2022 End Of Year Summary

Hello all!

Another year gone, and another year of lists coming up!

2022 was definitely a year of two halves - the first being successful, the second rapidly slipping away. Here's a graph showing my declining stitching time as the year progressed. I think it's obvious stitching wasn't good in May or from the summer onwards!

Stitching time totalled 309 hours, or an average of 50 minutes per day. This may sound impressive, but over half of those hours were in the first three months and only 12 hours in the last three!

My Monarchs were the first to suffer, being unceremoniously pushed aside, then The Loneliness Of Autumn, my SAL with Leonore was guiltily put away.

A stint in hospital in September, and my stitching-days-in-a-row going from 2278 to zero certainly didn't help, and I've not really bounced back from those.

And then of course, there are all of your comments which are still in my inbox, and all of your blogs which I haven't read for months. I don't want to give up stitching or blogging, so please send positive energy my way for a stitchier and bloggier 2023!

Needless to say, I didn't achieve everything I set out to achieve in 2022. Here are my successes and failures:

A Monarch A Month - stitch 12 monarchs ❌ stitched 4, posted 1

The Loneliness Of Autumn - stitch for 120 hours ❌ stitched for 20 hours

Smalls SAL - stitch 12 small pieces, one per month ❌ completed and posted 9

Winter Olympics - finish Let's Be Frozen ✅

Winter Paralympics - finish 10 variegated dragons ✅

Mischievous March - start four projects ✅ and finish the four projects ❌ finished 1

Christmas In July - continue Merry Christmas By The Letter ✅

Dark October - continue (finish?) Haunted Library ❌ didn't touch

Naughty November - start four projects and finish the four projects ❌ didn't start any of them

Christmas Day onwards - continue (finish?) Merry Christmas By The Letter❌ didn't touch

SALs - each month join in with:

People's Choice SAL - ✅

FFG SAL - ✅

Smalls SAL - ❌ January to October only

FFO as much as possible - ✅ well, not as much as possible, but 17 is OK

Finish lots of WIPs - ✅ finished 16 WIPs from previous years

My main consolation is that, for the first time since 2018, I had more finishes than starts so that in itself  is something I am proud of, and means my overall statistics now look like this:

Number of WIPs brought forward from 2021 = 88 (including BAPs I may never work on again)
Plus number of new starts = 22
Less number of finishes = 35
Number of WIPs to carry forward into 2023 = 75


Now comes the really boring bit, the lists of projects which make up those statistics. Those in red have been finished, those in black will be carried forward to 2023.

LARGE WIPs BROUGHT FORWARD
1) Mythical Dragon (True Colors)

2) QS Emerald Dragon (HAED)
3) SK The History Of Chocolate (HAED)
4) QS Come Softly (HAED)
5) Mini Bookworm Fairy (HAED)
6) Mini The Owrd Lord (HAED)

7) Mini One (HAED)

8) Dolphin Ruins (Rabnann - ebay)
9) OMG Tigger Is Out (UnconventionalX - etsy)
10) Dragon Eye (not yet blogged)
11) Magnolia (not yet blogged)
12) Tribal Dragon (Thread Geeks)
13) Kings and Queens

14) The Loneliness Of Autumn
'NORMAL' WIPs BROUGHT FORWARD
15) Ballerina

16) Giraffe

17) Greedy Robin

18) Friends For Life
19) Feline Groovy
20) Loves Me ... Love Me Not
21) Book Worm

22) Carefree Summer

23) A Tatty Friend

24) Dandelion Time

25) Flower Power

26) All Aboard The Walnut Shells

27) Christmas Wishes

28) Cuddly Feline Friends

29) Choc-A-Holic

30) I Love Butter

31) Good Morning Nelson

32) Winter Hugs

33) Lickle Snooze

34) A Windy Day
35) Little Green
36) Start Trek TOS
37) Clue
38) Evil Minions
39) Pandas
40) Haunted Library
41) Grow Your Own

42) Pretty Little Toronto

43) Basket Case

44) Mouse Reading Book
45) Wonderful Fright

46) Happiness Delivery Couple
47) Pooh 3 - With Head On Ground
48) Pooh 4 - Standing With Pot On Head
49) Pooh 5 - Looking At Smashed Pot
50) Mouse With Books
51) Gatekeepers

52) Let's Bloom

53) Let's Have Fun In The Sun
54) Let's Breeze Into Autumn

55) Let's Be Frozen

56) Deathly Hallows In A Bottle

57) Golden Snitch In A Bottle

58) Merry Christmas By The Letter

59) Autumnal Baby Dragon

60) Burrow Snow Globe

61) Dragon Shelf

62) Godrich's Hollow Snow Globe

63) Mexico

64) Korea

65) Mouse Lighting Candle
66) Mouse Reading Scroll

67) Netherlands

68) Paris

69) Privet Drive Snow Globe

70) Rome

71) Russia

72) Shell Cottage Snow Globe

73) United Kingdom

74) USA

75) Witch's Hat Shelf

76) Dragon 9

77) Dragon 2

78) Dragon 11

79) Dragon 5

80) Dragon 4

81) Dragon 10

82) Dragon 12

83) Dragon 1

84) Dragon 6

85) Dragon 3

86) French Country Squirrel

87) French Country Pumpkin

88) Watercolour Dolphin

NEW STARTS IN 2022:

01) Snowflake The Cactus

02) Letter C for Clare's Tree (gift)

03) Letter H for Clare's Tree (gift)

04) Letter R for Clare's Tree (gift)

05) Letter T for Clare's Tree (gift)

06) Snuffles In Blue

07) Elixir Of Life

08) Elixir Of Luck

09) Spring Keyhole Stamp

10) Green Flying Dragon

11) Night Lantern Stamp

12) Snuffles In Purple (gift)

13) Crazy For Strawberry

14) Seahorses

15) Rainbow Lorikeet

16) Deck The Halls

17) Merry Christmas QR Code

18) Snuffles In Yellow

19) Biscornu (flowering cactus)

20) Gift (not been shown on blog)

21) Gift (not been shown on blog)

22) Snuffles In Rust

As for my Box of Shame, I started the year with 22 pieces in it, added 31 more (4 initials for Clare's tree don't count), fully finished off 17, so have therefore ended the year with 36 pieces. I'm not so happy with that, but at least it gives me lots of choice to FFO next year!

Here's another list of the the projects which were in and have been added to my Box Of Shame. As above, those in red have now been FFOd, those in black will be carried forward.

BOX OF SHAME PIECES BROUGHT FORWARD

1) Piglet's Snowflake

2) Parrot On Parade

3) Green Halloween Banner

4) A Little Witch Of The Night

5) Let's Play

6) Chick Berry

7) Humming Along

8) Lady In Red

9) Going For Walkies

10) Simply Wren

11) Winnie the Pooh 1 (need the set of 5 before I can FFO)

12) Winnie the Pooh 2 (need the set of 5 before I can FFO)

13) In The Dog House

14) In The Bath

15) Resting My Eyes

16) Green Patchwork Hootie

17) Noel

18) Moonrise - Gravestone

19) Moonrise - Fence

20) Moonrise - Mansion

21) Season's Greetings

22) Moonrise - Memorial

NEW BOX OF SHAME PIECES IN 2022

01) Snowflake The Cactus

02) Mouse Lighting Candle

05) Let's Be Frozen

06) Snuffles In Blue

07) Dragon 9

08) Dragon 2

09) Dragon 11

10) Dragon 5

11) Dragon 4

12) Dragon 10

13) Dragon 12

14) Dragon 1

15) Dragon 6

16) Dragon 3

17) Green Flying Dragon

18) French Country Squirrel

19) Snuffles In Purple

20) French Country Pumpkin

21) Crazy For Strawberry

22) Watercolour Dolphin

23) Seahorses

24) Rainbow Lorikeet

25) Grow Your Own

26) Elixir Of Life

27) Deck The Halls

28) Merry Christmas QR Code

31) Snuffles In Yellow

32) Biscornu (flowering cactus)

33) Gift (not been shown on blog)

34) Gift (not been shown on blog)

35) Snuffles In Rust

EXCLUDED FROM BOX OF SHAME

03) Letter C for Clare's Christmas Tree

04) Letter H for Clare's Christmas Tree

29) Letter R for Clare's Christmas Tree

30) Letter T for Clare's Christmas Tree

And that's it!

As for my stitching plans for 2023... all will be revealed tomorrow!

All the best and

Happy stitching :)

Rachel x

Merry Christmas!

Good morning and...

Merry Christmas 2022 everyone!

Just popped in to say Merry Christmas. I hope you are able to spend the final week of 2022 relaxing with family and friends, and maybe stitching one or two goodies Santa left in your stocking!

Eat, drink, be merry but, above all, stay safe.

Love and hugs

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - December 2022

Hello all!

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

And can you believe that this is already the last one of the year?!!

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

I've got just the one again this month, another Snuffles which I haven't even posted about.

This is Snuffles In Rust, FFOd as usual with co-ordinating fabric and beads. And since he hasn't been mentioned on my blog, you get all the info about him too!

Snuffles In Rust

Stitched on 16ct Tangerine over-dyed aida

Started - 26th September 2022

Finished - 9th October 2022

Total stitching time - 4 hours 15 minutes

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th December.

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I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post, the first of 2023(!), will go live on 10th January at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Glitter

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Glitter.

For me, there are three types of glitter in cross stitch - sparkly/opalescent/metallic fabric, metallic/Etoile threads, and glittery finishes. I was going to cover each one in turn, but discovered I've often used them in various combinations.

Sparkly fabric is a bit of a disheartening subject for me. My favourite fabric store is sewitall.com, and for a little bit extra they can add sparkles to the fabric. The trouble is, because these sparkles are sprayed on, the fabric looks fantastic at the beginning of a project but not so sparkly by the end, especially if the project is not stitched on a frame.

Luckily, Owls In Love was stitched on a frame so a lot of the sparkle remains (the picture doesn't really do the sparkles justice):

Whereas these three Christmas kittens were sewn in hand so, as careful as I was, by the time they'd been FFOd, most of the sparkles had rubbed off:

Opalescent or lurex fabrics, where sparkly metallic thread is woven into the weave, are a much safer option. I've stitched a number of projects on such fabric, such as Blueberry Bear on cream fabric with gold lurex:

And My Treasure on white fabric with gold lurex. I have said many times before that I am not a fan of metallic threads, so use them sparingly, but sometimes they are a wonderful evil to add a bit of sparkle:

Durene Jones' aptly seasonal Christmas cards were also stitched on white fabric with silver lurex and, to rather handily add to this month's theme, were FFOd with the addition of glittery tinsel wool and glittery fabric:

Snowflake The Cactus uses glittery tinsel wool too, along with glittery Etoile thread for the snowflakes:

But glitter isn't just for Christmas; I've also used it for Halloween, in this instance glitter felt used to frame these Spooky Hooties:

And Etoile used in the gates and moon of In The Gloaming:

And I think I'll stop there!

Next month's theme is Designer of 2023. With they way my stitching isn't happening at the moment, I'm not sure how this will pan out, but a girl can dream!

Take care,

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - November 2022

Hello all!

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

I've got just the one this month.

This is Snuffles in yellow, August's Smalls SAL piece, FFOd with some semi-coordinating beads which I'm not all that happy with the colour, but were the best match I had; the yellows just looked wrong.

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th November.

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I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post will go live on 10th December at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Travel

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Travel.

To be honest, I'm not really interested in actually travelling to places - as in seeing the world for myself - but I do like pictures of scenery and special places. I haven't actually stitched much in the way of travel either.

I live close to London so am familiar with all of these sights in Satsuma Street's Pretty Little London:

And I've been to Paris a couple of times, so have visited most of these places in Satsuma Street's Pretty Little Paris too:

I'd like to stitch all of Satsuma Street's Pretty Little City designs but, well, you know!

During the Tokyo Olympics I made a start on all eight of Soda Stitch's A Journey Around The World designs, depicting sights in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Italy, USA, Russia, Korea and Mexico but, again, only made tiny starts on each of them, so here are their pictures instead!

And finally, although I have made lots of train journeys, especially when commuting to work in London, I've never been here...

... to take this train to this rather magical place!

And finally, as is customary, I'll show something I've seen. This is by Teeny Weeny Stitches on etsy and is a set of 63 scenes of America's National Parks (and a bonus one!) Now, there seems to be some debate on the interweb about how many National Parks there actually are, but these seem to cover most of them. Each design is only 40x44 and I think they're really sweet!

That's it for my travelling. Next month's theme is Glitter.

Take care,

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - October 2022

Hello all!

Firstly, huge apologies for not getting this post up on time.

Secondly, I've cheated by back-posting it to when it should have been posted!

Thirdly, I've back-posted the two previous posts too, if you're interested.

Now I'm going to continue as if this was a normal post...

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

This month it's back to one FFO, which is the the January Biscornu.

This was my first attempt at a biscornu, and certainly won't be my last. I think I may have pulled the whip stitching a bit tight, and overstuffed it a bit, but it was a learning curve. Here it is:

I've just realised I really should get a side picture of it; I'll try and do that and add it tomorrow.

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th October.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
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I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post will go live on 10th November at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Wild Animals

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Wild Animals.

Back in August 2020, the theme of this SAL was 'Freedom' which I interpreted as being wild animals in their natural habitat, so many of my pieces which I would have included here, such as elephants, dolphins, koalas and pandas, have already been shown.

So, I'm going to think smaller; animals that live in the wild, but aren't particularly 'wild'.

Let's start off with five Harvest Mice, or rather the story of one mouse who likes more than a little bit to eat!

Or how about six little Woodland Folk by DMC. Toby, Ollie, Bert, Frankie, Molly and Sally aren't exactly intimidating, but they're still wild:

As are these Red Foxes from the Young'uns collection by Gloria and Pat. They look so cute, and since urban foxes can be quite 'tame' it's sometimes hard to accept they are actually wild (apart from when they howl or fight outside my house in the middle of the night!)

Finally, I'm going back to big wildlife with an I-wouldn't-touch-this-with-a-bargepole chart... The Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart, available where else but HAED. Like some other similar Aimee Stewart pictures, I might buy this as a print.

Next month's theme is Travel... I quite fancy a trip around the world!

Take care,

Rachel x

Smalls SAL - September 2022

Hello all!

It's the last Friday of the month so time for the Smalls SAL. Thank you, Mary, for continuing to host this fun little SAL. Pop over to Mary's Blog to see what other participants have been stitching in the way of Smalls this month.

Each month I stitch a small project specifically for this SAL which doesn't appear elsewhere on my blog.

But this month, for the first time in nearly eight years, I didn't :(

So the only small thing I have to show is the recently-finished biscornu by Magicalquilts, stitched on Bermuda aida using Jodyri thread Flowering Cactus:

It's already been FFOd, so you'll see it soon as an actual biscornu!

Next month's Small will be something spooky for Dark October - and I know that for a fact as it's already been stitched (but not shown as it's a gift).

Take care,
Rachel x

Back to zero!

Hi again!

Those who have been following me a long time will know that stitching every day, even if only for five minutes, is a bit of an obsession. 

Starting on 1st January 2015, I made it to 540 days before a trip to A&E with my son ended that streak.

Restarting on 26th June 2016, all looked well, right up to 20th September 2022 when, after 2278 stitching days in a row, the counter reset to zero and stayed there for Three. Full. Days.  :(

Although I'm a little frustrated, I can more than see the funny side of this obsession, so am OK if you want to laugh along with me at my 'failure'!

I have calculated it will take until 18th December 2028 to surpass 2278 days in a row again, and it made me wonder (a) if I'd make it, and (b) if I'd still be stitching the same WIPs I have now! Only time will tell...

Take care,

Rachel x

'January' Biscornu - started and finished!

Hi all,

Whilst life means I still can't stitch for long each night, and my plans for the last few months (and probably the remainder of the year) have long since flown away, I thought I'd stitch something I've wanted to try for a while - a biscornu.

With thanks to Leonore for providing the link, I armed myself with bright fabric and a Jodyri variegated thread and stitched the January Biscornu by Magicalquilts. The front is stitched as charted but the back is a simplified version containing only the cross-stitch elements.

January Biscornu by Magicalquilts

Stitched on 16ct Bermuda over-dyed aida with Jodyri thread 'Flowering Cactus'

Started - 19th August 2022

Finished - 7th September 2022

Total stitching time - 9 hours 40 minutes

I think it's going to look quite sweet once FFOd.

Now I've done one, I doubt this will be my last biscornu, especially as they're simple to stitch and aren't finished as one of my usual ornies! And since this is the 'January' biscornu by Magicalquilts, I still have another 11 months to choose from.

Take care,

Rachel x