WIPocalypse 2021: January's Update

Sunday, 31 January 2021

I love this SAL as I use it as a sort of monthly summary or review and it is when I realixe how much (or not) I stitched.

This SAL is monthly hosted by Measi's Musings and I try to aprticipate every month. You normally show what yoy did in the month and, if you want, answer to the monthly question propossed for each month.

In the kick off post, I showed the list of the projects I want to work in this year. It is the following:

• Hooties All Year Round 

• Season Dreamcatchers 

• Prickly but Cute 

• Around the World in 80 stitches 

• Christmas Ornaments 

• Mini Magical Mystery SALs Pincushion (published in the blog Magickal Quilt and More during 2020)

• Wheel of the Year (NEW)

• Easter Calendar (NEW)

• Dance of the Total Eclipse (NEW)

• HAED Mini Hecate (NEW)

• Other small projects and other crafts projects (to be decided)

From my list, I only worked in the Pricky But Cute. I finished my fourth cactus which is a small female cactus with flowers on the "head". I published it here, but thai is how it looks.

I was working in a small project I didn't think about when preparing my WIPs list. It is a birth recored I am doing for a friend. It is almost over but, for obvious reasons, I can fininsh only after the birth. It is supposed to be a baby boy and they are pretty sure about the name, but just in case..... Anyway, I need to wait to know the birth date, weight and length. It is a small design but I think it is cute....

I didn't do any more stitches this month, but I was doing other things more related with learning nad reading.

Question of the Month

The Question of the Month for January is: "Tell us about a WIP on which you’ve really struggled to make progress. Explain its history. What appears to be the reason you’re struggling?"


I am going to talk about a speciality stitches WIP I am trying to do for the next, maybe four or five years. It is called "Around the world in 80 Stitches" and there is monstly speciality stitches, lots of them. I am doing in a 32 count lugana and it is quite complicate to see the holes in the fabric.


I obviously want to finish it but I need to go very slow because I can't see properly the fabric and I need to keep watching how to do the stitches.


Hope I can show you something next month.

Small SALs: Prickly But Cute IV

 Small SALs: Prickly But Cute IV

Sunday, 24 January 2021

Smalls SAL is organized  by Mary's Thread and you can show anything, well,.... obviously small.

One of my goals for this year is to finally finish the Prickly But Cute project I started in ,,,,, I think.... 2018, can be?

The pattern is made by Fuzzy Fox Design and consists on 15 nice and cute cacti, each one very small, but all together make a lovely project. It is sort of kawaii style. I did only the three first cacti in the past and I think that if I show my progress here, in the Smalls SAL, I willo have the driving force or motivation to finish the project.

That is how it was when I retook it, with Astrid, Albert and Ruby (yes, each cactus has a name).

 

This month I did the fourth cactus, called Chloe. It is a female cactus with a flower on her head and other at the bottom of the pot.

Looking forward for the next one.

WIPocalypse 2021 - Kick Off Post

Sunday, 03 January 2021

Every year, for different reasons, I can never finish the year stitching and publishing as I planned. The last year 2020 had been a bit strange and, in general, very bad year. But despite being a terrible year, not only for the pandemic but because I lost very important people, it had also few good things.

One of them is that I bought the house I was renting and I am now a mortgaged homeowner. The other is that I started a beauty blog and Instagram profile that kept me very busy and I hardly could stitch. But now I think I have both of my blogs under control and I can use part of my time for my other passion, craft and especially, cross-stitch. Hope this year I can be with you month after month until the end of the year.

My stitching goals for 2021

My main goal this year is to finish what I started in the past, all my UFOs. I want to start also few new projects, but this year, I will not start all of them at the same time as I did in the past (I think that is my main mistake). 

I will use the WIPocalypse update every month as a summary of what I did this month and I will link to other posts where you can read about each project more in detail. If you don't know what WIPocalypse is, you can read from WIPocalypse 2021 webpage in Measi's Musings' Blog.

Projects to work in 2021

That is the initial list but I will be adding or removing projects as the year progress. However, I hope to finish most of the initial projects listed here.

• Hooties All Year Round (6/12 done)

• Season Dreamcatchers (2/4 done)

• Prickly but Cute (4/15 done)

• Around the World in 80 stitches (1/24 tasks done)

• Christmas Ornaments (one per month)

• Mini Magical Mystery SALs Pincushion (published in the blog Magickal Quilt and More during 2020)

• Wheel of the Year (NEW)

• Easter Calendar (NEW)

• Dance of the Total Eclipse (NEW)

• HAED Mini Hecate (NEW)

• Other small projects and other crafts projects (to be decided)

I will not work on every project every month. Let's see if this new way of working is better for me.

See you soon!

January Christmas Ornament

Again this year I am taking part in the Christmas Ornament SAL and this year I hope to finish it. As every year, there are 3 options proposed for the monthly themes: 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas carols and Just Cross Stitch magazine. As I already did one project of the 12 days of Christmas and I am not fan of the Christmas carols, I went with the Just Cross Stitch magazine choice. For this month we need to choose something published in the Christmas issue 2016. I chose a design called Shining and Bright designed by Nancy Wahler of Faithwurks Design.

I stitched it over 14 count cream Aida fabric using DMC threads 321 and 910. Original design is having Mill Hill beads but as I have lots of beads from when I used to do earring I used those beads better than spending money in a lot of Mill Hill to use only few. I need to make economies.

Because of my broken wrist, I stitched it but didn't finished. I will update the post once I finished it. It took me 3 and a half hours to complete the design.

Update

I finished my January's ornament.

January Halloween Ornie

This is the first time I take part in the Halloween Ornie SAL. The idea of this SAL is to make a Halloween ornament each month related with the proposed theme (there is a proposed theme each month). I decided to stitch some of the patterns published in my collection of special issues of Journal Cross Stitch magazine, there are lot of things I want to do and that is a very good opportunity to do them. So let's go with the January ornament.

I need to mention that because of my broken wrist I could manage to do the embroidery part, but to fully finish the ornament, it will need to wait until my plaster is off and my wrist with mobility enough.

January theme is Pumpkin. I chose a design published in the Halloween special issue of Journal of Cross Stitch 2018. The pattern name is Pumpkin Pie and it is designed by Jennifer Rodriguez of Always Time to Stitch. It is stitched on Aida 14 count in cream colour with DMC threads 310, 471 and 721.

I will update the post once I finish my Pumpkin Pie.

Update

I finished my January's ornament.

WIPocalypse - April Check In

The WIPocalypse SAL is hosted by Measi's Musings.

Time to slow down for a while and look back to see what I could do this month. As every month happens, I did so much less than what I really wanted to do. Some of my annual projects didn’t advance as I was preparing some Easter decoration and now I need to catch up with them.

But before I start showing what I did, as every moth I do, let’s see the list of my WIPs.

1. Hooties All Year Round 1
2. Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament
3. Month Flower
4. Connie Gee Design Blackwork SAL
5. Advent Calendar
6. Season Dreamcatcher
7. Easter Egg NEW
8. Easter decoration NEW
9. Litha

I am running behind with the owls. April’s owl should be done by now but I could only make March’s one on this month. It is representing Saint Patrick’s Day. I hope I can catch up and finish April’s and May’s owls by the end of May.

I finished two flowers this month, primroses, representing February and daffodils which represent March. Both of them are done in evenweave fabric using DMC stranded cotton threads. Primroses are framed using a hoop and the daffodils are finished as a small cushion.

I made a good advance in the Advent Calendar. I finished the ornaments for days 4 to 7. They are pair of mittens, a bauble, a snowman, a poinsettia and an angel. I will try to go up to day 10 in May.

Last update I mentioned that I started my Seasonal Dreamcatchers. Well, it is finished now and looks very nice. I made it in 14 count Aida fabric using the DMC called for threads. They will be very nice once they are all together.

This month I also finished the Litha Banner which I was carrying over from last year. I finished it as I did with the rest, using this time yellow back fabric.

For Easter this year I prepared two embroideries. Both designs are from the Just Cross Stitch April issue magazine. One of them is an Easter egg embroidered with speciality stitches. You can read more here about the stitches I used in that piece. 

The other one is more simple but not less nice because of that. The design says Happy Easter and shows some typical Easter things as eggs, bunnies, etc.

I started the spring magical mystery SAL proposed by Magical Quilts and More. I just started it and made the two first parts. That will be over soon and I will show it next month. For now, I want to show the fabric and threads I chose for it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I couldn’t do anything for the JCS Christmas ornaments or the Connie Gee blackwork SAL.

Measi’s Musings use to do propose a question every month. For the month of April the question is:

“Talk to us about your longest running WIP or UFO”

Fortunately I don’t have now any WIP or UFO running for long time, but the project which took me longer in finishing was the Queen of Water. I started it on 2015 and finished only beginning of this year. I will try to avoid that happen again as much as posible.

WIPocalypse - February update

WIPocalypse SAL is hosted by Measi's Musings

Last year I participated for the first time in the WIPocalypse 2018 SAL organized by Measi’s Musings and I enjoyed too much. This year I didn't want to miss the opportunity of repeating the experience. 

I wanted really to publish in the previous WIPocalypse update in January, but as always in my busy life, one thing brought to other and finally I couldn’t write or even finished the projects I wanted. That normally happens to me all the years, I take a while taking the new habits you want to implant for the new year. But now all is being settled, I am being able to do most of the thing I want (unfortunately not all) and I am ready to join the WIPocalypse 2019.

This year I am going to be more realistic than the last year and I made a very short projects list. I am sure I will be adding projects but not more than the ones I can make. At that moment my list, which includes projects carried over from last year, is as follows:

1. Hooties All Year Round 1
2. Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament
3. One flower each Month
4. Connie Gee Design Blackwork SAL
5. Advent Calendar
6. Season Dreamcatcher

I have finished other small projects which are not part of any SAL and they are punctual jobs.

As that is the first post I am presenting here this year, I am going to introduce you to all the projects I mentioned.

Hooties All Year Round is a PinoyStitch design. Last year I made his design Hooties 12 Days of Christmas and I liked it so I bought in Etsy that new design. That one has one owl each month with something representing the corresponding month, as for example in the two I am showing here, a scarf and red beak for January and hearts around for February.  I am stitching it in white 18 count Aida fabric but I chose this time the Magic Guide one because I wanted to see how it is going.

Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments are part of the Christmas Ornie SAL 2019 organized by Christmas Ornie SAL 2019. Last year I participated with the mentioned Hooties 12 Days of Christmas. This year three options were proposed, 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas Carol or Just Cross Stitch magazine. I have most of the issues of that magazine so I decided to go for that option. Each month I will choose one design from the issue specified and at the end of the year I should have 12 ornaments if all is going right.

The first one is a design made which was published in the special Christmas issue published in 2009. I did in Aida 18 count rustic Oatmeal with threads in similar colours of the ones in the example. I finished it in a pinkeep style.

One Flower each month is a project proposed in the magazine Cross Stitcher. Each issue will be having a flower representative of that month. I did January’s one, the snowdrop.  I chose for my snowdrops a brown 28ct evenweave and stitches 2 strand over 2 threads. I used the threads DMC in the called for colours excepting for the white one. I decided to substitute this thread for the new variety of DMC thread, the DMC Etoile. I finished it as it was proposed in the magazine, as a heart shape cushion.

Connie Gee Design Blackwork SAL is one of the projects carried over from 2018. Last year the 12 first parts were released and I was nearly on time. The design comprises 25 parts so it will be going over all 2019 year. I didn't have time to work on that project and it is as I left in 2018.

Las year I wanted to make an Advent Calendar and actually I started it. I did the two first days, a star and a gingerbread man. I chose a nice 18 count Christmas red fabric and the colours for threads (excepting some red shades which are not going to be very visible over that fabric). I am carrying over this year and I finished the third and fourth days, a pair of mittens and a bauble. I need to speed up a bit.

I finished also two small jobs, both for a present, and now they are in their new homes. One of them is for someone very special for me, my cousin and friend, who has a baby boy last October. I wanted to do something special for him and I made a birth record. I chose a design consisting in dummy with some heart shaped balloons. It is done in 14 count Aida white with baby blue spots and the colours chosen for the design are also blue shades. I framed it in a fake marble frame.

The other small job was made for a Valentine's Day swap organized by my Spanish cross stitch group. I stitched a freebie designed by Agi from the blog The World According to Agi. Obviously the design is based on hearts. I made it in 14 count Aida white with pink spots.

I started also my Seasonal Dreamcatchers, but I will talk about them next month after advancing a bit.

As Measi’s Musing did last year, she is also proposing this year a question every month. For the month of February the question is:

“Which music do you listen to when you are stitching?”

Well, most of the time I don’t listen to music but when I do I like to play music in Spanish from the 80s and 90s (when I was teenager) or a sort of flamenco music typical from my birth place, Sevilla in Spain. If you want to know it play the following video:

See you next month.

Small SAL - February Check In

This is the second year I join that SAL. I discovered it last year, when it was hosted by Stitching Lotus and I enjoyed with the monthly updates. This year I went to Stitching Lotus to join and I knew that the SAL has a new home....... Now it is living in Mary's Thread blog. Thank you for giving a home to this SAL.

So many times we are very concern in working in big project taking us ages to finish them (I made two projects which took me around 2 years each) and we pay less attention to small things which most of the time you can quickly do and gives an excellent result, mainly for seasonal decoration. This SAL encourage you to do this type of small projects.

I am subscribe to Cross Stitcher magazine from years. They normally propose a SAL or serie of pattern to make along the year. This year they proposed a SAL which I didn’t like too much. But they proposed also a collection of flowers. The idea is to make one flower every month which is going to be the most typical flower for that month. Obviously you can finish it off as you want, but I like the way they are proposing in the magazine and I think I am going to follow. There is also a small description and picture of the flower of the month.

January’s flower is ………. Snowdrops. I love snowdrops. When I see them for the first time in January, many times coming out through the snow, my mood changes. Obviously it is winter and most of the times there is still quite long time of cold weather, but they are the signal for the beginning of the spring which will be confirmed when the daffodils sprouts.

For that design there are couple of things I tried for the first time. I chose for my snowdrops a brown 28ct evenweave and stitches 2 strand over 2 threads. I have never used this fabric before but I think I am going to use it so much more from now as I like how the cross stitch looks and I like how I can stitch on it.

I used the threads DMC in the called for colours excepting for the white one. I decided to substitute this thread for the new variety of DMC thread, the DMC Etoile. I bought few threads of this  variety last year just after they were released but I never had the opportunity to use them. I decided to do now and even if the results are not amazing, I can say they are not bad. I think I need to try in other type and colour of fabric as well as other thread colour from the same collection and write a review about them. You can tell me in the comments if you are interested…….

I finished it as it was proposed in the magazine, as a heart shape cushion. I chose a beige fabric for the back and I think it is not too bad, don’t you think?

It looks nice, but not as the real snowdrops.

Gifted Gorgeousness - February Update

The Gifted Gorgeousness SAL is hosted by Serendipitous Stitching.

As most of you know, I like stitching owls. The responsible of that is my mum, who is an owl collector with more than 250 owls in all the shapes, positions and format (figurine, magnet, soft toy, embroidery,...).

I got as a Christmas present the chart designed by Pinoy Stitch called “Hooties All Year Round Mini Collection #1”. The chart consists in an owl representing each month of the year. For that reason each owl is “wearing” something characteristic of the month he represents.

Because I got the chart as a present I decided to participate with it in the link party organized by Jo in Serendipitous Stitching called Gifted Gorgeousness 2019. To participate on that the condition is that what you present in the post must be related to a gift, a gift you received or a gift you are doing for someone else.

For this project I chose a 18 count white Aida fabric with magical guides. It is the first time I use this type of fabric; I will review it after using it and eliminate the guides. Threads are the called for one, DMC brand.

I finished the January owl, who is wearing a scarf as corresponds to the cold winter we are going through. I just realized that this owl has the beak red, as a consequence of the cold, I guess.

I wanted to catch up with this chart and I pressed myself to finish February’s owl before the end of the month.

As cannot be other way, February owl is an owl in love. I should say it is a female owl because of the long lashes she has and she is carrying a heart as well as she has many hearts around.

I am looking forward for March owl.

Finish it in 2019 - January

During all the years I am embroidering I learnt that hardly I finish the projects I start at the beginning of the year. That is a big true but there is an exception, I finish the projects which are part of a SAL. That is why most of my projects this year are made as a SAL.

One of the blog included in my favourite list because proposes lots of SALs, beautiful and pretty small, is Magical Quilt andMore. This year it is organised a SAL called Finish it in 2019, among other. The description of this SAL is here. But I will summarise the idea of the SAL. There are not going to be any pattern proposed for the SAL. The idea is finish projects which have already become UFO. And I thought it was a very nice opportunity to finish some of the projects I didn’t finish last year. I am not going to eat more than I can chew and I am going to choose only 3 projects which are.

1. A Year of Flowers by Cuore e Baticuore. Initially it was going to be a Christmas present but it should be for next year Christmas. I need to finish the flowers going from September to December and the name of the 12 months.
2. Sabbats by The Primitive Hare. I have only two pending.
3. Sabbats by CTHdesigns. I need to make 5 of them.

If I finish these 3 projects before the end of the year I will add other projects to that list, I have a big list of UFOs……..

Hope I can finish my projects this year.

WIPocalypse - August Check In

I have finally time to do some stitches and show them on my monthly summary.

We have crossed the first half of the year and that is the moment when I modify the list of projects to do I prepared at the beginning of the year. Some of the projects I even didn’t have time to start and I will be doing in 2019 and others are projects I have started but I am disappointed or don’t like how they look. The good part is that I have included new projects for this last part of the year, mainly for Halloween or Christmas decoration.

So my list of projects to do is now as shown:

1. Dreamcatcher: 33%
2. Banner of the Sabbats: 25%
3. Sewing Owls
4. Connie Gee Design SAL: 36%
5. CrossStitcher SAL
6. Seasonal Birds
7. Green Man
8. MD69 Cinderella
9. Phases of the Moon
10. Wheel of the Year
11. Monthly Mini Mandala: 25%
12. Zodiac Pentagram
13. Queen of Water: 90%
14. A Year of Flowers: 66%
15. Zen Garden
16. 12 Month, 12 Sachets: 66%
17. Prickly But Cute: 20%
18. 12 Days of Christmas: 50%
19. Magical Mistery SAL: 100%
20. Blackwork Tangram: 17%
21. Halloween Owls: 8%
22. Advent Calendar
23. Halloween Unicorn

Entries in red means I advanced on them, while in black are the ones I didn’t work on this period. I put in orange the projects I will do next year, in violet the ones I have abandoned and in green are the project I am going to start now.

To start with my advances of that period I want to show the advance I did on my “A Year of Flowers”. It is a Cuore e Batticuore design which I am presenting in the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL 2018. I finished 3 more flowers and I am completely up to date in that SAL now. The flower corresponding to June is a daisy. For July I embroidered what I think it is an iris and for August I have no idea about which flower it is (can be a fucshia), but it is lovely.

My Hooties 12 Days of Christmas has advanced also, but I am still two months behind schedule and I need to speed up if I want to finish it by this year Christmas. I finished the Day 5 (5 Golden Rings) and Day 6 (6 Geese-a-Laying).

The aromatic sachet collection is also up to date now. I chose this time four Vervaco designs and I am very happy as they look gorgeous, specially the two in black and white

 I finally finished the Magical Mistery SAL organized last spring by Magickal Quilts and More. I embroidered on the back MMS and the month and year I did it and I finished it as a pincushion. Happy with the result.

And moving on to blackwork, I became up to date with the Connie Gee Design Blackwork SAL. The second row is nearly over and I am waiting restless to have time to make the 10th design.

The two new projects I already started are part of what is going to be my Halloween decoration. One project consists in owl disguised with Halloween creepy costumes, as vampire, ghost, bat, etc. I sterted with the one who is on top of a pumpkin. I chose a olive green 16 count fabric for this project.

The other project is a Halloween unicorn. I love unicorns, that is not a secret. I have unicorns printed on my water bottle, my mug, sleepers, …..and when I saw that design I couldn’t avoid buying it. I am going to stitch it on 14 count pale yellow Aida fabric. After finishing this one I think I will buy and do the Christmas one, with a poinsettia on his head.

I am also going to start shortly a Advent Calendar, but that will be for the next month.

The question Measi Musing is asking this month is :

“What is more satisfaying for you and why - the process of stitching a piece or the finish?”

Definitely for me is the process of stitching. I love the thread and fabric setting up, the excitement of the first stitches and mainly see how my piece of art is growing and showing the final design. I have loads of embroidered pieces in which the cross stitch part is finish but the job remains unwashed in a box. And my weakest point, if i leave a small portion unfinished it will be like that forever.

Have a happy stitching month.

Small SAL 2018 - August Check In

I was very delayed with this project. From January to May I did month by month the corresponding sachets. But from May I dedicated more time to my plot and I was delayed with the cross stitch. I am up to date and I have 4 sachets to show.

In May was the turn of a mushroom from Vervaco. It is done in 14 count cream Aida fabric and the threads are mainly red shades. For the back as well as for the ribbon I chose a red colour.

June sachet is a Vervaco design in black and white and represents a butterfly. I did over 14 count Aida white with black and grey shades DMC threads. I used black fabric for the back and a black ribbon.

July sachet is a pink girlish owl. Ok, I need to tell the truth. The original design from Vervaco comes with the word ‘Teeth” written in backstitch and it is suppose to be a sachet for keeping the teeth for the Fairy Teeth. I didn’t embroider the letters and it is perfect for my sachets’ collection. I did it in Aida pink fabric with dark pink for the back and the ribbon.

Finally, August sachet is also a Vervaco design made in grey and black shades, but this time represents a bird. It is done in 18 count Aida marble effect fabric. As for the previous black and white design, I chose black for the back fabric and the ribbon.

My collection is increasing. It is lovely now how they look in the basket I chose for them.