WIPocalypse 2019 Check-In - December 30, 2019

Sorry --- I'm late but I've been late with EVERYTHING this holiday season!

This check-in is supposed to be a wrap-up of the year: a recap of our accomplishments for the year! (our finishes, our final before/after photos, etc).

Well, given my near complete lack of stitchery  for at least 7 months of the year, this will be a short post.

In January, I was nearly totally recovered from my broken wrist and getting motivated to start stitching. My WIPs/UFOs were listed as:

• 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
• "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 - no shown here (and/or frogged letters!)

​I only managed to stitch on one of these - Palm Tree Elegance - which looked like this:

before the new stitches were put in on March 1, and was finished on April 26:

Now I should have pulled out one of the other three WIPS but I simply couldn't face them (two were basically all back-stitch which I found hard to control in short bursts and the third was on high count AIDA in light colors on white, so very hard to see...) so I decided to start something new, and small, and on canvas where I could get used to cross-stitches on 14 ct or greater...

​ I picked a Michael Powell twinchie key fob kit and finished one on July 9, 2019:

and got part-way through a second (below is where it stood on July 16):

Then, with a ruptured tendon to my left thumb and subsequent surgery and recuperation, no more stitching was done in 2019... Heck, I even missed the August check-in!

The hand is recovered but my mojo hasn't.  

WIPocalypse 2019 Check-In - November

The discussion topic for this month was:

"What new stitches or techniques did you learn this year?"

I usually learn new stitches when a) doing samplers (basically self-teaching using diagrams and the occasional online video), b) doing enhanced needlepoint. (that's what I call it, not sure it that is a real name for it), or doing free embroidery challenges/classes like TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday). I did my last TAST sampler back in 2014 and while I often applied some of these free embroidery stitches in my crazy quilting, I haven't done any of that since 2015. So I guess you'd have to say I've stagnated for the past 5 years, using plain-old cross-stitch, backstitch, and tent stitch when I have stitched at all. So, since I didn't stitch much at all this year and not at all this last month, I didn't learn any new stitches.

​I did finish my physical therapy for my tendon graft surgery at the end of October and had my next-to-last surgeons' visit in early November (the 12-week period when tendon grafts tend to be totally healed). He said if the pain I had been experiencing  in the thumb joint(a gift, he said, for having opposable thumbs, AKA arthritis) and the unpredictable flash of nerve pain (possible the result of adhesions to the scar). I could cancel the one scheduled for December 17. Given the steady decrease in pain over the past few weeks (I've been faithfully continuing the PT exercises at home n my own), I suspect I will be canceling that appointment and possibly even get back to stitchery after the holiday fuss and bother is done and dusted.