WIPocalypse Check-In: April 28, 2019

This month's topic for discussion is:

"Talk to us about your longest-running WIP or UFO."

I had to go back into my files to find the longest running WIP... it is a round robin I participate in on Cross Stitch Crazy, a long gone forum on the now defunct iVillage. I started in January 2007. I stitched it on full yard of Silkweaver's 28-ct Jobelin, in the "Carol's Meadow" color.  It is a 12" x 12" square stitched with a knot garden in "blackwork" from Stitchin'spirations ("Brandon", designer Sally Rudkin) . The outlines of each individual garden plot were stitched in two strands (over two) of WDW Juniper (2158) while the blackwork fill and the plants around the outside were stitched in one strand of Caron Waterlilies "Distant Hills" (153). The garden "fence" was stitched in two strands of DMC 310 (black); the four urns at the central "gates" on each side were stitched in one strand of DMC  356 (terra cotta) and the pineapples at the remaining gates were stitched in one strand of DMC 61 (a variegated yellow-brown) with leaves in the WDW Juniper.

I sent it out to on its rounds (five other participants) with patterns for 18 possible Victorian house designs, all Nancy Spruance Victorian miniatures from three brochures: 3 copies each of Victorian Side Streets, San Francisco Scenes and Cape May Victorians, to be placed in the squares defined by the running stitches. In addition, I included a copy of fences, gates, urns and lamp posts (from Spruance's Victorian Miniatures pamphlet) which could be substituted for the embellishments shown in the house charts.

​When it came back to me in August 2007, it had five houses stitched:

And I have never gotten around to finishing it. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure "how" to finish it, other than adding at least one more house to the bottom right.  I know I have the house patterns somewhere -- that is only a matter of digging them out. And I had thought to make four blackwork motifs for the four corners but that wouldn't work if I don't compete the six "lots" on the sides...

What to do?

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So on to my progress in April - and yes, hard as it may be to believe, I did make progress this month! That would make it to months running of stitching and...

​A finish!

Well, sort of.. it still needs to be "finish"-finished (probably framed).

May I present "Palm Tree Elegance", a Dimensions needlepoint on mono-canvas, started in 2010, put into UFO mode in 2016 when I broke my wrist, and started up again this March:

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I absolutely HATED the idea of backstitching this huge piece in hand (no frames here) and put it off for three days but, in the end, it only took an hour (not counting the untangling - the floss for the backstitching that came with the kit was NOT quality like DMC or Anchor, was too long and tangled terribly - and the juggling of the chart to see where the stitches were supposed to go...). The chart only called for one strand so I'm not even sure you can see it but it is backstitched on the leaves, trunk and on some pot details.