WIPOCALYPSE 2018: APRIL UPDATE

This April is a bit of a let-down. Especially, for those people who have read my March update that was full of finishes. Why? Because, this month, I only have a measly 1 page finish. Sad, but true. And what’s sadder is that it is a small full coverage page.

I must admit though. I kinda lost my excitement to stitch when I discovered that my Advent Animals project had wonky fabric issues. Disappointed does not even fully express how I felt. Advent Animals was only the second project I stitched on a fabric that was not 14-ct Aida. And even if I’ve read that sometimes linen can be a little wonky, I did not expect it to be so obvious. You could see on the photo below how it does not align with the sides of that book.

I did work on other full coverage projects though. But, I did not have enough energy to stay up longer each night to finish them. Below are my progress photos for The Kiss and Farewell to Anger.

My Longest Running WIP

I worked on Still Life too. Although, the progress for that is too insignificant to be noticeable. This is my oldest WIP. The very first project I picked up when I started cross-stitching in 2015. It was one of the smallest Cross-stitch Patterns that was adapted from the artworks of Fernando Amorsolo. And I wanted to stitch it as a gift for my mom. The store I bought it from recommended a 14-ct Beige Aida that they carry and said that it was what most of her customers use. It was very stiff Aida. So stiff, that my fingers were red and sore after the first 3 hours of working on it. So, I stopped working on it. A month after, I went to a different store for the purpose of getting a new fabric for the project. But, I ended up buying other Amorsolo-based patterns and a yard of softer Aida. When I got home though, the need to start one of the new Amorsolo patterns was stronger than the need to restart Still Life. And so, Still Life remains as a WIP still on the stiff Aida.

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Manic for May

I’m a daily stitcher. For the past couple of years it has been my habit to have Youtube on Autoplay on my computer. Because I watch Flosstube and Bangtan Boys a lot, these are the ones that Youtube automatically plays.

Because it’s already April, most of what I see in Flosstube are stitchers talking about their Stitch Maynia plans. Listening to these passionate people and seeing their beautiful stitching plans makes me want to start new things too. But, a big part of me does not want to neglect my existing WIPs for that month. I was so distracted by this that I have been stitching less for the past few days. Yes! Both the thought of not starting something new and the thought of neglecting my WIPs got me the blues.

I figured, I have to do both.

I’m still figuring out the best way to make this fun and enjoyable. But, still, true to the  original premise of Maynia. And that is to make May Manic for me. What I know for sure is that it will include WIPs, New Starts, New Crafts, New Hobbies, and Reading.

It will not just be Stitch Maynia. It will be Craft Maynia.Well… why not elevate it to Hobby Maynia even.

For my Stitch-from-Stash friends, do not worry. I will still be stitching from stash. I kinda went crazy in 2016 when I bought a lot of patterns, bolts of aida and evenweave, a few hand-dyed fabrics, boxes of DMC thread. The only thing not in my stash is the 35 new DMC colors, fancy floss, specialty floss, and branded beads. Pretty much I have enough that I can enjoy cross-stitching for the next 15 years if I stitch with Flash’ speed.

WIPOCALYPSE 2018: March Update

The month of page finishes and a giant nostril. What?

I started the month of March with The Kiss, my piece for Every Day Counts for the Ultimate Cross Stitch Group. But, switched to my Epic Pokemon on the 3rd day of March when I stumbled upon the PokeMarch Challenge after watching Stitching Marie’s Flosstube.

Epic Pokemon Generation 1 is one of those spur of the moment starts I had in 2017. It has long been neglected and that is the reason why I included it in my YOW and WIPocalypse Lists. PokeMarch, I felt, is a great opportunity to jumpstart working on it this year. And it was. I started the month with page 30 almost finished and page 29 half-way done. My goal was to finish those 2 pages. When I accomplished that, I found myself not wanting to switch to another project. So, I continued working on it and finished the whole bottom row (Pages 26-30).

I think joining PokeMarch was a big motivator. But, a bigger motivator is the Ultimate Cross Stitch Group’s Mega Million Stitches to Oz where the group is aiming to stitch 2M stitches from March 5 to April 8.

I enjoyed stitching on this that half-way through the month I have accomplished one of the goals I have set last month. I was still itching to stitch on my full coverage projects. But, I also want to work on accomplishing the other goals I’ve set last month. Which is to finish 2 Advent Animals and the July block of my Magical Creatures Calendar. The only solution is to work on a full coverage and one of the smalls in a day. Doing this I have managed to finish the July block of Magical Creatures,

Advent Animal #2 Peter Polar Bear, Advent Animal #3 Mary Mouse,

Page 1 of Farewell to Anger, Page 6

May of the Joyful World Calendar,

Page 1 of The Kiss,

and Page 6 of SS The Listener. I’ve already started page 7 and it seems like I stitched a giant nostril.

That’s a lot of stitching. There’s still a few days left for March and I hope that I can finish Page 7 of SS The Listener and Page 2 of the Kiss.

2018 GOALS CHECKPOINT

My WIPocalypse 2018 List

• 24 full coverage pages (8 out of 24 accomplished)
• 10 of the Advent Animals (2 out of 10 accomplished)
• Linen and Threads Mystery Sampler 2017
• Spirit of the Cougar
• Coffee and Tea
• Summer Sampler

Other Projects/Finishes I worked on in 2018 not included in the WIPocalypse 2018 List

• Elf Garden , Spring SODA Stitch
• English Pinpillow
• Fairy Grandmother
• Hanging the Quilts
• Intertwine
• Joyful World Calendar (1 out of 12 accomplished)
• Lion
• Magical Creatures Calendar (7 out of 12 accomplished)
• Still Life
• Wonderful World

APRIL PLANS

My plan for April is to create a dedicated craft room so that my living room will always be clutter-free and guest-ready. I also plan to research on English Paper Piecing because the hexies are just screaming at me saying “Please, try stitching me.”

However, I still would like to work on my cross-stitching:

• 3 full coverage pages
• 2 Advent Animals
• August block in Magical creatures
• January of the Joyful World Calendar

Other plans:

• Finish reading Kafka on the Shore.
• Start a vegetable garden.

Let’s see how much I get to accomplish.

STITCHER TIDBIT

My most neglected WIP was Epic Pokemon. Well, it was until I stumbled upon the Pokemon Cross Stitch Group. It is not my oldest WIP though. My oldest WIP is Still Life. I work on this every now and then. When I discovered cross-stitching in 2015, Still Life was the first model piece I saw. I recognized it as an adaptation of an Amorsolo painting. Because I am into art I wanted to start it immediately. At that time, the only available fabric was stiff local Aida. My apprehension over the fabric was strong. But, the need to start the project was stronger. So, I bought the fabric only to find out that my wrists hurt if I work on it for long periods of time. I’m not the type to abandon projects. So, I made a decision to start another project to alternate with this.

WIPOCALYPSE 2018: FEBRUARY UPDATE

Is it just me? Or did February just turn out to be the longest month? I’m quite surprised that the 28 days of February felt longer than the 31 days of January. But, it did. Maybe because there was a lot going on. There was the Olympics, Valentine’s Day, my birthday, the start of Spring and the Lenten season.

There were a lot of SAL’s surrounding the Olympics, Valentine’s Day and Spring. My phone was constantly buzzing to notify me of updates from all my stitching friends. And what a joy to see everyone’s projects and progress. It almost made me want to start all the things instead of focusing on WIP-ping down.

Stitch-Olympics Day 9

Yup! You read that right. Day 9. I did not post Day 8 simply because I did not stitch yesterday too.

I’ve come to the conclusion that changing WIPs too often is not something I like doing. I feel like I am stitching slower. I feel like I’ve barely warmed up to the WIP I am work in on and I already have to switch to the next WIP. And the constant thought of I want to stitch on what I was working on yesterday is always bugging me.

So, I am stopping my Stitch-Olympics Rotation. And stick to stitching what I feel like stitching on for a particular day.

At the end of the day, I want to enjoy this hobby and not lose any love for any of my WIPs by forcing myself to stitch on them.

Stitch-Olympics Day 7

Sadly, no stitching today. My wrists are hurting a little bit from doing yardwork this morning. I hope it gets well enough tomorrow for me to be able to do a little stitching. For now, I’ll just have to be satisfied with watching Flosstube and be a sort of virtual stitcher.

Stitch-Olympics Day 6

Day 6 of the Stitch-Olympics happens to fall on my birthday. So, today I’m going to stitch on the things that I feel like stitching on. And hopefully, at least one of them would fit the WIPocalypse and Stitch Maynia Winter Olympics SAL.

Today’s Projects

So, the first project that called to me was The Kiss. This has a bitof metallic threads in them. Although, I am not yet stitching those, I figure this piece fit the Stitch Maynia Winter Olympics prompt for today which is dedicated to Medals. This also has a lot of black in it, the color I assigned for Wednesdays in the duration of the WIPocalypse Stitching Olympics. Stitched more of the skin.

Stitch-Olympics Day 5

It’s day 5 of the Stitch-Olympics.

Today is a Tuesday, my Yellow day for the duration of the Olympics. I’m a bit excited because I have a lot of WIPs with a Yellow in them.  And because the prompt for Stitch Maynia’s Winter Olympics SAL is Speed Skating, where you set yourself a time limit and see how much progress you can make in that time, I have decided to apply a Grab-and-Stitch type of WIP rotation today. This just basically means I randomly grab a WIP from my pile and stitch on it for 30 minutes. I’ll do this for 2 hours after which I will work on Farewell to Anger, my Marathon piece.

Grab-and-Stitch WIPs

For 2 hours today, I did a Grab-and-Stitch rotation on 4 WIPs. Each WIP got 30 minutes each and I added more than 100 stitches per WIP. I feel accomplished. But, I don’t think the progress is noticable. Hahaha… … … … #stitcholympics2018 #crossstitch

A post shared by Kim Park (@17.kim.park) on Feb 13, 2018 at 1:49am PST

 

Stitch Statistics

When I was doing the Grab-and-Stitch, Upstream was one of the WIPs that I grabbed. But, I discovered that this full-coverage piece have half-stitches in them. I’m using a 14-ct Aida on this WIP. And I do not like doing half-stitches on Aida. So, I’m thinking of re-starting this on a 28-ct evenweave or linen. Anyway, for now I am removing it from my WIP pile until I decide if I’ll continue stitching on this as is or switch to a more appropriate fabric.

I have yet to add at least 100 stitches each on the rest of my WIPs. But, so far, I am exceeding my goals for the Rotation Relay.

Stitch-Olympics Day 4

We are now on the 4th day of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Stitch-Olympics 2018. From my perspective, I’m not doing so good in the latter. At least, I feel I am not stitching as much as I normally do. Or maybe because I’m just not used to constantly changing projects. But, I am happy with the thought that most of my WIPs will be receiving love this “LOVE” month which also happens to be my Birthday month.

Today’s Stitching Plans

The Stitch Maynia Winter Olympics Stitch Along set the prompt The Mascots: Soohorang (white tiger) and Bandabi (Asiatic Black Bear) for today. Basically it just means that we stitch on any piece with an animal in it.

Stitch-Olympics Day 3

I almost did not stitch today. I woke up with a fever and have been sleeping on and off. I only managed to get a little bit of energy to stitch when I heard the news that one of my close friends is pregnant. So, I started on a new project.

Yes, I finally started on one of my SODA Stitch patterns. I’ve decided to work on the Spring Elf. Spring is my friend’s favorite season and she also wants her first child to be a girl. I’m giving this to her as my wish that she has a girl and that she will be like Spring.

Oh… It is also a very apt piece to start today since the prompts for my Stitch-Olympics Day 3 are:

• Korean-themed
• Have at least one of the colors of the Host Countries flag. (Note: After seeing the Opening Ceremonies I’ve decided to use the United Korea Flag as reference. So, my Sunday colors are Blue and/or White)

Stitch Count Summary

This new start brings my WIP count back to 29. This also means that I really need to finish up to Advent Animals #10 to meet the guidelines I’ve set for myself in the beginning of the year.