OhSewCrafty Blog

Hello friends!  January started with some crazy serial starting but I dedicated most of the months to my older WIPs.

4 days on Spooky House by X’s and Oh’s.  This pattern is fractionally fantastic with about 8 blends and several metallics that I stitched around; hence my rather patchy progress.  Nice little start regardless I suppose… this is the crenellation above the porch on the right side, some of the wall around the window, the lattice fence, and a bit of the arch that will go around the doorway.   
2 days on Boo Club by Lizzie Kate…. I stitched quite a lot of border and finished Spooky, which was my January goal (one world/per month).  I also gridded down and made tiny starts on the Black Cat / Spiders chart (spiderweb) and Eek / Creepy chart (letter “e”).  This stitches up lickety split and I shall consider it my “reward” stitching each month for working some of the BAPs. 

 3 days on Mill Hill Christmas Village. Day 1 I made a tiny start on the Needlework shop.. just some snow and porch steps, I guess. Day 2 I started General Store.  Day 3, I started Cathedral, Bakery, and went back to General Store.   It was a small start, but at least I managed to edit the weird area with the indeterminate “black hole” on the porch; I extended the background of wall to cover it.  

1.5 days on Stoney Creek’s Lord’s Prayer, which was enough to finish some of the verse and do one of the sampler patterns… a little row of flowers.  The colors are more vibrant than it would seem from the pattern photo, but the yellow flower pistils may be a little too similar to my fabric color.. might frog and redo that in a brighter yellow but I will stitch more first and see how I feel once there are more colors stitched.

0.5 day on Mini Mandala Monthly Blackwork SAL by Brodeuse Bressane, it only took about 2 hours (with plenty of interruptions) to finish the January block.

On Day 12, I shifted into WIP mode with my one of my faves, and a hopeful finish goal for the first quarter, King Arthur’s Court.  Over 5 days, I worked on page 3 and a little into page 4 (the illuminated letter “A”).  Page 3 is almost finished with the exception of the backstitching and their faces, of course.  Don’t Merlin & Arthur look deliciously creepy without faces?

Charmed Santa got 4 days, it’s my piece for the Full Coverage Fanatics quarterly Winter SAL which began 12/21/17.  My personal goal was to get 1,200 stitches, but I notched that count midway through the rotation and elected to continue.  I worked mainly on page 2, the bottom right, but also filled in some empty areas on page 1 (bottom left).   

Maiden and the Unicorn had 5 days scheduled, but I managed to finish my oldest wip on day 3 of the rotation, that was quite a coup!

I was able to rotate to Water Goddess early, and she got 5 days in all.  I do intend to work more on her tonight though.  I’m loving these colors, but her skirt is huge!  

What SAL’s are you participating in this year? and If you are participating in the Olympic Stitching Challenge, what challenge are you accepting?  What are your goals?

I’m participating in the various SALs with my group, Stitch from Stash 2017-18 on FB, as well some of Stitch Maynia and Cross Stitch Finish Line group SALs, plus the Year of WIPs with the Soulful Stitcher group, which overlaps with the WIPocalypse.  Stitch from Stash goes very well with the WIPocalypse too, since WIPs are stash!  I am very serious about working my WIPs this year, decreasing my WIP count, etc.  I started 2018 with 9 WIPs, and my goal is to end with 5.  As for the Olympics, count me in for the Rotation Relay which goes along with the Stitch Maynia Olympic Challenge.  Daily rotation challenges are a bit outside my comfort zone, but that is the point, and it makes for good vlogging content.  

My plans for the end of January involve Winnie the Pooh.  February will bring focused effort on King Arthur’s Court, and Bright and Beautiful Spring Bird, plus the Olympics challenge.  I’m looking forward to it!