And October is over . . .

That month went fast!  It did not help that my desktop took a major dump--got a terrible virus, and I now have to use a crappy thin client-type machine for work, and I pulled out my old laptop. I think I need a new computer, but I am also having wireless issues since Comcast came and changed out our router (after all their insistence that our router was not the issue)


I managed one real finish and one "milestone we'll call progress" finish.

I finished the Halloween Town SAL from Frosted Pumpkin. This took me a lot longer than I had planned for it. I didn't finish it til last weekend:

It's very cute. On my pile to finish, if I find a cute frame. I customized it a little bit, but not much.

I picked up "Sleepy Hollow" by Cross Eyed Eyed Cricket. :

My 4 year old WIP. I set a goal to get the roof done by Halloween, and managed to get the house, roof and windows done, as well as fixing the porch pumpkins from my abysmally wrong reading of the directions on how to do the eyes. I had planned to go back into Santa's Pets on November 1st, but I decided to finish the outlining and the leaf garland before I put it away. So . . . . but, really there isn't much to be done to this panel, which will be my October focus piece in 2015. I have some pumpkins to do, and finish the tree, and it's done, and off to the church panel. 

I looked for other people's finishes of this online, and was amazed to find . . . there aren't many. I wonder if it's the fact that it's such a large piece, and it has large blocks of one color? It does get frustrating to stitch, and that is why I haven't finished mine. But I am getting there slowly. In case you have forgotten, mine is on PTP Loch, although what I have been getting lately from them isn't quite this color (but still pretty!), with the listed flosses, except I did the words on the center panel with Glow in the dark DMC (yes, it glows, no my camera doesn't take good pictures of the glowing). 

So far, my notes have been that you need more than one skein of London Fog, which is the ugliest color of Weeks they made. It doesn't show like it in this picture, but the floss is like a yellow-grey-fugly sort of color that I wouldn't use anywhere else in any of my work. But I needed more than one skein, and I have about half that skein left.

 

2015 Decisions

First, apologies for not posting sooner. My PC got a virus that can not be removed, and my laptop is not doing so hot. I am using the computer at my part time job til I can either get the laptop fixed or get a new one.

I've made some decisions about what I am choosing to focus 2015 stitching effort on. I was absolutely positive that I was going to work on my afghan exclusively next year. I had my doubts, but I was soldiering on in spite of them. I picked up my Sleepy Hollow UFO the last week of October, determined to get the Van Tassel farmhouse down by the end of Halloween. I did that, but it felt wrong to put it back down to pick up Santa's Pets, knowing I'd not be working on it again til at least 2016. So I was like, "Well, I'll just work on it all October," but then that felt like cheating on the afghan. I know, that doesn't make sense, but it felt that way, and then it just kind of went downhill.

I have my two Mirabilias to work on in 2015 as well, and found some other things in my stash that I need to do: charts my mom picked out, our wedding sampler, some things I just love, but to say to myself, "Nope, gotta work on the afghan . . . .well, that didn't feel right.

So, this week, I came to the decision, and it was not easy, that I will not focus on that afghan, but, instead, work on the Miribilias and try to get them finished, work on our wedding sampler, and then fill in what is left with UFOs. Like Sleepy Hollow. My goal on that is to have it done and decorating our house by October 1. It's too pretty, and too cool of a project to be left in a bag. I felt better immediately after making the decision not to focus on the afghan. It's not that I won't work on it at all . . . because it IS a UFO . . .but it's not the focus. I'm not built to focus on things for as long as it will take to do that. But it will get done  . . . and soon!