The Year to Come and the Year in Review.

I am sorry to have been away so long. This fall got crazy. Life got crazy. But, here I am, and with new resolve.

My biggest issue for the new year is rebuilding myself. I am not the same person I was before the things that started in October, 2016. I seem to have lost confidence in everything. My self-care is non-existant, even though I know I am dancing a dangerous line in regards to the healthcare parts of that, but I have a lot of issues with trusting doctors. I know I need to work on that, even if it's just summoning the courage to get a checkup and deal with what the fallout is from that. I need to deal with the financial issues that we fell into after everything; I've been so embarrassed, but I'm not the first person that has gone through this, it doesn't define me, and, like everything else, doing nothing isn't getting me anywhere I want to be. It's easy to get comfortable and wallow in sorrow and malaise, but I don't like it here anymore. It stinks, and I feel like I have an awkward residue on me that I need to scrub off once and for all. I don't know if this is the right place to admit all this, but 2019 is the year I pick myself up and cherish myself. I've warred with myself for way too long; it's time I won.

Anyway, part of getting myself back on the proverbial solid ground is spending less money. Among the ways that I am doing that is putting myself on the wagon with my stitching. I talked about this a bit in my last post, spending the year stitching things that I have and not shopping vs. spending the year kitting things up and buying random charts, with the idea of stitching them "someday". I know this seems so logical to 99% of the world, but remember, I'm not hitting on all 4 cylinders, and I am starting to think I haven't been for a very long time. I have been pulling out things I kitted up, and . . . YALL . . . I probably have 100 projects kitted up and not started, and that isn't counting things I have already started or have actual kits of.  So it seems rather stupid to pay for new stuff when I have plenty of stuff to work with. I'm not going to punish myself if I can't do it for the whole year, but I can at least try.

And I am also going to make more effort to finish my pieces, at least the smaller ones. I see all these beautiful trees with stitched ornaments and I want one so bad, but I keep not getting the gumption to finish my own work. I am going to get there this year. Maybe setting a specific goal of 4 a month is achievable.

Not that I had a shabby 2018, stitching-wise.

my 2018 finishes

It's missing two small finishes, but that's OK.

I liked the vast majority of what I worked on.  I did not finish Summer Ball, but I got pretty far! And that's more than I can say for it when I picked it up.

I will leave this for now. I have some surprises up my sleeve for 2019, I am looking forward to sharing them on here, along with pictures of my finishes.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's.

Some January projects

Two posts from me in a month? Wow! I am trying to be more available. Searching for a job is draining, though. Lot of work without much reward.


So, Summer Ball, a 2006 design by Sandy Littlejohns, has been kicking around my UFO pile since the designs came out in Cross Stitch Collection. I really can't tell you why it remained in 1/6 completed status for almost 12 years, except that I find it very intimidating. But, I decided that it would be a focus piece for me this year, because it's bad enough that I have UFOs from my 20s, but I realized I'd be almost 66 when this gets completed if I stay on the same schedule, and I might be dead well before that. So I made it a priority.

This is my major work for the year. My plan is 3 weeks on, one weekend to work on something ornament sized, then work for three more weeks, ornament sized again. When I complete a section, I get a week off to do something else. I think this is very do-able, right? Not too much of an unbroken commitment?

Anyway, here is where I started in January:

And the middle section is complete. At least the stitching. The backstitch is still incomplete. I will do that when the whole thing is done, since there are French knots on Lizzie's dress and I don't want them smashed.  

 

 

 

 

Going by what this took, it will probably take 2-3 months for each section to be completed. Not that bad. It's a fairly detailed design with lots of fractionals, but I think there at less people on the side sections. That yellow dress took forever: 5 shades of yellow in it!

 

 

 

I also worked on this lovely little piece. It was a freebie by Gazette44 (I think). They did a series of 4 seasonal pieces, which includes a bunny, seagull and squirrel. I have the others kitted up, but did this one to go on my Peace of the Wild Things tree. The threads I used were DMC 3347 and a Threadworx. When I visualized this, it was in some browns, but I loved this Threadworx in the shop as soon as I saw it. So, initially, it was to be all the overdyed. And then I started it and realized that it would look a little too crazy if it were all that way, so picked out a pretty green and went with that. 

 

 

 

 

 

I love how it looks. The deer look a lot crisper than they would have looked in the overdyed.  And it's  not as "camo-y" looking. I want to do the other ones, but it looks like that will be summer before that gets done.

 

 

My daughter and I had a chance to go to A Book Thing in Baltimore this weekend. It is such a neat place with such a wonderful mission. People (myself included) donate unwanted books to what is, in the end, a FREE bookstore; you want a book, see if they have it, just don't resell it. Pass it on!  I love this place! We couldn't park right there, so it was a little walk, but we got some nice books. My daughter couldn't figure out how we got books and didn't have to pay for them. I just kept explaining that it wasn't a library and we got to keep them. We picked up a bunch of really nice books, some for her, a lot for my boss, who said, "Just bring what you think is interesting!"  LOL. Challenge accepted! If you are ever in Baltimore on a weekend, I highly recommend spending some time here. It's worth it.