A-Z of WIPs Challenge 2024 - A and B

Good afternoon!

The A-Z of WIPs Challenge 2024 is a new little SAL being attempted by Serendipitous Jo and myself to stitch our way through our alphabet of WIPs at two/three per month, starting with A and B in January and finishing with Y and Z in December. It's a way of ensuring some of our WIPs receive at least a couple of hours attention this year!

Jo will be using the three days of IHSW for this challenge whereas I'll stitch earlier in the month, for two days on each, but post with Jo after IHSW. Jo's post is here.

So here are my A and B for January:

A is for... Let's Breeze Into Autumn, a 'Words' design by Ursula Michael, stitched on Shades of Autumn aida

Started November 2020 - last worked on April 2023.

On these Words charts, I like to stitch the easy bits first, so that's what I mostly concentrated on over the two days. The main words will probably be stitched last.

Stitching time to date - 11 hours 20 minutes

B is for... Basket Case, a Little Black Cat design by Toni Goffe for Heritage Crafts.

Started May 2020 - last worked on April 2023.

I genuinely can't wait to get to the wicker basket, but first there are hours of blue background to stitch so, once I'd stitched the picture frame, that's what I did. Next time I pick this up, I might fill in the picture.

Stitching time to date - 7 hours 55 minutes

I love how much progress can be made in a few hours, and how that progress is really noticeable. I am not planning on working on either again this year, so back into the WIP box they go.

Next month C and D.

Take care,

Rachel x

Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 - Days 13-17 / Let's Be Frozen - finished!

Hello again!

Long post alert!

So here we are at the end of the Winter Olympics. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the sporting action, even though I have no real interest in any of them. But somehow the Olympics is different and I've been drawn in to snowboarding, skiing, skating and sliding events for a couple of weeks.

On the stitching front, here was my starting point for the final five days, with just the snowflake left:

Day 13 - 16th February

Speed skating and skiing were once again on the menu today. Gotta love the giant slalom and the 40-50mph speed these guys create. That's quite insane when you think they're weaving around on snow at ridiculous angles. No wonder crashes look spectacular!

Best moment - the women's ski cross semi-finals and final. Like the snowboarding equivalent, this was just an adrenaline rush from beginning to end with positions regularly changing and the danger of collision over every bump and at every turn. You usualy don't know who the winner will be until they actually cross the finish line. Loved it!

Day 14 - 17th February

My main viewing today was the evening summary programme and a few selected catch-up sections, so figure skating, skiing cross and slalom were my must watch events. Kudos to skier Mikaela Schiffrin who has had an absolutely c**p games but held her head high and admitted things just weren't in her favour - no self pity, just positivity to move on to another day.

Best moment - Kaori Sakamoto winning the bronze medal in the women's figure skating. In my layman's opinion, the gold and silver medals were won by the skaters ramping up their points by cramming in as many difficult jumps and other technical elements as they could and joining them together with a 'bit of skating'. In contrast, Sakamoto may not have had such difficult technical elements but she seamlessly joined them with the skating elements, and she actually interpreted the music rather than just skating to it. Her overall performance was more fluid, and her jumps glided through the air rather than being almost static. She was simply sublime to watch.

Day 15 - 18th February

Very little else watched than the round-up show at the end of the day but they still squeezed in pairs figure skating, bobsleigh, women's ski half pipe and, of course, lots and lots of curling because the Brits were still in it!!

Best moment - Sui Weijing and Han Chong winning the pairs figure skating. Not only did they do this in front of their home crowd, but they did it by only 0.63points! Out of all of the top competitors, I found their skating the most pleasing to watch.

Day 16 - 19th February

So much action on the penultimate day, including bobsleigh, curling, and mass starts in both skiing and speed skating.

Best moment - the speed skating mass start event. This has been described as 'Nascar on ice' and was certainly fun to watch! So many skaters skating within inches of each other at 60kph, and after 6000m of racing the medals were decided by fractions of a second. Brilliant, but also quite scary!

Day 17 - 20th February

And so to the final day of action which included more cross country skiing and the terrifying men's ice hockey final. I'm sure the amount of padding gets bigger every year!

Best moment - the women's curling final. The British women fully deserved their win, but it is the reaction of the Japanese 'losers' which will stay with me - they were obviously disappointed, but they smiled, hugged their opponents, offered heartfelt congratulations and genuinely seemed ecstatic with having won a silver medal. Compare this to when the British men lost their final the previous day - it was embarrassing to watch how they acted like bad losers, only fist-bumping their opponents and then scowling in disappointment. Obviously it hurts losing a final, but even in their post-match interview they were saying how it will take time to come to terms with the fact they 'only' had a silver, "We'll be proud, but right now it sucks."

And then there was the closing ceremony of course, always a sad part of the Olympics. Considering covid and the lack of spectators, Beijing has put on a fabulous games. It's hard to imagine how much different it might have been with full capacity crowds, but the fact there were at least some is positive.

OUSTANDING MOMENT FROM THE WHOLE OLYMPICS

So many outstanding moments to choose from, but the winner is easy!

All athletes train hard, most athletes want to win, few athletes (I assume) have time for fellow competitors, so my stand out moment goes to Iivo Niskanen from Finland who, after winning the 15km cross-country skiing in 38 minutes, waited at the finish line for a further 20 minutes watching everyone else cross the line before hugging the final, and 94th, finisher, Columbia's Carlos Quintana. Niskanen said at his press conference "All athletes must respect each other, everyone has done lots of work to be here." Genuinely humble athletes are rare.

And here's my stitching which I have been working on a every day during the 17 days of action. It stitched up a bit quicker each day than I thought it would, so was easily finished on schedule:

Let's Be Frozen by Ursula Michael

Stitched on 16ct Cloud Winter Sky over-dyed aida

Stitch count 112 high by 127 wide

Started - 28th November 2020

Finished - 20th February 2022

Total stitching time - 24 hours 40 minutes

I made a couple of changes, those being that the whole piece is stitched in Etoile, and that the medium blue (found on the base and around the outsides of the snow globe and snowflake) was replaced with white. The white looks a little grey, but then so does snow when the sky is completely overcast. And because the white doesn't show up much I like how the large snowflake, from a distance, looks as if it is floating.

This is what it would have looked like had I followed the chart. The snowflake is the most obvious difference:

Hmmm, maybe the original does look better... well, too late now!!!

This is the first of Ursula Michael's four seasonal snow globes I started for Naughty November 2020. No idea when I'll get around to the other three.

And that's it for the Winter Olympics... sort of!

Coming up in March, the Beijing Winter Paralympics 2022 and more blogging and stitching 'fun' with, hopefully, 10 finishes during the 10 days.

The Winter Paralympics overlaps with Mischievous March with a new start over each of the four weekends. I'll be doing a linky-widget thingy if anybody fancies joining me and Tiff for Mischievous March.

March is definitely going to be a busy busy busy month!

Take care,

Rachel x

Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 - Days 9-12

Hi all!

If you're watching the Winter Olympics I hope you're continuing to enjoy them. I certainly am, but then I've always happily been an armchair athlete!

Here's my stitching starting point for day 9 and a small snippet of each Olympic day:

Day 9 - 12th February

Being a Saturday I got to watch a lot more of the Olympics today including ski jumping, speed skating, skeleton, cross country skiing and snowboard cross - a packed day indeed! I'm still wondering how on earth the speed skaters manage to stay upright when they are skating so fast and so close together!

Best moment - Australian Jaclyn Narracott winning silver in the women's skeleton. The Brits usually do quite well in this event but were almost at the bottom of the table this year so, in the usual British way, we claimed Narracott as 'one of our own' because she trains in England and is married to an Englishman! Good on Australia though, especially as it's not a country normally associated with winter sports.

Day 10 - 13th February

Another weekend day, so lots of watching the TV out of the corner of my eye! I caught speedskating, skiing relay and the men's super-G skiing slalom.

Best moment - Jamaican men's giant slalom skier Benjamin Alexander. At every Olympics there's an outsider who embraces the spirit of the competition without wanting a medal. Benjamin Alexander, the first ever Jamaican alpine skier, finished 46th out of 46 finishers, a full 70 seconds behind the winner. BUT he finished both his runs, unlike another 41 competitors. So by not aiming for a massively quick time and successfully completing both runs he, in effect, finished 46th out of 87! He's 38 and only started skiing in 2015; what an inspiration!

Day 11 - 14th February

Lots of Olympic action today as I have a stinking cold and spent my non-working hours curled up on  the sofa feeling sorry for myself! I found the ice dancing quite mesmerising, along with the monobob and ski jumping.

For us Brits, 14th February is Bolero Day, the day ice dancers Torvill and Dean received 9 perfect 6.0 scores for artistic impression for their Bolero routine in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. Of course, the scoring system has changed since then, so that record will never be matched but almost 40 years down the line, Bolero is still considered one of ice dancing's most memorable routines.

Best moment - the women's monobob. A new event in the Winter Olympics, the monobob sees one rider in a bobsled. What I particularly like about this event is that all of the bobsleds are made by the same company, with each country allowed to make only minor adjustments (presumably to fit the size of their athlete). This is in contrast to the skeleton and luge, where hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars can be spent refining the equipment, something which disadvantages poorer countries. Knowing that each competitor is on a level playing field really places the emphasis on their talent rather than their equipment. I wonder if this will become the case in more sports in future years?

Day 12 - 15th February

Another day with my non-working hours spent on the sofa feeling sorry for myself, so another day of catching quite a lot of Olympic action including lots of skiing and skating.

Best moment - Germany claiming a clean sweep of medals in the two men bob. I'm not particularly patriotic when it comes to sport so enjoy watching all people and all countries. But knowing how good Germany are at the sliding sports, I was really egging on the three German two men bobsled teams. A clean sweep of medals by one country is always a memorable moment.

And here's my stitching finishing point at the end of day 12:

Just the snowflake left now, and one more Winter Olympic post which will hopefully include a finish.

Take care,

Rachel x

Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 - Days 5-8

Hello all!

I hope you're all enjoying the Winter Olympics, and maybe doing some winter-themed stitching to accompany them?

Here's my starting point, and thoughts and progress, over days 5-8:

Day 5 - 8th February

I only really caught the round-up show tonight, although an awful lot was still packed into an hour including the usual curling and skiing.

Best moment - Eileen Gu winning the freestyle skiing women's big air. She was absolutely (forgive the pun) head and shoulders above the rest and, being Chinese, her win went down surprisingly well the spectators!

Day 6 - 9th February

Again, only the catch-up show but it included snowboard cross, skiing and speedskating.

Best moment - the men's double luge. As if sliding down ice at over 100+kph on a sled isn't insane enough, these guys lie one on top of the other. The faith of the bottom person in the top one must be unquestionable. But added to that, the winners, Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt have now won this event three times in a row.

Day 7 - 10th February

More snowboarding was on the menu today, along with some skiing. I don't know about other countries, but our skiing commentators always SHOUT, so the downhill and slalom are best watched with the sound off! Such a shame, as I really would like to know what's going on without being SHOUTED at the whole time!

Best moment - the gold medal winning performance of figure skating's Nathan Chen. His performance was sublime to watch and in Beijing he really was in a class of his own.

Day 8 - 11th February

I caught a little bit more of the Olympics today, being strangely fascinated by the cross-country skiing and the halfpipe snowboarding. You have to admire the courage of these snowboarders to perform such complicated twists and turns so high above the snow.

Best moment - the men's snowboard halfpipe and the world record breaking height achieved by Kaishu Hirano during his run - he was 24'4" above the pipe. I couldn't find a video link, but see if you can. It's amazing!

And here's my stitching finishing point at the end of day 8. I've now stitched all of the words and added the edges of the snow globe. The base of the snow globe will be my focus over the next four days:

Back on 16th with more Winter Olympic fun!

Take care,

Rachel x

Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 - days 1-4

Hello all!

Well, the Winter Olympics are here, shrouded in political controversy and, once again for the Olympics, taking place under the cloud of Covid.

But Tiff and I are hoping to cheer things up a bit by stitching a winter-themed project over the course of the 17 days. Updates will be every few days.

I will be working on, and hoping to finish, Let's Be Frozen by Ursula Michael, started during Naughty November 2020. I've divided the remainder of the chart into 17 sections, with the aim of stitching one section each day. I don't know how accurate this will be but I will give it a go. Here's my starting position with 5 hours 40 minutes on the clock:

NB we're one day ahead of the official Olympic days, as we counted the opening ceremony as day one.

Day 1 - 4th February

The opening ceremony was proof that they don't need to be long to be memorable. Did you see the dandelion swaying in the breeze? Such a simple idea but so effective. And combining all of the country's name placards into one giant snowflake as a sense of unity was brilliant. I loved it all!

One thing very noticeable in the commentary as the athletes paraded in, was just how many Winter Olympians are returning for the third, fourth, and even fifth time. It seems that the longevity of competing is much greater in Winter than in Summer sports.

Fun Fact - 19 out of the competing 91 countries are represented by just one athlete, and most of those are competing in Alpine Skiing.

Day 2 - 5th February

Being a Saturday I got the chance to have the TV on in the background nearly all day. I caught some speed skating, curling, skiing, and luge - is luge the nuttiest sport ever or what?

Best moment - the celebrations at the end of the Women's Moguls. Most competitors congratulate fellow competitors with a fist bump, handshake or very obvious uncongratulatory hug, but it seemed all of the finalists bombarded the Australian winner, drowning her in a sea of enjoyment! It stands out as true sportmanship where the 'losers' really were genuinely happy for the winner.

Day 3 - 6th February

The TV wasn't on quite so much today, but I caught some speed skating, ski-jumping, ice dancing and slopestyle snowboarding. I thoroughly enjoyed the slopestyle (so much better than its skateboarding counterpart) but the camera angles just don't show how fast and how high these athletes go. It's gymnastic madness on snow and skis!

Best moment - the ice skating of the Russian Kamila Valieva. She is dream to watch - dainty, beautifully performed and almost perfect - and she's only 15 - 15! Too young to take part in the World Championships yet here she is seemingly taking the Olympics in her stride. What a star!

Day 4 - 7th February

Back to work today, but that didn't stop me catching up with a lot of action in the evening and well into the night! Skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and big air were on my watching menu.

Best moment - the Men's Snowboarding Slopestlye. The tricks performed seemed to go on forever, with multiple twists and turns each time they left the snow. Unfortunately, the winner performed an illegal move which the judges did not pick up on and to which he did not own up, so his medal is a bit controversial. But, that aside, these guys were awesome!

And here's my progress on Let's Be Frozen after the first four days. So far I'm keeping on track with my schedule:

My next Olympic progress update will be on the 12th.

Take care,

Rachel x

Naughty November New Start #4 - Let's Be Frozen

Good morning!

I can't believe it's already the last week of Naughty November; four starts is obviously shorter than the 17 I tackled earlier this year, but it's still over with so quickly!

For the final weekend I started the fourth Ursula Michael's seasonal word 'snow' globes:

This is the one for which I had to swap out the seasonal fabric, as Shades Of Winter was more of a greeny-grey and did not coordinate with the blues at all. At least I had a suitable substitute.

 Let's Be Frozen by Imaginating

Stitched on 16ct Cloud Winter Sky by sewitall.com

Stitching time to date - 5 hours 40 minutes

So far I've blinged it up by stitching everything in Etoile; I say so far because the lightest of the three colours doesn't have an Etoile comparison and I'm undecided what to do. I've tried a bit around the outside in white Etoile (to the left of the word flurries) but it looks a bit grey and doesn't show up very well On the other hand, it also represents the dullness of a cloudy winter's day.

Alternatives are to use normal DMC, choose the closest Etoile shade (which is a bit too turquois-y) or use white beads. I'll try all four options when I get to the big snowflake and decide then

In the meantime, here's the linky-thingy if you want to link-up. You know how to do it by now - URL. name. thumbnail!

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Considering I have a fairly small readership, many thanks go (so far) to Barbara, Cathy, Faith, Jo, Katie, Leonore and, of course, my fellow multi-starter-in-arms, Tiff for joining in. I hope you have all enjoyed your new starts as much as I have. ;)

So that's the end of Naughty November, with four more WIPs added to my pile. I do have plans in the coming months to finish some of them but, you know me, I yield to new starts far too quickly and easily! I'm very proud of those of you who chose small designs and/or finished them too. Maybe I should focus more on that next time?

Talking of which... anyone up for a 'next time'? I'm thinking Mischievous March perhaps??? It's nestled nicely between New Year and Maynia, and a good chance to do some Easter stitching. Unsurprisingly, I already have four projects in mind.....!

Take care,

Rachel x

Naughty November New Start #3 - Let's Breeze Into Autumn

Good morning!

Welcome to the third week of Naughty November.

If you're taking part I hope you're enjoying your new starts so far; if you're just reading I hope you're enjoying seeing lots of new start loveliness.

For weekend number three I started the third of Ursula Michael's seasonal word 'snow' globes:

And again, I found the perfect matching fabric:

Let's Breeze Into Autumn by Imaginating

Stitched on 16ct Shades Of Autumn by sewitall.com

Stitching time to date - 5 hours

The only Etoile at the moment is in the three hearts, but there will be a lot more as I work my way down.

And now for your links. You know how to do it by now. Please add your page URL, your name, and thumbnail. I look forward to seeing them all!

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Last week's link will remain open until Thursday if you have yet to join, or would like to see the entries.

Seeing as I've started Spring, Summer and Autumn so far, I bet you can't guess what my final Naughty November new start next week will be! There are only three colours in it, and they all have matching Etoile, so there is a possibly it might all be stitched in bling; how cool would that be?

Take care,

Rachel x

Naughty November New Start #2 - Let's Have Fun In The Sun

Good morning!

Whether you are linking up or not, welcome back to this Naughty November mini new start binge, a bit of naughty fun as we head towards the end of the year.

For weekend number two I started the second of Ursula Michael's seasonal word 'snow' globes.

I think you'll agree, it's another perfectly-matched fabric:

Let's Have Fun In The Sun by Imaginating

Stitched on 16ct Shades Of Summer by sewitall.com

Stitching time to date - 5 hours 45 minutes

Last week I forgot to mention that I will be adding some bling, stitching the motifs and bolder letters using one strand of DMC and one strand of Etoile.

Of course not all of the colours have matching Etoile, but rather than changing the colours to match the available Etoile, I am using the closest Etoile to the colour listed. This means some of the stitching will have a tweed effect, as can be seen in the starfish and the bottom half of 'hello'. I rather quite like the extra dimension it adds.

But enough about my new start, I want to see yours too, so here's this week's link for you to add your page, name, and thumbnail. I look forward to seeing them all!

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Last week's link will remain open until Thursday if you have yet to join, or would like to see the entries.

See you next Monday for start number three. :)

Take care,

Rachel x

Naughty November New Start #1 - Let's Bloom

Good morning!

As if 17 new starts between April-July wasn't enough, Tiff and I decided that another new start binge was called for before the end of the year. We agreed on four new starts during the four weekends of November, leaving enough time to recover from our previous binge and slotting in nicely between Dark October and Christmas.

All credit to Tiff for affectionately naming this Naughty November.  :)

I knew straight away which four charts I wanted to stitch, especially having found the 'perfect' fabrics for them (well, for three of them as the fourth wasn't quite right).

So here's the first one. This is a spring design called Let's Bloom by Imaginating and is one of Ursula Michael's many designs in her 'Words' collection.

I was lucky enough to find extra stitching time on Saturday, so here's my fantastic amount of stitching over the weekend:

Let's Bloom by Imaginating

Stitched on 16ct Shades Of Spring by sewitall.com

Stitching time to date - 6 hours

This is also a big hint as to what's coming for each of the remaining weekends in November.

A few of you have said you will join in, so I'm looking forward to seeing your starts, especially if you've used your time wisely to stitch Christmas ornies.

Here's the linky-widget-thingy. Please add your name, a thumbnail, and the URL of your actual post, not your blog. The link will remain open for ten days. There's no pressure to link-up if you don't want to, but it would be lovely to see lots of gorgeous new starts all together. 

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any enabling!

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See you next week for start number two!

Take care

Rachel x