Fun With Stats

Yes, It's the Year End Post of Epic Statistics!

Starting with a look at Goals for December:
1. Finish something. Oh yeah!
2. Make big plans for next year. Yep, see yesterday.

A quick look at everything I stitched this year:

Not shown are two that haven't been sent out yet. (oops)

And what I still have left:

And a look at numbers:
Total finishes: 29. One up from last year
New starts: 32!!!
Pieces started and finished in 2011: 24
WIPs at the start of the year: 15
WIPs at the end of the year: 17. Two up from last year
WIPs that didn't see a single stitch last year: 4
Oldest WIPs: 2 from 2009
Pieces completely frogged: 1

Fastest finish: A three way tie! Halloween is a Hoot, Noel and one of the can't-show pieces all took 2.75 hours
Most time consuming piece: Runekeeper Saga at 80.5 hours. I'm not counting Rose of Sharon (121+) since it was finished off during the UFORR
Pieces that took 10 hours or less: 18
Pieces that took between 10 & 50 hours: 6
Pieces that took between 50 & 100 hours: 3
Pieces for which I did not track numbers: 2
Hours put into UFORRs (approximately): 138.25
Total hours (approximately): 635.5 (That's an almost 24% drop from last year)

So the shocker is the 32 starts last year. I had no idea that I'd started so many. I guess they're like Pringles... Upon reflection I'm not very surprised that my stitching hours are down; I finished school and started full-time work so that cut into a chuck of time.

Year End? Make Plans

I had a very detailed post reviewing the year and making plans for next year and I somehow managed to lose it. Grrr.

Set in stone rules for 2012:
Only new starts from the permissible list (I still have to find out what I have fully kitted. This list will probably be up by Sunday).
Excepting DMC, no new stash. None whatsoever.

First up is the WIPocalypse: I will consider this a success if and only if I finish Ganesh. However I will be stitching on several of my WIPs/new starts as they fit in with

Pretty much the monthly plan. The preponderance of Ganesh is because I really need to finish him.

September is blank because I can't think of any smalls and December is a freebie~

Now I need to go dig up some finishes and take pictures, since I'm pretty sure I have a couple more than what I have here.

And OMG isn't that Theme-a-licious banner adorable???

TUSAL December

Last TUSAL of the year. I can't believe that I've been doing this for two years now!


It doesn't look much different from last month. Probably because the smalls haven't been generating very many orts.

Sign-ups for next year are here.

Two Horses and A Goat

First off I have to beg forgiveness for the ginormous close-ups. It's either this or a look at how close I'm positioning these. (The answer to that is too close!) Now onto the horses and goat.

Unicorn: a horse with a horn. Favourite of the medieval era.

Title	Christmyth Unicorn
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 16, 2011
Finish date	December 17, 2011
Total time	3.75 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted

Pegasus: originally the white winged horse who accompanied Bellerophon on his adventures and went on to become a constellation. Now used to refer to any winged horse. I left off the meteor(?) since I couldn't figure out how I would go about cutting around it since it's a free floating structure.

Title	Christmyth Pegasus
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 17, 2011
Finish date	December 18, 2011
Total time	4 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted

Satyr: originally the companions of the Greek gods Pan & Dionysus, they became part goat after the Romans absorbed and modified Greek mythos. I left off the free floating musical notes.

Title	Christmyth Satyr
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 18, 2011
Finish date	December 18, 2011
Total time	3 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted

Now it's onto the ones where I don't have all the DMC. The problem is that there's a lot of shading that's causing frustration. Also, I discovered that there are 12 of these, not thirteen. Apparently I need to head back to kindergarten.

Wreathed in Colour

A big thanks to the lovely ladies for yesterday's advice!

I actually finished this a few days ago but the camera wasn't at hand.
I am not looking forward to cutting all these fiddly shapes out!

Title	Christmyth Fairy
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 10, 2011
Finish date	December 14, 2011
Total time	4 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	DMC 319 instead of 890
	Kreinik 101 instead of 100

Gratitude & Acknowledgement

Lisa (who's currently in Cambodia and posts pictures of that exotic locale) sent me this cute little keychain!
So ages ago I won Barbara's giveaway of this year's JCS Ornament issue. And when it never appeared I figured that CP had eaten it (it happens more often than is acceptable). So I was delightly surprised to spot this in the mail. Now in addition to the Christmyth series I've got a whole bunch of designs in this that I want to stitch!
Which brings me to an important question I've also been meaning to ask the readership. How do you deal with the following situation: you won something; it was mailed out; it never arrived; you aren't asking for a resend (really what kind of greedy-guts are you?); you don't want that person to think you got it and are being rude by not saying thanks. So how do you say: Hey, I know you said you mailed [item] out, and that was awesome of you, but it didn't arrive and I want you to know that I'm not being rude, but I wanted to make sure that you don't think I'm a non-acknowledging person, but in no way am I making some sort of "send me something, since that got lost" demand. So yeah, what's the proper etiquette in this scenario?

Spelt In So Many Ways

Whether you want to call it a griffin, a griffon, or a gryphon, this half eagle, half lion is still very cute.

Apologies to folks getting a little tired of this series, but I plan on continuing as long as the interest holds. Meaning, similar posts for the foreseeable future.

Title	Christmyth Griffon
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 9, 2011
Finish date	December 10, 2011
Total time	4.25 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted

Come On Baby, Light My Fire

I did all the cross stitching on Sunday. Then it took me almost a week to do the backstitch. I blame the winter, which results in a cold house (regardless of the furnace), which results in a cold stitching spot and cold fingers. I'm been trying to hold off on using the portable heater already (only -20s now, I want to wait until it gets to -30), but I think it's time I just went ahead and used it.


I couldn't figure out what was making this Christmassy when I looked at the chart. Some of the others are obvious (carols, stocking etc). Even after I stitched it up I couldn't figure out what a giant gem had to do with Christmas. In fact, this post was actually asking about it. But I just realized that the phoenix is carrying a star! Better late than never ;)

Title	Christmyth Phoenix
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 3, 2011
Finish date	December 9, 2011
Total time	4 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	Kreinik 28 instead of 202. All else as charted

Here Be Dragons

One Christmyth Dragon, actually. One in a series of thirteen freebies by Dragon Dreams.


I can tell that the dragon is twisting around and carrying mistletoe, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how it's twisting.

The Kreinik coverage is atrocious but I don't feel like frogging it and stitching in two strands, so it will have to suffice. This is my first time with perforated paper and other than being awkward to hold, I have no issues. I probably will be a wreck when it comes to cutting, specially since this is such an irregular shapes, but that's for much later.

Now I'm off to work on the phoenix.

Title	Christmyth Dragon
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	December 3, 2011
Finish date	December 3, 2011
Total time	3.25 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted. Backstitch in 310

A Brief Glimpse

of the headless horseman.

So I tend to save the backstitch till the very end and then show a before and after picture because I like seeing the difference the backstitch makes. I even did this for Dragon Ride which is a Teresa Wentzler, but that was before I started blogging (or taking pictures). I wasn't too bothered by that. So of course it would be soomething like this that makes me contemplate backstitching as I go!

I think it's the border. It's just repetitive and boring. Upon reflection I should have just left the border without backstitch and just done the horse and man.


Sleepy Hollow
32 ct Thunderstorm
He's now going back into storage since the light at night is too lousy for me to work on such a dark(ish) fabric. Next up is something bright.

November Achievements & December Goals

Goals for November:
1. Stitch at least two Christmas ornaments Stitched yes. Finished no..
2. Work on Sleepy Hollow Yes, but this one's kinda funny (funny-weird, not funny-haha). I stitched a little here and there, so I didn't post a picture since it didn't seem like there was any progress. Boy was I surprised when I checked the last SH post! Picture tomorrow.

Unplanned things:
1. Started that HAL Angel

Goals for December:
1. Finish something.
2. Make big plans for next year.