Year End Wrap Up

Now in it's second year! 2010, 2011, 2012 (on hiatus), 2013

This year's finishes:

And a look at numbers:
Total finishes: 18
New starts: 20
Pieces started and finished in 2014: 17
WIPs at the start of the year: 9
WIPs at the end of the year: 11
WIPs that didn't see a single stitch last year: 8
Oldest WIPs: From 2009
WIPs to discard: 4

Fastest finish: 3.5 hours (Pearls & Rosebuds Biscornu)
Most time consuming piece: 231.75 hours (Egyptian Sampler)
Pieces that took 10 hours or less: 7
Pieces that took between 10 & 50 hours: 8
Pieces that took over 100 hours: 3
Total hours stitched in 2014(approximately): 646

Previous years
2010: 825
2011: 635.5
2012: 687
2013: 731.5
2014: 646

Looking at the numbers I'm shocked to realize that almost everything I stitched this year was a new start. The only pre-existing WIP I worked on was Deco Spirits. I kept thinking that surely Egyptian Sampler, at least, must be an oldie, but it was my New Year's Day start. I've also decided that there are some WIPs that I just hate working on and it's time to accept that I will never finish them. As such 4 projects will be exiting the house with today's trash. Farewell Hardanger Angel, Blue Moon (2nd try! It's just not meant to be), Sampler Bookmark and Ocean Biscornu.

Looking forward: I'm going to start making monthly goals again since I think it does help me have a better idea of what I'm working on. I really, really, really want to start finishing up my old WIPs and assembling some of the smaller finishes languising in my Finished Drawer.

General Goals for 2015:
1. Finish Celtic Autumn
2. Finish at least one page of Autumn Winds
3. Start and finish one of the following: Cirque des Cadeaux, Cinderella or Tradewinds
4. Finish-finish at least 6 smalls

Goals for January:
1. Finish a Mill Hill ornie
2. Finish all DMC stitching on Celtic Autumn

I hope everyone has a great stitching/knitting/crocheting/crafting year next year!

Last Biscornu Of The Year

This is not actually the last finish for the year. That was Sheep Needleroll. I finished Winter Biscornu by last week but didn't post it.
It's a bit plain since I didn't stitch the second side. I realized 90% in that I had gotten mixed up and the tops of half the stitches were in a different direction than the other half. And the berries all face the same direction instead of being symmetrical. I thought about frogging; then I though about who would actually be looking that closely; then I thought about my perfectionist streak; then I gave up. I still finished assembling it, but it's going to be the black sheep of my biscornu collection.
Speaking of my collection. These are all twelve biscornus I stitched this year for the Smalls SAL. I won't be stitching biscornus next year. I have some Mill Hill ornies to knock off and then I'm not sure :)
My yearly stats post will be up later tonight.

Title	Winter Biscornu
Designer	Ancsanapló
Start date	December 15, 2014
Finish date	December 20, 2014
Total time	8 hours
Fabric	28 ct black lugana
Floss	As charted

Purple Sheep

On impulse I joined hohla's latest freebie SAL. Since next year is the Year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram in the Chinese Zodiac she designed this cute needleroll in celebration. It was one of those SALs where you have to send a picture of each part before a deadline to receive the next part. It was pretty fun even though Christmas almost made me miss a deadline.
I used leftover floss from Shepherd's Purse by Shepherd's Bush, which I finished back in 2011! Why yes, I am a packrat, however did you guess ;)
There were tons of specialty stitches but none were new to me. Satin Stitch, Straight Stitch, Double Herringbone and Rhodes Circles in the bottom.
The sheep is composed of lots of little Jessica Stitches and one big modified Jessica.
The bottom is Double Herringbone, Norwich, and partial Rhodes Stitches.

I've never made a needleroll before, but there are so many good tutorials so I think I'll be fine. Admittedly, this is me, so it's probably going to wait for ten years before it actually gets assembled lol

Title	Sheep Needleroll
Designer	hohla design
Start date	December 17, 2014
Finish date	December 27, 2014
Total time	11.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct black lugana

December SFS

Wrapping up this year's SFS, I didn't buy anything this month.

My spending for the year was $83.03. I bought 1 chart and fabric for that chart. The rest was all floss that I ran out of.

It was very helpful in keeping track of what exactly I was buying. I was pretty focused on finishing off old WIPs so I didn't spend as much this year. If I'd tried SFS two years ago I'm sure I would've failed immediately. I was a bit of a spendthrift that year. This year was focused on starting/finishing some of the things I bought then. I'm planning on doing this again next year. There are bonuses based on the size of finishes but since that sounds like too much work to figure out I'm just going to stick with the $25/month and use the freebie month.

More about Stitch From Stash here:

More Skirt

Continuing on with Celtic Autumn's skirt. I'm enjoying the orange and bored by the cream/white.

Celtic Autumn
32 ct Antique White LuganaI also want to start something new, but I'm trying to satisfy the need with a biscornu and hold off until the new year. I want to stitch something almost violently colourful but I can't think of any design that fits.

Ladies Take A Bow

Deco Spirits are done! As seen in this terrible terrible photo. They look a lot more vibrant in person.
I made some changes. I switched out the DMC metallic for Kreinik. Some of the metallics are supposed to be blended with regular DMC but the first time I tried it the cotton kept fraying madly so I just gave up. Instead I just stitched the metallic and added a top half-cross in the cotton.

Title	Deco Spirits
Designer	Mirabilia
Start date	October 6, 2013
Finish date	December 9, 2014
Total time	202 hours
Fabric	32 ct white lugana

Orange and Green

I finished a bit more of Celtic Autumn's dress. I've been switching between this and Deco Spirits and the next colour to stitch is white for both. I'm not really feeling like it. Maybe I'll start this month's biscornu instead.

Celtic Autumn
32 ct Antique White Lugana