Sunday, January 28, 2018

WIPocalypse Check-in - January 2018

In this month's report, we are to answer the following questions:

"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 partially answered these questions on January 7 in the initial blog of the year but I will restate:
  • The only SAL I have on schedule this year is WIPocalypse. However, I am collecting the bands from the Linen & Threads Mystery sampler and I reserve the right to take on that, or any other SAL that comes along if my stitching mojo returns!
  • If I accept an Olympic Stitching Challenge (and I am not sure yet) it will be the "Endurance Race" adn teh Elizabeth Almond "Save the Stitches" blackwork sampler.
  • My primary goals are to a) get my stitching space organized and b) to get back into the stitching groove.

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So let's start with my primary goal: Cleaning up and reorganizing my stash! 

Back in the final paragraph of my last post, I blogged about the mess my craft space was in, and how I hoped that, in 2018, I would make some progress in getting it all put back together and neatened up. This is my January progress report on that organization.

I started out gangbusters on January 1 and kept it up for a week before I fizzled out somewhat, but I did make progress, slowly but surely.

To start with, the dining room table, where my computer lives (and so where I blog and, therefore an extension of my crafting space.

On January 1, I set to work on a box that contained (and was overflowing with) charitable solicitations which were, for the most part, duplicates of ones I had already paid... I filled a kitchen trash bag and emptied that box. I didn't even sort. I just emptied! This took roughly an hour... and was relatively painless:

On January 3, my husband and I worked on getting several framed pieces of stitchery off of the table and into plastic bags before storing them in the basement with our other framed pictures. 

On January 6, I cleared various receipts, sorted, and bagged them into manila envelopes according to tax category. Benefit of doing this? Two checks found that needed to be deposited!

Finally, on January 7, I tackled the area to the left of my laptop which held bills to be paid and various bill-paying requirements (new checks, deposit slips, envelopes, etc.), membership cards and discount coupons, and miscellaneous "stuff". The result: a cleared workspace so I can do my taxes, pay my bills, AND blog.

So that was basically less than 24 hours spent in one week. Still to be done... box up last year's taxes and move several boxes from the corners of the dining room to a storage location (TBD). Then all that needs to be done is tidy up the tchotchkes and the dining room is serviceable again on relatively short notice (sure, I'd have to move a lot of studs and Charlie would have to move his puzzles but you know what I mean)!

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Next, Now to my stitchery space, which encroaches on my paper crafting space more than it should, given how little I've been stitching this past year and a quarter!

​In my basement stitching area, there is a lot of stuff that lands on my cutting table and never seems to leave. As a result, I have roughly 12 inches by 30 inches of work space on that table!

I started there, on January 2, with beads and buttons and charms and the like and got all the aforementioned embellishemnts into two bins and a covered box and stashed in a cabinet.

Next, there was that bin of needlepoint wool in front of my stitchery cabinets

Next to one of my storage cabinets, there is an area/nook/wasted space that was FILLED with bogs of polyfill! It also held my needlepoint blocking board and some extra-long rolls of needlework fabric, some in tubes and some not. On January 2, I set about clearing that corner and getting as much of those yarn bins out of the way and into that nook. Let's just hope I don't need to block any large needlepoint pieces in the near future because that blocking board is WAY in the back! But I'm hoping that, when I get finished here, there will be a better place to put that blocking board!

On January 4, I set about finding a place for all those finished pieces that need to be finished that were stashed in in bin under my cutting table I found a lidded storage bin in the basement and set about gathering all the finished pieces in one place. This did clear a space for something else but the bin still needs to find home...

On January 5, I tackled the mess around my sewing machine in stages:
  • To the left of the machine, I cleared out the area, consolidated all project bags in a black 31 Tote and place the tote on top of my Bernina case
  • To the right of the machine, I cleared out the area and found other places for most of it. All that remains is my old Singer in it's case
  • And finally, I tackled the surface of the machine table.

Much of the stuff that was on top of the Singer and the Bernina table ended up in a reorganized top shelf of my Quilting cabinet or in a bin on the door. The fabrics in this cabinet and in the one on the other side of my sewing machine need a major sort but that will come later...

​And finally, on January 19 and 20, I started on the daunting task of sorting floss. AAARGH! It was a total mess... and still is but I'm getting there.

The DMC floss that I have is in zip-lock bags on rings in sterlite baskets, stored by color number and floss type (nylon, rayon, metallic, varigated, etc. all have their separate rings). The rest of my floss is in different containers, labeled by manufacturer (e.g. Anchor is in a Sterlite bin on rings, GAST and weeks and similar threads all have their individual Artbin cases, left-over kit threads have their own Artbin cases, and some silks are in special boxes). And all were/are scattered throughout my cross-stitch cabinets.

On that infamous cutting table, the floss that had been pulled for projects and not put back, nor had newly purchased collections (example: DMC's new colors) benn put away are were still in their packaging. I started going through all the project bags and sorting according to manufacturer. The boxed collections were put into the cross stitch cabinet on the bottom shelf, still in their shipping packaging, to be dealt with later. Kit left-overs were placed in their respective Artbin cases. DMC (some of which was already bagged in large ziplock bags by 100 color numbers) and speciality threads were bagged and set aside for future sorting.

Now that is not ALL the organizing I did this month --- there was, of necessity, some papercrafting organizing done as well --- simply because the two areas are overlapping in both storage and mess! It may look as if I have tackled the easy bits first (probably true... I mean, I didn't alphabetize my beads or arrange by color; ditto buttons; and I still have two quilting and two cross-stitch cabinets to empty out, sort, and reshelve). Still, I think I made some progress on all fronts and and am encouraged enough to keep on this task in February..

WIPocalypse Check-In, January 7, 2018

In the event that you are not familiar with WIPocalypse, it is a yearly challenge by Measi's Musings where Melissa, the blog owner states:

"The WIPocalypse was a stitch-a-long playing up on the joke that the world will end in 2012. It’s short for Works In Progress Apocalypse."The goal of the WIPocalypse is to make progress on your projects. How you go about this is your choice."

Since then, there have been WIPocalypse SALs each year and this year is the start of WIPocalypse 2018. 

Each month there is a "Question of the Month", an incarnation of “Stitcher Blogger Questions.” This was started on WIPocalypse in 2015 and continues. 

Also, in Olympic Years, there is an optional "Stitching Olympics Challenge". The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held February 9th to February 25th, and there are three options for “events” to challenge us in pushing forward on our WIPs during the Games. These options are:
  • Rotation Relay – rotate through as many projects as you can during the Olympics (for those who like to work on a bunch of different pieces)
  • Endurance Race – stick to ONE piece for the Olympics, and see how far you can push that one piece toward finishing (for those one at a time stitchers, or anyone else who wants to do some serious focusing on a particular piece)
  • Celebrate the Nations (stitch only in the colors of the Olympic rings on your WIP pieces, OR… your nation’s flag, OR… on some sort of piece that is reflective of where you live, eg. Americana pieces for US residents).
I have participated in WIPocalypse since it's inception in 2012, answering monthly questions to the best of my ability, and reporting on my progress (nil in 2017) on my WIPs and even on a few UFOs. I have never chosen to do the Stitching Olympics Challenge in that none of my WIPS seem to fit the options except the endurance one. Also, I find it hard to stitch and watch the Olympics at the same time so I tend to choose one over the other. 

OK, enough of an introduction. Now for the January check-in.

The question for this month is to "Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year!"

You can see who I am by reading my "bio" on the right in this blog. 

This blog shows all of my projects that I have photographs of, dating back to the early 2000's. I am an eclectic stitcher in that I will stitch any pattern that intrigues me: scenic, abstract, realistic, even the occasional "cute" (although that is not my favorite style) and in many different stitchery styles: needlepoint, cross-stitch, free embroidery, knitting (although no so much of late), and quilting (mainly crazy quilting). I like to use different stitches in all my needlework and also like to embellish with beads, charms, buttons, etc. I tend to enter challenges and keep on entering until I simply run out of ideas (example: the Bead Journal Project, 2010 - 2015 and the Crazy Quilt Journal Challenge, 2012 - 2015 being the main ones in my stitching history). 

I have four projects in my project bag at present in various stages of completion, all of which came to a screeching halt when I broke my wrist in the fall of 2016. They are:
  • ​Elizabeth Almond's "Save the Stitches" blackwork sampler, started in late February of 2014 and put away in April of 2015
  • "Palm Tree Elegance", a Dimensions needlework piece in my travel bag (I only stitch on this while traveling, in hotel rooms, etc.), started in November 2010 and put away after the last road trip in July of 2016:
  • "Biltmore", a kit I purchased at the Biltmore Estate in July of 2014 and stitched on briefly in the coffee shop at that estate. I have stitched on it once or twice since then but made little progress from my sole published photo - in fact it has regressed a little since much of the work I did in that coffee shop had to be frogged. This piece also lives in my travel bag:
  • and finally, "Love Is.., an intended first anniversary gift for a niece which has missed that deadline and may not make the second as well at there ate I am going. Started in September 0f 2016 and was put away when I broke my wrist, brought out briefly in February of 2017 as a test run of my wrists ability to hold the frame, and put back after an hour and less than four backstitched letters (and/or frogged letters!):

Please note:

1. I am NOT counting some UFOs that are still in my list from 2010:
  • "Antique Rose" napkins
  • "Angel of Love"
  • "Celestial Angel"
  • "Map of England and Wales"
  • "Harvest Sampler"
  • "Nature's Song" (excerpted from a larger chart)

2. I am NOT counting all the finish-finish pieces that I recently put altogether in a LARGE bin in my crafting space.

3. I am NOT counting all the kitted up kits and projects that I have stashed in my stitchery cupboard (I dread to think how many are in there), in another travel bag (at least ten, maybe more) and my in-house project bag (at least three needlepoint pieces and several more cross-stitch pieces). 

I mean, a girl has to have some limits! 

​Anyway my goals include getting as much of those first four listed WIPS done in 2018 as possible.
  • This year, I may try for the "Endurance Race" and I have that Elizabeth Almond blackwork piece still languishing, half finished, in my project pile, as a good candidate.
  • I will TRY to finish that "Love Is.." sampler for my niece sometime before her FOURTH anniversary (linen and silk, and it is stitched on linen)!
  • I WILL stitch on Pal Tree Elegance on a road trip this coming summer, but am pretty sure it will NOT be finished.
  • Biltmore...not so sure!!
And my biggest goal of all is to clean up and reorganize my stitchery space. I have shown detailed photos here of the before, and I will post detailed before-and-after picures of each step in my monthly WIPocalypse reports (here's hoping this attempt at reorganization, which entails my dining room and my paper crafting space as well as my stitchery space - doesn't take more than one month but one never knows what one will discover while sorting (I have already discovered two uncashed checks while sorting papers on my dining room table!)