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.

 Gifted Gorgeousness - January Update

Sunday, 17 January 2021

Hello everybody.

This year Jo from Seredipitous Stitching is organizing again the gifted Gorgeousness SAL, where basically you can present anything related with a gift. It can be a project you are doing for someone else, somthing with gifted fabric or thread, freebies (as they are gifted free by the author), etc. 

I satrted few projects this year and I am continue with some of the previous year and still I don't have any embroider project to show related with gift.

I am going to share with you a patchwork project I did just before Christmas for my little cat Luna. I wanted her to have a sock hanging in the fireplace together with mine. But obviously, she has paws and not feet and I thought that a human sock was something stupid for her. Actually, the socks they sell in the pet shops with goodies for cat have a paw shape.

I looked for one like that and I couldn't find it. I decided then to make one my self. I got some Christmas fabric I had from previous projects and pink felt. I cut a paw shape template and stitched it and then I glued cat pads made on pink felt.

The result was that.

I don't know if she likes or not, but I am very proud of it. Maybe is not the best sown project in the world, but it is very cute......

Fully Finished Gallery - January Update

Sunday, 10 January 2021

Welcome to my blog!!

Today I want to show you something I did recently for my family, but before I want to introduce you to the Fully Finished Gallery 2021. Rachel from Ten Hour Stitcher hosts every year a party link where you share the link to a blog post showing a fully finished craft project, as you can guess for the name. There is no commitment, you participate only when you have something to show. That encourages you to finish projects and see what other people do. I recommend you to have a look if still, you don't know it.

This year I couldn't travel to Spain to spend Christmas with my family, as I am sure was the case of some of you also. I spend Christmas time in the UK, alone with my little cat Luna and I wanted to send my family something containing a bit of me, something handmade. That is why I decided to make a Christmas card for them.

I wanted to do something different and not the typical winter design embroidered in fabric. I chose to make a pattern published in the blog Magical Quilts and More. There was a SAL running called Easy Christmas Cards and the January's pattern was interesting.

I embroidered it in 14 counts perforated paper in gold colour, what I regret when doing, as it reflects the light too much and it is very uncomfortable to work with. I chose black thread DMC 310 because of the effect of the black colour over the gold and carefully cut around after embroidered to give the shape.

I mounted over a yellow card and fixed the embroidery with thick double sided tape to make it a bit elevated over the card. That is how it looked like.

Do you work with perforated paper? Do you want a post with my tips to work with it? Let me know in the comments.

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!

WIPocalypse January

First WIPocalypse of the year!!!! 

I didn't make great advances this month but in spite of that I am very happy. I was most of the month with one of my hands cast on a plaster as a consequence of a broken wrist and after removing the plaster my wrist still pains and doesn't have full mobility. I thought I wasn't going to be able of stitch anything, and that is why I am very happy with my small advances.

I am going to start with one of the projects pending from last year, my Advent Calendar. It is almost finished , I stitched the number 23, a toy soldier and in February it will be fully finished.

I started my Temperature project. The pattern is a design published in the blog Magical Quilts and More and I decided to do with the minimum temperatures we are having in Northumberland. I maybe will do other with the maximum temperatures depending on how long the stitching takes me.

I stitched the first ornament for my Halloween Ornie SAL 2020. Each month we need to stitch something related with the theme proposed. For January it was pumpkin. I chose a design called Pumpkin Pie published in Just Cross Stitch. I didn't finished it as with my damaged wrist I cannot do it but as soon as my wrist allows me I will finish it.

Same happened with the ornament for Christmas Ornie SAL 2020, I stitched it but didn't finish. In this SAL there are 3 options to choose: 12 days of Christmas, Christmas carols and Just Cross Stitch magazine. I am going through the third option and for January I chose a design called Shinning&Bright. For more details you can read my post here.

After more than 2 years I did other cactus for my Prickly But Cute design. The cactus I did this month is called Chloe and it is the one in the bottom right part.

Finally I stitched "My Favourite Things" corresponding to January. That is a project published in the magazine CrossStitcher. Each month the pattern will show something related with the month, as for example, snowdrops, tea and toast and cosy socks for January. 

To finish with this post I would like to answer the monthly question, which this month is "What SALs are you participating in this year?"

This year for the moment I am not participating in any typical SAL style "show one part receive the next" but mostly in SALs to do on your own pace. Most of them are organised by Magical Quilts and More as Temperature, Christmas Cards and Blackwork Christmas Ornaments. I am also participating in SALs which are more like a linky party. Maybe I will not participate every month in all of them but they are:

- Gifted Gorgeousness

- Smalls SAL

- WIPocalypse

- People's Choice

- Halloween Ornie 2020

- Christmas Ornie 2020

And that is all for the moment. I hope to advance more next month with my wrist in good conditions. 

Good Stitching Time!!!!!

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.