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!)
And of course, I'm a day late!Not that I have much to report on... this was another month without stitching, And it didn't help that my Husband had cervial surgery this past week, followed by an ER visit for a serum and subsequent three day hospital stay. He's home now, but my "free time" is pretty much broken up with medication distribution, meal prep, etc. At least he's more or less mobile now, although not for extended periods of time.Question of the Month – How did you begin stitching?I truly do not remember what came first. I learned to knit in college (1958-9 or so) --- a roommate and I were taught by her friend. But knitting didn't last long.We moved to Florida in 1967 for our PhD studies. I think my next attempt at needlework of any kind was needlepoint. A friend had purchase an eyeglass kit for a gift for her mother but didn't have time to finish it, and she asked me to attempt it. I taught myself and, not long after, someone taught a week-long needlepoint class at the university and I took it. Was a needlepoint (tent stitch) from then on, until...We moved to California in 1972, bought our first television set and, at that time, on PBS, Erica Wilson taught a crewel embroidery class. I bought the class books and followed along and added crewel to my repertoire.I was working at the time, and traveling quit a bit and neither needlepoint nor crewel were well adapted for stitching on an airplane so I bought a little card-sized kit from the Hallmark store near our office to stitch on the plane. It was a San Francisco Cable Car and I have no idea what happened to it but that was my first cross-stitch... self-taught from the little "instructions sheet" in the kit but it really wasn't a major step from needlepoint tent-stitch to cross-stitch. And at this time, I added some specialty crewel stitches to my needlepoint as well.Blackwork was a natural follow-on, with my first pieces being two small kits I bought in Wales when we lived in London (1992-96)...Back in the US (2003), I started taking online classes and developed my needlepoint a little, using specialty stitches and finer meshes. And I took up knitting again, sporadically and only flat rectangular things like scarves and afghans...And there you have my stitching history.Now, as for my stitching, I do have the right size stretchers now and am working on hand strength so I can hold a frame to stitch. Maybe this next month?
This month's question is Which floss (or color of floss) do you absolutely adore and want to stash constantly?I'm not sure how to answer this one as I don't really stash floss for color reasons. I BUY floss for color reasons --- that is, I NEED that color for a project and it isn't in my stash.OK, I said I had a stash of floss and that is true but it does come back to my reason for buying. I do have a habit of wanting EVERY color in a floss type (e.g Anchor, Gentle Arts, Dinkie Dyes, etc.) but have failed miserably on that EXCEPT for DMC, where I am pretty close to having every color in most every floss type (cotton, linen, rayon, metallic, etc.) - I bought a complete range (from Herrschners) back when we lived in China (the 1990s), mainly because there was no place one could buy embroidery floss there (odd given the tradition of embroidery there but it appears not to be a hobby so there are no craft stores, needlework shops, etc --- or at least there weren't when we lived there), and I have added to it (and replenished it when needed) ever since. I do have a potential "surplus" of black (310) because it is the most often used for backstitch, and it is ALWAYS used for Blackwork and I was, at one time, doing two or three blackwork projects at a time! Now, as for a color I absolutely adore... I never actually think of that in terms of floss. My favorite color is orange but I don't think I have associated that with stitchery in any way. So, I guess my true answer to this question is there is no color that I absolutely adore and was to stash constantly!And while I did find a source for the stretcher frames I need for three needlepoint kits I bought last October (would you believe, Hobby Lobby is no longer selling them?), I have yet to get out my needle and fabric and floss and start those new kits, or work on my WIPs... Lack of motivation (and possibly inertia) is the main problem here...
This month's question is "How do you get yourself out of a stitching drought?" and I really wish I had an answer!I have been in a stitching drought since October 2016 --- initially becsaue of a broken wrist (that was roughly 4 months stitchery-free during healing and therapy) and then because my hand wasn't strong enough to hold my Q-snaps for any extended period of time without cramping or shaking. I think I am better now but... getting the motivation to pick up those two WIPS/wannabee UFOs is really, really hard. The "Love Is..." sampler is simply way to late for my niece's first anniversary and I don't like it enough to keep for myself. The Elizabeth Arnold blackwork sampler is way to big to attempt right now: even with my wrist totally healed, I hesitate to try blackwork on such a large handheld piece. I am tempted by three small needlepoint canvases I purchased a year or two ago but it is a matter of actually picking them up and starting one of them, know what I mean?Anyway, I think you can guess from the above paragraph that I didn't stitch at all again this month. Sorry...
It's that time again, and I still haven't a thing to report on the stitchery front. My wrist is better but the hand cramps if I try to hold on to my Snaps for any length of time. Still I will preservere!This month's discussion topic is: "What are your oldest and your newest WIPs?"Well the answer to that all depends on what you call a WIP! I'm going to arbitrarily define WIPs as what I was working on when I had to stop stitching and here are the photos:Oldest: Plan Tree Elegance, my needlepoint traveling project which was started on a cruise (I think in the fall of 2011 but I'm not really sure). My earliest photo online is July 2014 and the last stitches were taken on a road trip in July, 2016.My most recent WIP was started in October, 2016, intended as a first anniversary gift for my niece but, broken wrist got in the way and it was last reported on in February, 2017.
As to whether these will maintain their status as WIPS or revert to UFOs, that is anyone's guess.
