Progress Update: Crazy January Challenge Days 1-5

Now that I've finished up wrapping up 2015, it's time to look forward to 2016.  Looking back through my blog archives, apparently my first Crazy January Challenge post last year was also Days 1-5, so I suppose that's appropriate!

For any of you who haven't heard of the Crazy January Challenge before, the idea is to start 15 new projects in the first 15 days of January.  Over the years it has evolved to different iterations, one of which is to start a new project for each day of January (so 31 projects).  Now, I have way to many WIPs to do 31 new projects (okay, I could do it if I really wanted to) so I do a combination of new starts and new projects throughout January instead.

And with that explanation over, here's a peek at what I've been working on.  My projects haven't gotten a huge amount of progress, mostly because I think I may have overdone things a little over the Christmas holiday, and I'm feeling a little flareup in my carpal tunnel and what might be tendinitis/tennis elbow.  So I'm trying to take things easy on the stitching front in general.

For New Years Day (Jan 1) I got started on the latest round of the Sampler Round Robin project I'm doing with my Facebook group.  This is the start of my part of Blue Ribbon Designs Little Quakeresque:

It is 1 over 2 threads done in an overdyed 3 color thread.  I like how it's turning out so far, but the project owner requested we not work in rows so the motifs ended up "striped" so it takes a bit more concentration.

January 2nd I decided it was time for something more "new years"-y so I started New Years Magic.  It's a freebie pattern by Brooke's Books.  I got one of the fairy's arms done and the start of the highlights on her face and neck.

I've never done a New Year's design before, mostly because I don't really decorate for that holiday, but Brooke's designs really appeal to me lately and the pink and purple of this really called to me for some reason.  I think I will leave off the year as it is in the original design and just leave it generic to take out for every year. 

January 3rd was a Sunday, which tend to be either really good or really slow stitching days for me.  My brother ended up being sick so I didn't get much done on this start either.  This is the start of Swirly Lollipop, a design from Daily Cross Stitch.com.  This will be going to World of Charity Stitching for a "sweet" themed quilt they are putting together.

I got two of the bottom stripes done, so hopefully this will work up pretty quickly.  It's going to be very colorful when it's done, that's for sure!

January 4th was Monday and so that meant back to work, which meant a lot of my stitching was confined to my lunch break at work.  This start is another WOCS project for the sweet quilt (as long as I get it down in time).  This is Chocolate Box by Little House Needleworks.  I thought for sure I could at least get one of the 9 chocolates completely done, but as you can see, that didn't quite happen.

With a name like Chocolate Box, you KNOW there's going to be a ton of brown in this.  So it was nice to start with one of the more decorated chocolates in the pattern as the center block.
 
Day 5 was the last of what I'm calling the "sweetie square" starts.  This is Sweets for the Sweet by Sue Hillis.  Kind of weird for me to start with "backstitch" first, but since that was the center of this pattern and I'm not doing any sort of gridding for this one, starting with words it is.  Anyone know what the pattern name refers to?  The English major in me is pretty tickled by it. 

 This is going to be pretty monochromatic until I reach the chocolate box on the lower right corner.  Which probably a good thing since I'm actually out of a few of the colors I need for that part.  Speaking of which, do you ever feel like you must have the entire DMC library by now but when you go to pull colors for a design there's always at least 1 you're out of?  Or is that just me? 

So that catches me up to today.  Guess we'll have to wait and see what the future holds when I get home and see what speaks to me for Day 6. 

In addition to the new starts, I've also been making slow progress on the sampler round robin project from Day 1, since that needs to be mailed soon.  Here's how it looks now:

Back with more updates soon!

2015 Stitching Wrap Up and 2016 Plans

Since my post from yesterday about Christmas got a little long, I'm going to put off showing off my Crazy January progress so far for just one more day to do a quick recap/future goals post.  Well, I say quick, but things never seem to go that way when I start to type.

2015 Stitching Statistics

Projects started:   44
New projects started for Crazy January Challenge: 30
Projects finished:  30
Crazy January Challenge projects finished: 7 (which is why many of these are included as WIPs in this year's challenge...)
Charity squares donated: 9
Exchange presents mailed: 3

Not a bad year overall.  So what's my plans going forward for 2016?

You may have noticed if you've been a reader since last year that I didn't really sign up for an SALs or check ins this year.  Stitch from Stash as it was before has now been dissolved, although there are similar groups popping up all over Facebook I could join if I wanted to.   But I'm also not participating in WIPocalypse or the Smalls SAL, or anything like that, at least so far.  In the end, I really burned out in the check ins on those posts, and so this year I decided not to. 

I have joined Kaye's Christmas Ornie SAL 2015 blog with good intentions to keep up, but I'm not going to stress about it if I don't. I've also signed up to participate in a few Facebook challenges, but again, I'm trying to go more stress free in my blogging and stitching this year.  If I meet the challenge, great, if not, that's okay too. 

I will be doing Debbie's Crazy January Challenge again this year (I've already started) because that was one thing from last year I really enjoyed.  I know I will continue charity stitching in the new year because that's also something I have really liked doing (as long as I don't leave things too much to the last minute!).  I have some plans for some gifts I would like to make.  I'm in a current Round Robin sampler round, and I'm starting a new Lizzie Kate RR in January.  But in the end, I really want 2016 to be more about stitching and blogging for me, and I feel like right now, what I have committed to is working for me.  Of course, that could always change in the future, since I seem to have SAL ADD. 

I would like to get back to doing Free Pattern Friday posts, so I'm going to be try and be better about being regular in posting those, starting with this coming Friday.  

Oh, and since I totally am behind on reporting for the TUSAL (Totally Useless SAL) where we show our ort jars each month, here's what my ort jar looked like at the end of 2015:

 
Now time to empty it out and start over with a clean jar. Whatever 2016 brings, I hope to make it a great year!

Christmas Debrief

Hello fellow stitchers! 

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday break.  I pretty much collapsed after my pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and have been pretty quiet for the most part, although now we are into January I am officially smack dab in the middle of the Crazy January Challenge.  But before I start sharing my January projects, I figured it would be a good idea to officially wrap up 2015 since I never got around to actually posting anything the past two weeks.  (I did think about it, just never actually DID it....)

Warning in advance, this post will probably get long and picture heavy.

The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with my mom and brother at least.  Dad and Grandma still need to get theirs, so I don't know that reaction yet.  Here's what Love Potions ended up looking like (gifted to Mom):

I told her they were "lotion and potion" bottles since my mother makes her own lotions.  It's a bit of an inside joke in our family.  My cousin thought they were old-fashioned light bulbs up until right before I finished the project (since he was privy to the crafting process). 

My Americana-obsessed brother was very happy with Stars and Stripes, despite my worry that it was a little too small. 

Cookies for Santa for my dad turned out great, and I think this is my favorite Mill Hill of the year (although love potions is a close second because it used many of my favorite colors).  There's just something about this that is so festive. 

And my last Christmas finish was Floral Watering Can for my grandma.  I was really excited to see this one come out as part of Mill Hill's spring release last year, but yikes was it a more complicated pattern than I realized!  Never again will I leave a project like this to the last minute (if I can help it). 

I mentioned in a previous post that I made made (non-stitchy) ornaments for my coworkers, here's how my flurry of snowmen turned out:

Does anyone know if there's an official term for a group of snowmen?  If not, I think a flurry of snowmen should be made official.  These are two pieces of felt blanket stitched together by my wonderful long suffering mother on her sewing machine, with hand tied ribbon scarves and acrylic painted faces by me.  Each snowman also has two buttons, taken from my great-grandmother's vintage button collection.  My mom agreed to part with a few of the buttons from her grandmother's collection, and I think it gives these an extra special touch.  My coworkers loved the ornaments, and some even more so after I told them about the buttons. 

So that is what I gave for Christmas.  Here's what I got. 

My exchange partner apparently had to replace my ornament because the original was damaged by the post office (grrrrr!) but on Christmas Eve I got the most adorable snowman ornament in the mail:

Perfect actually because we didn't decorate until Christmas Eve this year.  I'm not sure who the designer is, but maybe Bent Creek or The Trilogy?  I don't know why, but lately I just adore snowmen so much, so this was a perfect little gift for me.  I think it's my favorite of all the exchange pieces I've gotten this past year. 

I also got my first scroll frame to try out, and a little traveling Ott Light from my mom, both were a huge surprise and I'm super excited to use them.  Then from my cousin I got a large full size floor stand Ott light, which I never expected to get because they are very expensive.  I'm super excited to use it, although it's been set up, I haven't had a chance to use it yet because I haven't found the perfect spot (near an outlet) to set it yet.  Perhaps when we get around to taking down the tree. 

Another cousin gave me this Disney Classic Cross Stitch kit that (I think) is a Barnes & Noble exclusive because she knows how much I like Disney.  Honestly, some of the patterns in here look a little weird to me, probably because they are mostly based on whole stitch/pixel artwork, but I am really excited about the Sleeping Beauty Castle pattern from Disneyland. 

 
That pretty much wraps up Christmas.  So going wrap up for the rest of the year?  Well, since this post is getting quite long, I think I'll save that for another post for tomorrow.

20th Day of Advent Blog Hop

Hello readers!  Today I am proud to co-host (with Cheryl) Day 20 of Jo's Advent Blog Hop.  I've admired Jo's blog hops for almost 2 years now, so I'm very excited to be participating for the first time. 

Jo has asked us to share some Christmas stitching with you all and then share our Christmas Eve traditions.  So I thought I'd share a photo I snapped of Mill Hill's Holiday Stamp before I sent it off to my exchange partner.  Ornaments always look better hanging on a tree don't they? 

So now onto Christmas Eve traditions.  Growing up, and even still now, I don't think we ever have a "typical" Christmas Eve.  Our activities change a bit from year to year, although there are two constants: family and putting out stockings. 

Of course when we were little my brother and I would always put out milk and cookies for Santa and then pick out which stockings we were going to use and choose some for our parents as well.  Although we had a fireplace growing up, we never hung the stockings up, rather draping them over the couches and chairs in the family room.  This left more room for extra presents of course.  The years my Mom and Dad got sick of wrapping presents at 2:00 in the morning there would be more things piled around the stocking than in the years they started the wrapping earlier in the month. 

Now that my brother and I are adults, we still put out stockings for the family on Christmas Eve.  Then we take turns sneaking up to them in the middle of the night to fill them with goodies.  We have collectively taken on the Santa role I guess. 

What we fill our time with during Christmas Eve before the stockings go up varies from year to year.  We often enjoy doing a Christmas puzzle, so sometimes we will pull that out early and put one together on the card table while watching Christmas specials on TV in the background.  One time we gathered around the tree and read the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever out loud in turn.  Which, by the way if you've never read that book, I highly recommend it.  Lately it seems Christmas Eve is reserved for snuggling up in your favorite cozy blanket and putting in a favorite Christmas movie.  My brother will probably opt for Elf while I'll fight for A Muppet Christmas Carol.  Although with the new Star Wars movie coming out a few days ago, I sense there might be a movie marathon in the works instead. 

Thank you for joining me on this blog hop!  Don't forget to check our Cheryl's blog for another Christmas stitchy post today, and you can catch up on any advent posts you've missed on this page at Jo's blog. 

Merry Christmas!

Almost there!

We're in the final countdown to Christmas; are you ready?

I was able to get some progress done on my ornaments, although not as much as I wanted.  I need like 4 more days added to my weekend. *sigh*  In the end, I decided that my final to "maybe" projects that I was hoping to get done before Christmas will absolutely not get finished before the holiday.  So I've decided to save those two for next year and find an alternative small present to send to my aunt and uncle. 

I did finish-finish up my Holiday Stamp project, so that was ready in time to be sent off to my exchange partner:

So that left me free to focus on starting what will now be the last gift stitching project for the year.  This is Floral Watering Can by Mill Hill. 
 

I will be finishing it up as an ornament as a present for my paternal grandmother who loves gardening and flowers.  When we were younger and her garden was much bigger every trip my brother and I would tail her around the garden in the morning helping her water the plants with her beat up green plastic watering can.  I had a babysitting job Saturday night so I made some decent progress on this start after the kids went to sleep for the night. 

I was able to finishing the beading on Love Potions and attach the backing paper and bead hanger in preparation for it's "finish-finishing".  Now I just have to cut it out. 

I decided not to do the bead swags that were charted because I didn't really like them and didn't think they added much to the design, but I think they look oka without it.  Luckily the heart treasure covered up the giant green space left when I took out the "No 9" as charted, so overall I'm liking how it looks. 

I also finished the same steps on Stars and Stripes.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  The beading totally makes this one.  I made a few boo boos on the placement of blue and yellow in the lower left corner of the star that I had to improvise a bit to fix, but hopefully it doesn't look too bad. 

If there's one thing I'm disappointed in with this one it is that it is rather small, even for a Mill Hill kit.  It was originally intended to be a pin, so I guess that's why.  But I think the recipient will hopefully not mind the smaller size.  This was my favorite of the Americana kits I could find, and he is very patriotic.  I just need to cut this one out and it will be done as well.


All of the stitching and backstitching has been done on Cookies for Santa.  I'm a little disappointed that the photo washed out the light green "sprinkles" stitching on the white star cookie, but I'm hoping once the beads are on it will stand out more.  Next up for this one is adding previously mentioned beads and then cutting and backing and hanging. 

This weekend I also made some progress on the 11 fleece blankets I'm tying for gifts this year.  Which leaves me with a pillowcase, an apron, two batches of soap, two batches of lotion, and 13 felt snowman ornaments to finish before 7 days are up.  But this weekend I also completed 2 sewing projects that I can't show yet in the very chance case the recipient reads this blog.  I was extremely proud of myself since I have extremely rudimentary skills and my mom is such a good seamstress I always feel embarrassed asking for help because my sewing always looks childish at best. 

Anyway, I'm very proud of this project, which will be extremely useful (I hope) once the cold weather hits full force.  We haven't had more than a half dozen nights or so that have been cold here in Mississippi yet, but since this is only my second winter here I'm not sure what's typical yet. 

Funny side note about cold in Mississippi and cats:

Last winter Brownie took to "burrowing", which is what I called it when he wanted under the covers with me so he could snuggle up closer to my body warmth.  I tend to "cocoon" myself when sleeping in the winter and seal myself up so no cold air can reach my body, but when Brownie burrowed in, I would usually leave the end of the blanket by my face untucked so he could crawl out when he was done with being under the blankets. 

Well, last night I was woken up by him pawing and nipping at my hand... which was wrapped in my blankets.  Apparently he either burrowed in while I was sleeping or I let him in and didn't remember it at all during the night.  It took my sleep deprived brain about 5 minutes to realize he was trying to get my attention because he was trapped under the blankets. 

Christmas Countdown Progress Update

Most of my time these days is spent frantically trying to finish as many Christmas presents as possible before the looming deadline.  Which of course means that my Mill Hill stitching has been coming along.  So here's a quick look at my most recent updates. 

First off, I finished Holiday Stamp for my partner exchange:

I'll be finish-finishing it hopefully this weekend.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out; the petite seed beads are perfect for the scale of it.  I think the regular size Mill HIll beads would dwarf the design too much, but they fit perfectly here.

I also got the stitching all done on Love Potions:

I left the "No. 9" off the green bottle on the right, so I'm hoping it won't stick out because it's the one with the least amount of beading.  This will be hopefully be beaded by the end of the weekend, along with Stars and Stripes which I showed in my last update. 

I've also gotten quite far on Cookies for Santa now:

No longer just a green blob in the middle.  Just a bit more white to go, then backstitching and beading next for this one, again hopefully done by Monday.  Notice a pattern?  Then it's just 3 more kits to start and finish by the end of next week and *phew*, the Christmas stitching will be D. O. N. E., done.

Of course, then there are about 17 other projects I need to finish before the holiday that aren't stitching.  *sigh*

Mill Hill kits everywhere!

To my US readers, I hope that you all had a good Thanksgiving with lots of good food and good company.  And for everyone, happy first part of December!

I must admit, December is one of my favorite months, and Christmas is probably one of my favorite holidays.  I just love the ambiance of love that (usually) surrounds this holiday.  Around here I'm falling behind on production schedule of Christmas gifts though, so things are about to get crazy!  But here's what's been happening on the stitching front. 

Before Thanksgiving I managed up a finish on my band for the Antique Band Sampler project in my latest sampler Round Robin. 

Sorry for the black smudges, but I bled out my last name and city for security purposes, for what it's worth on the internet anyway.   I didn't really enjoy working on this one much, sampler bands just aren't my thing I guess.  But I am excited to see what project comes next. 

The day after Thanksgiving my cousin and I sat down and had a huge marathon of all 6 Star Wars movies back to back.  It took 14 hours, but was a good excuse to get a good chunk of stitching done.  The cross stitching and backstitch is all done on Holiday Stamp:

And as you can see, I'm starting to bead too.  I like that this kit came with all petite seed beads.  Not sure why, but those are my favorite.  Soon it will be ready to go to my exchange partner. 

Speaking of Friday again, since one of my gift recipients who is normally home had to work on Friday, I pulled out Love Potion, which will be for her, while she was at work.  I got a good part of the stitching on this one done, and now it looks like this:

I also pulled out Stars and Stripes just to change things up a bit.  This one is the smallest, so it had the least amount of stitching to be done.  I hadn't worked on this one since last year's January challenge, but now it's done and ready for beads. 

I didn't have Holiday Stamp with me to finish during my last stitching session, so I pulled out what will be the next kit to work on.  This one is called Cookies for Santa:

Not much to see yet, just a green blob.  I love the design of this one, but it will probably go slower than the others because it has a LOT of color changes and detail stitching.  But at least it seems to have more minimal beading than some of the other designs, so that will help. 

So other than these WIPs that leaves 1 more kit to start and finish before Christmas, 2 more I would like to start and finish (but it's okay if I don't), and 11 fleece lap blankets to fringe and tie in the next two weeks.  Plus a secret project that's a present for another family member that needs to be finished and ordered ASAP.  Whew!  I'm going to be BUSY!!!!