

Her mouth is starting to take shape.  And her hair is almost done, on this side of the page anyway.  I still have the other side to do.  I did it this way because with all the confetti involved it was getting too tight to stitch towards the end of the page, so I am working a half page at a time.  I see alot of confetti in my future with her shirt!

Also this weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of introducing my 5 year old daughter to the world of cross stitching!!!  She had always been interested in watching me, and recently expressed an interest in wanting to do it herself.  So I decided to teach her!  I decided to get some plastic canvas for her and I cut it into 6 squares which we will later stitch together to make a box.  She picked out her own variegated thread and decided where to put each color.  At first I had trouble making her understand the concept of making the cross.  She didn't understand the word diagonal.   So I finally tried to show her where the "box" was that she was stitching and assigned numbers to the four corners.  And told her to come up in which number were to come down.

(I turned the picture sideways in photobucket, but looks like its a bit of a delayed reaction!)

She was concentrating very hard.

You could hear her talking to herself almost like a song,  up in number 1, down in number 4, up in number 2, down in number 3.  She worked on it all weekend, and this is what she did....

I am very proud of my baby!

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny - 9726 / 21370

So yesterday I had a headache all day and by the time I got home and got the kids in bed and would have normally begun my stitching, I was drained, my head felt a little heavy, so all I could manage was a few stitches just to say hey, I did stitch today!  Then I went to bed!  Tonight should be better!

So not much to see, but just a little around the edges in her face and down her arm.

Until the next stitch!

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny - 9646 / 21370

I really like working with all these bright colours after doing a lot of 310.   Here she is with some colour in her hair!

And here is a close up

I love how its turning out!  I can start to make out her top now, and the shoulder and where her arm is going to be!  Very exciting!

Until the next stitch...

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny - 8844 / 21370

So I have made an official decision:  Parking is not for me.  I can not, will not, try again! Goodbye Parking Headaches!!!  So as you can tell I have given up on the idea of parking.  I spent most of last night finishing off the threads that I had left hanging.  I am working my way through 310 now.  Seems like almost all my current projects have alot of 310!  I didn't get a chance to take a picture last night, but will get one up before I start stitching on it tonight.

Here she is:

Sorry the photo is so dark!  Poor lighting!

Until the next stitch..

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny - 8480 / 21370

So after working on Sunny for the weekend I didn't get much done.  Here is my International Hermit and Stitch weekend progress picture.  I tried to be a hermit, but it was hard, I had my sons birthday party this week end.  Although, I am happy with what I have done so far.

So I have been playing to find a stitching style that will work better for me.  I've been having trouble with my stitching being too dense in heavy confetti areas.  In the past I have tried to park.  For me parking is fine for large block sections, the stitches lay very neatly, but as soon as I got to some confetti spots, I would start to get confused, and my hanging threads started to look ragged, and I hated having all those threads hanging.  But I thought I would give it another shot. Previously I had tried parking but, all the way across the page.  This time I tried it just down a column.  Just seeing those threads hanging drove me, so after awhile I started picking up those threads and stitched those colors three columns across.  Once I've gotten rid of those hanging threads, I'm wondering if I should give parking one more shot and this time trying a ten square block at a time.  I don't know.  I will give it one more shot, and then I'll see if once and for all if Parking is for me or not.  I have been trying to adjust my tension as well, hoping that will help with the confetti heavy areas as well.  Anyways...

Until the next stitch...

~~~Vani~~~ 



April International Hermit and Stitch Weekend

So I recently joined a group of stitchers around the world who stitch every third week of the month together.  They call it the International Hermit and Stitch weekend. Meaning you turn yourself into a hermit for the weekend, how ever long you can manage and just stitch!  I thought that sounded like lots of fun!!!!

So I will be working on Sunny this weekend.  

Here is my Before

Until the next stitch...

~~~Vani~~~

SK Sunny

SK Sunny by Myka Jelina

Copyright HAED

And so far I have completed the first page which is 7350 / 21375

SK Sunny was started as part of a Freebie SAL on the BB.  She is fun to work on!

Stitched on 18ct Aida

2 over 1 Full Cross