January WIP-ocalypse Checkin

Hi Everyone!

This is my checkin for the January Wipocalypse!

Go Checkout our Host for this Wipocalypse Measi's Blog

My first month of Stitching was actually very productive!  I had a few page finishes and progress made on multiple projects!

Question for this month:

What SALs are you participating in this year?

Well, there are so many out there to choose from.  I find myself wanting to do so much and getting overwhelmed.  I had to really look at the multitude of SALs around and see which ones would work.  I don't really join the ones like Linen and Threads Sals, because I like to look at samplers, but much prefer to stitch on full coverage pieces.  That's why all the ones I participate in are motivational SALs.

I had to add a page in my Blog, to help me keep track of all my SALs.

For January I joined a couple of facebook group SALs.  Full Coverage Cross Stitch group had a challenge to complete 2020 stitches each month.  I choose SK Winter Wings and was able to get the stitches in.

Before:

After:

Can't wait to get started on the next page on this one, its all about her dress!

The other SALs I had for January was with the Ultimate Cross Stitch group.

The  first challenge was to just show your progress, no minimum stitch count required.  I used SK Winter Wings again.

The second challenge with them was a counting challenge, there was 11 sections, and each section had a different amount to be completed.  In total there was 4850 Stitches to complete and I did!  I switched projects in the middle once the page on SK Winter Wings was done, I used World travel Bookshelf.

Before:

After:

Thats my Sal update, I found a couple of more Sals that I will participate in from February onwards.  I will post on that at the beginning of the month.

Looking forward to seeing everyones WIPocalypse posts!

Happy Stitching!

Vani

Page Finish and a Rotation Pick

So this past week, I am super happy with the progress I made.  As our daily routine with home and family gets settled, I don't have very much time to stitch. Certainly not every day!  I do try to get at least one stitch in everyday, as that's one of my stitching resolutions.  

I was working towards a page finish this week from this point:

And I am happy to say I completed the page!  There is a certain sense of satisfaction that comes with a page finish.  Its exhilarating, even if you are far from a project finish, a page finish is a huge accomplishment.  I find especially with this one, as it has been a long time coming. I checked back in my notes and I believe I started this one in 2011!! Its definitely been a long time coming.  This happens with the smaller projects that are there to relieve some of the monotonous of the bigger projects.  Lets hope the next page doesn't take that long!

My page Finish!

Can you pick up the sparklies!

As you can see from my progress bars, I have a few projects in my rotation.  I was having a hard time deciding on which project to select next to work on.  I thought maybe I should work on one of the ones that had been put down with a half page completed, but I also really wanted to make progress on my larger projects.  So I put a poll to the group members of the HAED facebook group.  And they selected for me to work on World Travel Bookshelf.

So that's what I am doing, I picked up World Travel Bookshelf.  This is where I started from:

I usually use a qsnap to hold my projects, however I was finding that my arm was hurting from holding the weight of this project.  There is a lot of material and it can get heavy at times. So I have moved this one to my lapstand qsnap.  Much better and I can stitch two handed now.  

I'm sure you can make out the threads hanging in the pic, I occasionally get the urge to do the parking method with a project.  I'll do it for awhile, but it won't take long for the threads to get on my nerves!  I like how the picture emerges when parking, however I found I didn't like parking in a 10x10 block, that seemed a waste of time, threading and rethreading my needle for just one stitch sometimes.  So I do a modified parking method and I park by column, meaning I stitch all of one color in a column and park it in the next.  Even with that, the hanging threads after awhile bothered me.  So with this I am now in the process of stitching away the parked threads.  

I much prefer my normal method of stitching, cross country, but even with CC I am switching it up, I stitch up and down a column however much I can get done with one length of thread and then move on to the next color.  That way I'm not all over the place and less carrying over in the back making it bulky, and I don't have threads hanging and bothering me.  It seems to be working for now.  And with the new stitching app Pattern Keeper, there's no problem with missed stitches, which I will agree is a plus with parking.  Cross Country is my favourite because I am a faster stitcher when I Cross Country stitch.  I'm trying to mix methods to find my ultimate method.

Update on my Challenges:

2020 for 2020:

I have a completed January with 2354!

For the Cupcake Conundrum Challenge:

Section 1 - Stitch 300

Complete with 659 stitches

Section 2 - Stitch 600

Complete with 611 stitches

Section 3 - Stitch 550

Complete with 615 stitches

Section 4 - Stitch 675

Complete with 698 stitches ( I switched projects here)

Section 5 - Stitch 500

Complete with 572 stitches.

Section 6 - Stitch 425

Working on it

Section 7 - Stitch 350

Not started

Here's where I am so far!

As always, thanks for the comments!

Happy Stitching!

~Vani~