Week Twenty-Five, June 23, 2016

After making my WIPocalypse report for June, 2016, I decided to “force” myself to put in at least two hours every night until this report was due. And I was successful, completing color #5 (of 12) and a little more than 50% of color #6 by last night:

If I could keep up this pace, and it we weren’t traveling for the last weekend of June, I possibly could get “Roll Your Own” ready for framing and entry in the 2016 county fair. But I doubt my resolve, I really don’t want to make any mistakes (when I hurry, I often end up frogging as much as I stitch) and a road trip and hotel room are not suitable places for good progress on this BAP. So don’t expect good progress next week!

WIPocalypse 2016 - June 20 (and the first day of summer!)

This full moon, we are asked: “Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?” And I have to answer that there is probably no difference. I stitch at night for the most part, with my daylight-quality lamp, so longer days in summer don’t really make a difference amor the shorter days of winter. I stitch indoors so temperature is not an issue. There are different demands on my time and impacts on my mojo with each season: I really can’t stitch effectively when I’m suffering from a full-blown sinus headache (winter colds and summer allergies bring that on) or a nasty cough (winter colds again), winter holiday events take away from stitching time as do summer road trips, etc. But all in all, I think it balances out.

Last WIPocalypse, my goals were stated as: “to keep plugging away on “Return” and see how far I can get this summer”. Other activities on my agenda were:

• My vegetable garden - It is doing fairly well, considering the heat and lack of rain, which means daily soakings from the hose are in order. 
• My paper crafting is up-to-date -  although new challenges keep coming in weekly so that is a never-ending battle. 
• Reading - I’m stalled out on a new book on my iPad, but the upcoming road trip to Louisville may remedy that. 

As for “Roll Your Own”, last Wipocalypse, I had  the outline of “Return” just barely started, Now, that outline is complete as are three (of twelve) fill colors and the fourth color is roughly 75% complete:

Pretty good considering I probably only stitched two nights a week on average since the last WIPocalypse. 

Here is where the entire piece is today:

Given issues with my quilt guild website, I’m thinking of creating a new one on Weebly and I intend to put some of the hotel time in Louisville in on that, to say nothing of my traveling needlepoint piece. Still, that trip is only for six days (including travel time) so there is plenty of time left in the next reporting period to make some progress on “Return”. I’ve two charts on order - one for a late wedding gift for one niece and the other for a birth announcement for another (startitis is lurking in the corner) and since I don’t expect to get “Roll Your Own” ready of this year’s fair, I may just start one of those if it arrives before we leave. 

So we shall see in July just how far “Roll Your Own” has come! Can we say “Keep on keeping on!”?

Week Twenty-Four, June 16, 2016

Color # 2 is complete and color #3 is 25% done on “Return”! 

Progress is slow but sure - counting all these partial patterns is always an issue with me, and I always seem to miss one out and only find it one or two colors on. 

It's been too darned hot to stitch, especially for early June. I dread what July and August will be bringing if this continues...

Meanwhile, I so have a case of start-itis — even though I don’t have a pattern picked out that appeals to me. Maybe it’s not so much start-itis as “tired of all this blue and green”!  Road trip in two weeks and the needlepoint is back out, Maybe that will cure the issue…

Week Twenty-Three, June 9, 2016

I really didn’t feel like stitching this week but I forced myself to put in roughly two hours per night for three nights and got almost all of color #1 (of 12) into “Return”. 

It’s a very dark blue so it may be hard to see against the black outline, but there’s only one small line in a motif in the upper right corner to go (and a missed black stitch in the same corner ) and then I’ll be ready to move on with color #2!

Quilt Guild tonight and husband’s garden is on a tour on Saturday so there will be some interruptions to stitching…

Week Twenty-Two, June 2, 2016

Outline complete! I didn’t make it by the end of May like I had hoped, but it was all down to a massive frog that crept in while I wasn’t looking (the entire left side had to be redone due to a miscount!) which lost me a day. Still, now “Return” is ready for it’s color!

And here is the final layout:

Now, if only I can keep up the progress on this. 

Week Twenty-One, May 26, 2016

Two more nights of stitching after the WIPocalypse check-in and here is where the outline for “Return” is now. 

One page of six (top left corner) complete and parts of pages 2 and 3 (top center and right). A lot of Ripping (I always seem to miscount somewhere along the way) but not too much, so long as I don’t push the stitching to the last two strands from a six-strand-length (that is when my eyes start to rebel and I miss holes, etc.).

I still don’t expect to make the deadline for registering for the fair this summer, but at least it looks like this piece will soon be in the “to be framed” pile! Then the decision will be either to finish up “Save the Stitches” or start something new, smaller and NOT in blue and green! 

WIPocalypse 2016 - May 21

This month’s WIPoclypse discussion topic is “What were you stitching this time last year and have you finished it?”

Well, last year at this time, I had three  projects “in progress”:  the “Roll Your Own” Mandala series (the “Jan” mandala”), the “Save Your Stitches” blackwork sampler (I was at block 13), and a crazy quilt block for my Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal project combination . The one I was actually stitching on the WIPOcalypse report day for 2015 was …none of the above! I was fighting a serious, long-lasting respiratory illness and simply had stitched for  almost a month. 

Did I finish any of these? Well, sort of. 

• I finished “Jan” (in August of that year) and subsequently “Revenge” (December, 2015) and “Rematch” (May 2016) of that same series, but there is still one mandala to go, so the “Roll Your Own” piece is still a WIP. 
• I finished the blocks for the Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal wall hanging but it is not assembled into a wall hanging yet.
• I haven’t put a single stitch in “Save The Stitches” since April 2015!

Not a very good record of finishes, although there were several small pieces (A memory quilt block for a friend, an exchange Christmas ornament,  and three place mats for a quilt guild charity - Meals on Wheels) in the interim. My stitching mojo definitely has gone walkabout…

Last month, my goals were to “do better “ and in a way, I did as I finished “Rematch”   http://210920746822434353.weebly.com/my-stitchery-journal/week-twenty-may-19-2016 and got started on the outline for “Return”, the last of the nine mandalas in “Roll Your Own” (although, since I thought today was the report-in day, I have to admit that the stitching done on this outline is probably better saved for the next WIPocalyose, since I stitched on both Saturday, the 21st, and Sunday, the 22nd)

 The stitching mojo is still in hibernation — I feel as if I am forcing myself to put in a hour a day (or every other day, more like) but I am plugging along.

Next month? Well, “do better” still applies. I need to keep plugging away on “Return” and see how far I can get this summer. I know it won’t be done in time to enter in the fair (That is usually late June, early July) but maybe next year? 

Meanwhile, I planted my veggie garden yesterday (six different tomato plants, two eggplants, six summer squash and a row of bush beans) and it is going to take some of my attention this summer, as will my paper crafting (two challenges were issued today… and more are coming by the end of the month). I am reading again (two more books in the Maggie Hope series by Susan Elia MacNeal and I have several series of television programs on DVR that I MUST catch up on during the summer hiatus. Also, there is a road trip in the books for the end of June (the American Hemerocallis Society annual convention, this time in Louisville, KY), so I am going to be busy between now and the next WIPocalypse check-in!