March Check In Post

Oh my, I am awfully late checking in this month.  Sorry about that.  School has kept me really busy the last few weeks (months? years?) But on a positive note, I am less than 3 weeks away from finishing my last class and graduating!  WOOT!

This month's discussion theme is where we do our stitching.  I have a few places I like to stitch.  I have a chair in my bedroom that is right by a window and I love to stitch there while I listen to audiobooks.  I also stitch on the sofa in front of the tv in the living room :-)  Finally, I do a little bit of stitching during down times at work.  Did I mention before that I'm a Professional Nanny?  I can't remember.  Anyway, I nanny for three boys, so you can imagine that there's not a lot of downtime.  However, my littlest guy is in a few activities during the week while the older two are in school, and I can get a few stitches in during his activities (soccer, swimming, etc.)  This is where I get the least amount of stitching done, but it does help to keep me occupied while he's busy!

Now for my monthly update, which is a bit pathetic.  I only got to do a little bit of stitching on Celtic Spring since my last update.  I promise, once school is out, my updates will get much more interesting, lol.  The most recent picture is below.  See y'all in a few weeks for the April check in!

February Check In Post

February Topic: How many projects do you generally feel comfortable having in progress at a time?  Tell us about your one-at-a-time or rotation habits!

Well, I think I have about 17 "in progress" projects that I have started but haven't finished.  However, I really just have two right now that I am working on with any regularity.  I do not rotate on a schedule, I rotate when I get bored, so I have spent all of January/February working on V's piece and now Celtic Spring.   Celtic Spring hasn't bored me yet, so I'm sticking with it for now.

And now on to monthly updates.  I have two - one on the piece I was working on for my friend, V, and one on Celtic Spring.

My friend's piece was "Angel of Cross Stitch" by Joan Elliot/Design Works.  Just a bit of back story: V did most of the stitching on this piece, but a major illness made it very difficult for her to stitch for a variety of reasons.  She asked our yuku group "Cross Stitch Crazy" if anyone would be willing to do a little stitching on it for her, and several of us agreed.  A rotation list was made, and I was the last name on the list, implying that I was going to finish the piece (yikes!)  Well, fast forward several months, almost a year, and the piece had gone to everyone else and finally made it's way to me.  While I had it, two important things happened.  First, my friend was given a trip to Walt Disney World for her and her family by a generous benefactor and she invited our mutual friend, Holly, who has an Annual Pass to WDW, to join her for a few days of her trip.  Holly contacted me and asked if I wanted to come with and surprise V (who I had not seen in person since 2003!)  The second thing that happened was the V experienced enough improvement with her illness that she has begun stitching a little bit again.  She contacted me and her questions about it gave me the impression that she wanted to put in the last stitches on AoCS, which I totally get!

So, these two things came together, and I ended up flying to Florida to surprise V not only be being there, but by bringing her almost-finished AoCS.  Here are pix of the three of us (I'm on the left, V is in the middle, and Holly is on the right) and The Angel of Cross Stitch as it looked when I returned it to Miss V.

I've also made quite a bit of progress on my Celtic Spring.  Ok, I should say that it's quite a bit for me, the queen of the slow stitchers!  Here is an update on Celtic Spring:

That's it for now, see y'all next month!

WIPocalypse Re-Set for 2014

January Theme: Introduce Yourself!

I'm JoAnna, and I live in southeastern Pennsylvania.  I've been stitching since I was a kid, and I am a chronic start-aholic.  I am constantly starting projects and rarely finishing them.  This is why I LOVE the WIPocalypse!  I participated in both the 2012 and 2013 WIPocalypse challenges, however, my participation in 2013 tapered off after the summer when school and life got in the way.  This year, I am re-newing my commitment to participate, yay!

Right now, I have four major projects in the works.  I do not expect to finish all four this year, but I expect to finish two and get the other two much closer to completion.  The first is a project for a dear friend of mine who, due to illness, can only stitch sporadically and asked for some help in finishing this project up.  I expect to finish this project THIS month...I hope?  I will post a picture of it when it is done.

The second is L&L's Celtic Summer.  I am almost done with this piece, and hope to finish it sometime this Spring or early summer.  Here is a picture of where I'm at right now:

The third and fourth are both being continued from the 2013 WIPocalypse.  They are Celtic Spring and Sweet Dreams, both by L&L.  Here are current pix of my progress:

That's it for now.  Looking forward to a year of stitching in 2014!  -JoAnna

July Check In Post

July was a month of vacations and spending time with my college-aged daughter, and not getting a lot of stitching done.  I did get some done, though!  I worked a bit on Celtic Spring (it doesn't look like much, but I'm in the Slow Stitching Club, so it's good progress for me!)  The newest update picture is below.  I also worked a bit on a special project for a friend, but I can't post a picture until it's done, probably another 2 months.  I'll let you in on the surprise then!

June Check In Post

Well, June basically stunk as far as stitching goes.  I managed to get in a few stitches here and there, but nothing worth taking pictures of.  I am hoping July is better...now that we're more than half way through it.  Pushing the *restart* button for my WIPocalypse...

May Check In Post

I am still plugging away at Celtic Spring, and have yet to pick Sweet Dreams back up again.  I am thinking that I'll spend about another month on Celtic Spring and then put it away so that I have some kind of chance at finishing Sweet Dreams this year (that was the plan, right?)  In the meantime, here is the latest pic of Sweet Dreams:

April Check In Post

Well, here it is a month later, and I feel like I have achieved nothing...at least in terms of stitching.  I did manage to put in a few hundred stitches on Celtic Spring, but that is it.  Nothing on Sweet Dreams or any other piece.  There are many reasons for this, too many to name, and none of them could be helped.  So, here is my update photo, and I will keep my fingers crossed about getting some time to stitch over the next month!

Edited to add:  Hey, look!  I managed to stitch in one of the month's focus colors - purple!  I won't mention that it wasn't planned and that I didn't even know it was one of the month's focus colors until I went to link my check in post on the Wipocalypse blog...

March Check In

Now the the issues with the Feb. check in post have been resolved, I can move on to the March check in post.  So, without further ado...

Hi, again, everyone!  After the month-long stitchathon over at Cross Stitch Crazy, I took a break from stitching to focus on schoolwork.  On March 24th, however, my hubby and I left for an 8 day cruise, and Celtic Spring made the journey with us.  I did not do a ton of work on it (I was, after all, busy cruising!), but I made some progress.  The newest picture is below. This week, I am going to return to Sweet Dreams in an effort to get closer to finishing.  Then on 4-15, it's Stitchathon time again, so I will hop back onto Celtic Spring for that week.  See y'all in a month!  -JoAnna

February Check In

NOTE: This was originally written on March 14th, but for some reason did not publish correctly.  Sorry I did not notice that right away!  Here is the original post from 3-14:

Now that the month-long stitchathon at "Cross Stitch Crazy" is over, I can share my progress on L&L's Celtic Spring.  Before this stitchathon, it had just a handful of stitches done, and I added a little over 1600 more since February 10th.

For the month of March, I am going to continue on Celtic Spring a bit, and

Preparing for February/March SAT

In preparation for the upcoming February/March "Month Long Stitchathon" over at Cross Stitch Crazy on Yuku, I went through my basket of WIPs (Works in Progress).  Ultimately, I decided to work on Celtic Spring and Celtic Winter during the stitchathon because they give me the best opportunity for big blocks of the same color, which will allow me to get the most stitching done in the least amount of time.  However, I thought I would list the rest of my WIPs in here, hoping you all will shame me into finishing some of them this year:

Lavender & Lace

• Celtic Spring (just started)
• Celtic Summer (almost done)
• Celtic Autumn (just started)
• Celtic Winter (approx 25% done)
• Celtic Christmas (about 10-15% done)
• Sweet Dreams (about 75% done)

Passione Ricamo

• Under the Arbor of Love (about 10-15% done)

Mirabilia

• Mother's Arms (about 50% done)

Other

• Seashell Round Robin (various artists - almost done)
• L*K Seasons Round Robin (almost done)
• Happy Everything by True Colors (about 50% done)

January Check In Post

Oh my, I was certain that I already wrote up a January check in post and published it, but I do not see it here, so starting again...

Hello, fellow WIPocalypse Stitchers, and anyone else who's following along as we continue from the 2012 WIPocalypse Challenge into the 2013 WIPocalypse Challenge!  I have been working on L&L's "Sweet Dreams" off and on for years now, and my main goal this year is to finish her up.  Below is my most recent update photo.  Even though she looks close to being done, I have very little stitching time in my life because of work and school (full time on both accounts), so it may well be the end of 2013 before she's done.  But I *WILL* finish her!

That being said, the ladies over at "Cross Stitch Crazy" on Yuku are having a month long stitchathon that goes from February 10th until March 10th (I believe, those dates might be slightly off.)  In order to get the most stitching done in that time, I am setting aside "Sweet Dreams" just for the stitchathon and will be working on another of my WIPs, preferably one that has a lot of blocks of color to be filled in, since that results in the most stitches in the least amount of time for me.  On my next post, I will update which one I chose to work on.  See y'all soon!

Last Post for 2012 WIPocalypse

Here we are, the end of the 2012 WIPocalypse challenge.  Did I finish anything this year?  Nope.  But I stitched.  And that's better than I did in 2011, so I am VERY happy!  Here is where I leave off on "Sweet Dreams" in 2012, and also where I am starting on it for the 2013 WIPocalypse challenge!

November WIPocalypse check in post

Hi, all!  I can't believe the year is almost over!  Unfortunately, between the last post and now, I have barely stitched a thing.  Sorry :-(  Better luck with the rest of the year, I guess. 

October Check In Post

I have been rockin' and rollin' on "Sweet Dreams" this month.  Of course, I'm the slowest stitcher on the planet, so rockin' and rollin' for me may not look like much to many of you.  But I'm THRILLED with the amount of time I've been able to put in and the progress I've made.  Here is a pic of where I'm at now:

September Check In Post

I know this is incredibly late being posted, but I wanted to wait until I had an update.  I spent most of September in a double class load at school, so got ZERO stitching done.  However, my double load went back to a regular load at the end of the first week of October, yay!  To make things even better, Cross Stitch Crazy (at yuku) had their monthly "Stitchathon" last week, and I stitched every single day.  Double yay!

So, without further ado, this is my latest progress picture of "Sweet Dreams" by L&L.

August Check In #2

I thought I would have one update for y'all, but unfortunately, I messed up and ended up ripping out all of my progress since the last post. I was so irritated about it, I ended up switching projects from Celtic Christmas back to Sweet Dreams. Hopefully, I'll have a great progress pic of Sweet Dreams for you in the Sept post! See you then.

August Check In Post

Over the last month, I have been able to do more stitching than I have all year, which I'm so happy about (especially because I know that September will be super busy and I may not get to stitch at all!)  One thing that has really helped spur me on is the "Stitchathon" that is held monthly over on the Cross Stitch Crazy yuku board.

The three projects I am currently working on are "Celtic Seasons" by Mike Vickery, "Celtic Christmas" by L&L and "Sweet Dreams" by L&L.  "Celtic Seasons" was started as a round robin years ago and has been sitting in a to-do pile.  I've added a couple hundred stitches to it in the last month.  "Celtic Christmas" only had about 25 stitches in it (total!) at the beginning of July, so it's got a pretty good start now.  And "Sweet Dreams" is my pet project right now.  It is definitely the piece I've added the most to, and I am really hoping to finish it in 2012!

Without further ado, here are my update pix from July/August:

"Celtic Seasons" by Mike Vickery

"Celtic Christmas" by Lavender & Lace

"Sweet Dreams" by Lavender & Lace

July WIPocalypse Check In Post

Wow, time has really flown!  I have actually been able to work on my stitching quite a bit, however, I am writing this from the road, so I do not have pictures to share.  I will let you all know what I have been working on, though.  I pulled out all of my fun WIPs that I found just before we moved and went through them.  I decided on several to focus on the rest of this year - a couple of old round robins, a couple of Mirabilias and two Celtic ladies (in addition to Celtic Summer, which I had already been working on.)  So, in June and July, I worked primarily on Celtic Christmas and an old round robin, which happens to be a celtic design, as well, but not by L&L.  I *promise* there will be pictures in August!  Until then, happy stitching, all! 

June WIPocolypse Check In Post

In the month of May, I did manage to get some stitching done.  However, I also moved - just about 45 minutes away from my previous home, but it still required packing and moving all of our belongings.  Because everything is still in boxes (we've only been in the new house for a little over a week!) this is the only pic I have to share:

I promise next month I'll have pix of my actual stitching!

May Check-In Post

This month, I got 2 good weeks of stitching in, and then school work had to, once again, take priority.  However, I did have something really awesome happen!  My family and I are getting ready to move, so my hubby was cleaning out our storage unit and preparing to move all of our stuff to the new house (they are letting us use the garage at the new house even though we haven't moved in because it is currently vacant.)  He brought in a box of stitching stuff that I had been trying to find for the last YEAR.  It was like Christmas morning going through all of my stitchy stuff again, and most of my WIPs were in that box.  Because of that awesome find, I am thinking about switching over which project I am working on.  There are several that are calling my name.

But back to this month...

I participated in the Cross Stitch Crazy Stitchathon in mid-April and that helped motivate me a lot!  The next stitchathon in next week, which is good news for me.  Overall, I think I got a good chunk done.  Here is the updated pic.  It was taken at the end of the stitchathon, but I really haven't stitched a whole lot since then, so it's fairly accurate.  Let me know what you all think!