Wish You Were Here Year end wrap up

 Here is how it looks now:

Here’s how it looked at the first of the year:

I was able to get a page finish on this so that makes me happy. 

Next year? No solid plans for this one, but it will definitely be worked on as it will be used in some of the challenges in Full Coverage Fanatics group on FB. 

And that wraps up my year end updates. I really hope you had as great a stitchy year as I did. In my next update I will have the year long tally of all stitches completed for the year. 

Thank you for sticking with me through out such a rough year for all of us. I know I wasn’t consistent with posting a lot of times this year. But just like everyone else is, I was trying to get used to the “New normal” that CoVid has brought to our lives. I was still working outside of the home, but my husband and daughter were schooling from home, so I had little time to myself this year. So when I did have quiet time, I preferred to spend that time stitching, not fighting with blogger. 

Happy New Year everyone!!

See yah in 2021!!! 

2020 is over- we made it!!!!

Mini Winter Rose Year End wrap up

How it looks now:

How it looked at the first of the year:

I got a page finish. And a page start. I’m happy with this. 

Next year holds no concrete goals for this one, but I Will be slotting it into a few challenges in the Full Coverage Fanatics group on FB for 2021, so it will get some progress. 

Last year end wrap up Spring Quilts

Here’s progress on Spring Quilts.

Start of the year:

I hope to finish it in 2021, and maybe make a start on the next one in the series.

 

Moonlight Bay End of year wrap up

 How it looked on the first of the year :

How it looks now:

I don’t have a stitch count on this one either, but I think I got one or two page finishes. I’m happy with this progress. Noe solid plans for this one for next year, but I know it will get some work in on it. 

Mermaids Tale End of year wrap up

 How it looks now:

How it looked when I picked it up at the first of the year:

I don’t have any concrete goals for this one for next year. I know I will work on it for a challenge in the Full Coverage Fanatics group but as long as I get a little progress in I’ll be happy. 

Emerald Forest end of year wrap up

 As it looks now:

As it looked at the first of the year:

I don’t have a stitch count for this one but I finished over 2 pages of the pattern. I’m happy with this progress. 

As with “The Gaze”, I will be shooting to get a finish on this piece in 2021. So, we’ll see if I can reach that goal. 

See yah tomorrow for my next update. 

The Gaze end of Year Wrap Up

 As it looks now:

As it looked when I picked it up on the first of the year.

I was able to get 20,015 stitches in on him. I completed the 20 in 20 Challenge in the Full Coverage Fanatics FB group.  My goal for this one is to finish it next year. We will see if I’m able to do so. 

I hope you had a great holiday and enjoy the last week of 2020. Everyday until the end of the year, I will be updating the year end result of all my pieces for the year. (One or two each day). So I’ll see yah tomorrow for my next year end wrap up. 

The Gaze-progress

 

This was taken about a month ago, but the last time I posted this project was in August. It’s definitely coming along and I will definitely reach my 20,000 stitch goal on this for the year. 

Emerald Forest-progress

 

A page finish will be very soon!

A little bit of progress...

 Winter Rose (HAED)

Emerald Forest (Kustom Krafts):

Wish You Were Here (Mystic Stitch):

Spring Quilts:

September goals and plans

 July and August were both very productive months for stitching, and so I’m hoping to continue that trend in September. 

Goals:

1. “Wish You were Here”- put in 1745 stitches. (This is for the National Park Challenge.) These 1745 will complete this challenge for me. 

2. The Gaze-1650 stitch goal to keep up on my 20 in 20 Challenge.

3. Moonlight Bay- 1354 stitches. I originally was only going to do 1200 on this. However, the FCF group decided to have a Tour de France event and in order to complete it, I need 1354 stitches. This will also be my piece for the Monthly Around the World SAL as well. 

4. Ornies- put in 900 stitches. (Yes, I’ve decided to up my game on this one! Christmas is fast approaching and I’d really like to have more Christmas smalls done by then)

5. Spring Quilts- 900 stitches. (Also decided to add more to this stitch count as well.) 

So, that is all the stitching I’d like to get done this month. It’s a total of 6549 stitches overall. It will be a bit more challenging, but I think I’m up for it. We’ll see how this goes! 

Hope you have a great stitchy month! Thankyou for stopping by, and we’ll see yah again soon!! 

Happy stitching!

Mermaid Tale and monthly wrap up

 Here is the piece I worked on for the “Around the World” monthly SAL for the Full Coverage Fanatics group at Facebook. Our country this month was Japan. How I tied this in to meet that prompt was that my daughter was born in Japan while we were stationed there with the military. She was born in February, and so her birth stone is Amethyst which is a purple stone....and as you can see there is purple for daaaays in this one! 

Starting point:

I was able to get 1202 stitches in on this piece for this SAL. So I met my goal of 1200 on this one.

Speaking of goals, I hit every goal I set for this month AGAIN! 2nd month in a row!! 

Here are the numbers:

The Gaze: goal 1860, I stitched 1894

Wish You Were Here: Goal 1860, I stitched 1862

Mermaids Tale: Goal 1200, stitched 1202

Ornament: goal 600 ✔️

Spring Quilts: goal 600✔️

I also just today joined the Full Coverage Fanatics Tour de France event. So started working on Moonlight Bay for that and put 254 stitches into it this morning. 

So! Definitely had a GREAT stitchy month! 

I hope you had a great stitchy month in August and good luck on any goals you may have for September. 

Thank you for stopping by, and happy stitching!! 

Update on The Gaze

 

Here’s where I am on my 20 in 20 Challenge piece. I love how his face is really taking shape. 

So far, this month I’ve put in 1525 stitches (my goal is 1860) 

As far as yearly, I have put in 13,178 stitches so far.  So I think I’m on track for reaching this goal on time so far. 

This is my favorite piece to reach for right now. I just love how it’s stitching up, the colors, my fabric is perfect, there’s a perfect blend of large chunks of color vs. confetti to keep it just interesting enough without being overwhelming. I just LOVE this project SO much! 

Hope you’re all having a great week, thank you for stopping by, and I’ll be back again soon with another update. 

Happy stitching everyone! 

Ornament update

 

This one is working up pretty quickly. It’s a cat, wearing a Santa hat, with a blackbird on its tail. I have about 83 more stitches to go before reaching my goal on this piece for this month. (Goal is 600 stitches)

Well my kid started back to school yesterday. She’s doing homeschooling in the mornings and goes in to school in the afternoon for science and arts, so she has less exposure to the outside world than if she went to school 40 hours a week, she’s only there 15 hours a week. So that’s a good thing. 

I hope you are all having a good week and happy stitching!!

Update on “Wish You were Here

 

Wow! That photo is huge...anyway, I’ve gotten just a little over 1000 stitches in for this National Park Challenge piece. So less than 3000 to go! 

Have a great weekend! Thank you for stopping by! Happy stitching!

Spring quilts update

 

Here’s how it looks now:

Here’s how it looked the last time I shared this here, on May 8th:

It’s really coming along. This months goal of 600 stitches on this is almost done! I have about 85 more stitches to hit that goal. Then I’ll focus my time on my ornament. 

Next up I’ll be sharing progress on Wish You Were Here which is my last National Park Challenge piece for the year. 

Thank you for stopping by, and for leaving comments. I love them so much! 

Hope you have a great week!

Happy stitching!!

August Goals

I did Amazing with my monthly goals for July! I did everything on my list!! That has not happened in a VERY long time!! 

Do we will see if I can do it again this month! 

So! For stitching goals I’d like to: 

- put 1860 stitches into The Gaze (my 20 in 20 challenge piece)

- put 1860 stitches into Wish You Were Here (my 5th and final National Parks Challenge piece)

- put 600 stitches into my Ornament 

- put 600 stitches into Spring Quilts

- Put 1200 stitches into Mermaids Tale for the Monthly Around the World SAL in the Full Coverage Fanatics group. (Every month they give us a country and we put in as much progress as we’d like on a piece that goes with that country, somehow.)

So we shall see how this goes. It’s the 5th of the month and so far I’m on Track on all those goals. 

Well I’m off to clean up after dinner and then settle in with a book.  It’s rainy here so ...I love curling up with a good book when it’s dark and rainy out. 

Thank you for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful week! And I will see you soon! 

The Gaze update

Yes!!! Another page finish!! So exciting! I’m still on track to get 20,000 stitches in on this by years end. This has been a great stitchy month!! 

Thank you for stopping by!! Happy stitching everyone!!

I have a finish!!

I finished my ornament this morning! I’m really happy to have this one done. And super excited to start the next one in the series: it’s a cat wearing a Santa hat, and it’s really cute!! 

I started this one on March 8th and finished it today- July 21st. Which I was hoping to finish it by the end of April, but oh well. My last one took over 6 months to complete, I believe, but who’s counting? 

I think a few posts ago I explained that I was cutting back in my challenge pieces, allowing me more time to work on my non challenge pieces as well as work on some other hobbies that I enjoy. And it really seems to be working out well. I’m putting a lot more time into my ornament and my Quilt piece. I have not met my monthly goal on either of these pieces until now. So, I think I was just stressing too much over meeting challenge goals, and while trying to reach goals is fun (for me) when it comes to hobbies sometimes yah just have to not be so hard on yourself. 

I hope you are all staying healthy and safe and getting lots of stitches in! Thank you for stopping by and I’ll see yah next time!  

Father’s Day project fully finished

Not much to say about this. I think it came out really cute. I did the stitching and bought a plain board  that you can hang up, I let my daughter paint the board and then used tiny clothes pins to hang the stitched piece and photos. 

My husband really enjoyed it. 

Happy stitching and thank you for stopping by!

Moonlight Bay Progress

This is the piece I picked for the 4th national park in tier 1 of the National Park Challenge for the Full Coverage Fanatics group on Facebook. 

This is how far I’ve gotten. 2816 stitches of the 4000 needed to complete this Challenge. I am hoping to finish the 4000 stitches by the end of July. 

I have made a huge change in my goals for the year 2020, as originally I was shooting to finish tiers 1 and 2 of the National Park Challenge, for a total of 40,000 stitches, however, for my Mother’s Day gift my daughter got me the latest issue of Just Cross Stitch, and so I asked her to pick a few patterns she’d like me to stitch. One that she picked was a Fathers Day piece, so since I only had a bit over a month to finish it, I focused on IT, and my challenge pieces got a lot less work in on them. So I decided to only finish Tier 1 of the National Park Challenge. Which is fine. I should be done with the last two parks by September (?), and that will free me up to focus on some other projects, like my Spring Quilts and Christmas Ornaments for the last quarter or so of the year. I do, however, still plan on forging ahead with the 20 in 20 challenge piece as planned. I was kinda bummed about dropping the Tier 2, but there are really only so many hours in a day and I can’t do everything. I found myself resenting the time I forced myself to work on the challenge pieces because I didn’t have time to enjoy all the other hobbies I also enjoy, like reading, jigsaw puzzles and coloring. I decided something had to give. It started to feel like a chore and that’s not what a hobby is about. I feel so much better now about my decision. 

Next time I post I will share with you my Fully Finished Father’s Day project. My husband loved it! 

Until then, happy stitching and thank you for stopping by!

The Gaze update

I’ve gotten a pretty good start on page 4 this month. This is a little over 1500 stitches on the page.

Still doing well, still stitching, still working, just haven’t felt like blogging.  Been feeling kinda “Meh” lately.

Sorry for such a boring post. Hope you’re all doing well and are safe and healthy and enjoying your stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!
Happy stitching!!

Spring Quilts update

I finished the first page of three of this piece today. I’m loving all those bright colors! Those little birds are adorable!!

Hope you are staying safe and healthy and getting lots of stitches done!!

Thank you for stopping by and Joyful stitching to you all!!

Winter Rose-finish on park #3

 Here’s my finish on park #3. 4000 stitches done in April on Winter Rose.

Here’s how it looked when I started on April 1st:

So I was happy with that progress and meeting that challenge.

Park #4 will be Moonlight Bay. I’m excited to get that piece out, as I haven’t pulled it out so far this year. So We’ll see what 4000 stitches look like in it in 40 days.

Thank you for stopping by! And happy stitching!

The Gaze

I was able to get a page finish on this piece since I last updated! So that was page three done, and I’m now done with the top row of pages on this project.

As you can see I got that page finish quite awhile ago. I just haven’t felt like updating.

Me and my family are doing well. I’m still working, but now on top of that I also have to do homeschooling with my daughter who’s 9 now and sometimes by the time I’m done dealing with all that drama, I just haven’t had the mental energy to post here. I love my family but it’s draining for me as an extreme introvert to have them home ALL. THE. TIME. Then still having to go to work and deal with more people there.... I stitch, I read and try not not go crazy. Lol.

I am thankful for health and still being able to work, during this rough time. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but it’s just draining for me. I’ll get through this.

I pray that you and yours are all healthy and doing well, and you are maybe finding some peace and solace in your stitching.

Stay calm, and stitch on, my friends! Thankyou for stopping by! Have a great week! And I will try to get more regular updates here now.

Joyful stitching!!

Park #2 done!!

I finished 4001 stitches on Mermaid Tales by Heaven and Earth Designs to complete the second park in Tier 1 for the National Park Challenge. 

Here’s what it looked like when I started:

I’m so happy with this progress!! It’s really looking nice!!

For my third park I will be working on Winter Rose. I’m really excited to pull that one out and see what 4000 stitches in on it will look like! 

Hope everyone is staying safe out there. Taking caution where needed and if you’re quarantined, getting lots of stitches in!! 

Thank you for stopping by! Happy stitching!!

The Gaze update

Here’s how it looks today:

Here’s how it looked a month ago:

The ear is filled in and I’ve filled in more of the orange on the right side. It doesn’t look like much, but I put in 578 stitches, so not too bad, every stitch counts. 

Happy stitching everyone! Thank you for stopping by!! Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Finally! I finished my first Ornament!

I finally finished this one!! I think I started it last summer. Wow!! It is super cute though. I’m happy with it. 

So, onto my next one. Seeing as how my goal is to finish 6 ornaments this year, that’s about one every other month, so we’ll see if I can get the next one done by the end of April. 

March Goals

I’m hoping that I’ll see a lot of stitching this month. I’d really like to see me hit ALL my goals, not just the ones I set for my group challenges. I’ve missed the mark by quite a bit on my smaller pieces the past 2 months. So, I’m hoping to get caught up. So, what do I hope to get accomplished this month?

1. Mermaid Tale 1829 stitches (this will complete park #2 in my National Park Challenge)
2. Winter Rose  1100 stitches (the start of park #3)
3. The Gaze  1705 stitches (for the 20 in 20 challenge)
4. Spring Quilt 650 stitches
5. Ornaments Finish Moose Ornie and start a new one(total 550 stitches)


I’m really hoping to put a more concentrated effort on reaching the goals for my ornaments and Quilt piece. We’ll see how this goes!

Hope March is a super stitchy month for you. Thank you for stopping by! See yah here again soon!

February Wrap Up

I think that February was a pretty productive month. I could have done better, but I did what I could. 

So what DID I get done? 

I put in 2,171 stitches on this: 

I put in119 stitches on this:

I put in 1,671 stitches on this:

And I put in 200 stitches on this:

And not pictured here is my Emerald Forest piece but I put in 669 stitches on it. So...a grand total of 4,830 stitches overall for the month! And while I didn’t reach some of my individual piece goals I’m still happy with that number. I fell way short on my goals for my Quilt piece and Ornament, but I’m right on track with my Full Coverage challenge pieces. 

So! A very fun productive month, I’d say! 

Thank you for stopping by, and for all your lovely comments! See yah again soon for my March goals post. 

A VERY stitchy weekend!

In my last post I mentioned a stitching event that the Full Coverage Fanatics hosted over the Valentine day weekend. It was called “All you need is love” and the theme was to stitch on anything you felt signified love or an object or piece you loved. I chose The Gaze as it is a picture of a wolf. I LOVE wolves, next to the tiger I think they are my favorite animal. I also said that wolves are dogs, and who loves more unconditionally than a dog? A pet dog is the most loyal, loving pet ever. So I thought it fit the prompt.
Here’s where it was when I started:

   

Here’s after I put 1011 stitches into it over the course of 3 days:

I’m pretty happy with that progress. I don’t think I have ever stitched that much in a three day period before. It was nice and fun, but I really think I burnt myself out on stitching for a bit, it took me some time to be able to pick up any stitching after that! 

But it helped me get quite a bit ahead on my stitch count for the 20 in 20 Challenge I’m doing for the Full Coverage Fanatics group on Facebook. I’m now so far ahead I don’t have to pick it up until March, and I won’t fall behind. Which is good because over the course of working so hard on this, I fell way behind on my National Park Challenge piece.  So now I’m trying to play catch up on that. And I’ve been focusing so much on it that I have yet to pick up my non-challenge pieces this month. Yikes! And there are only a few days left! We’ll see how this goes! 

Hope you’re having a great day and I look forward to seeing you here again soon, for my monthly wrap up! Happy stitching! 

Mermaid Tale Progress

Well, after I’d completed the 4000 stitches needed to finish the first park, I pulled out the piece I want to use for Park #2. Mermaid Tale.
Here’s where it was when I picked it up this month:

And!! I got a page finish a few days ago!! So happy about that. I was getting a little discouraged for a bit there at the end as all those stitches in the bottom right hand corner was a confetti nightmare! But I was able to push through and am now well into page 2.  I’m falling behind on my stitch count for this one, because besides the confetti jungle that slowed me way down, over the Valentines Day weekend, the Full Coverage Fanatics group hosted a stitching event during which I worked solely on The Gaze and got over 1000 stitches in on IT during the weekend. And I kinda burnt myself out and had a hard time getting back into any stitching at all for a few days after that.  But I am now starting to get in a good groove with this piece again.  I’ll share my progress on The Gaze in my next post.

Thank you for dropping in and thank you for all your lovely comments!  I really enjoy reading them all. I hope you’re having a great week and getting lots of stitches in!