Thanks all for your thoughts and condolences. It has been a long week, but well, it’s a week later….. I have added a few items to my home after helping my mother, uncle and aunt to sort, clear, etc this week at my Granny’s home. One of these days I’ll post the needlework that has come home.
On to TUSAL… I’m debuting a new collecting glass this year:
Hmm… kinda tough to see the design. How about this…
A souvenir from my recent Vegas getaway…. 
That I will save for another post!
My grandmother passed away this morning so I’ll be taking a break from the blog for a couple weeks. She was 96 and had a steady decline over the last few weeks.
Still tough, though. My Granny was very important to me…..
Pics of the now finished “A Good Marriage” when I return…
Welcome to the first WIPocalypse update!
I had hoped to have a finish, but sadly, it is not quite there yet…
Three words left and the bottom band. Definitely a finish this month, just not quite in time for the full moon 
My New Year’s Day start was the February CCN Cottage.
Why February? Two reasons:
First, I wanted to be sure I centered the 12 designs (3 across, 4 rows) and starting with February avoids any unpleasant horizontal measuring surprises. I know I’m good vertically. Second, this one has flowers so it fits in with Heather’s January Garden/Flower theme.
I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that this particular garden was full of frogs. I had to restitch the “Fe” twice, two of the four hearts twice and one set of leaves twice. All due to placement issues. Ugh.
This had best not be an omen for this year’s stitching. Frogs are not welcome in my stitching!
Last night I went back to A Good Marriage:
I noticed the four little pink flowers. I’m still rocking this month’s theme! Woot!
Tis the time of year for looking ahead…
I’m keeping it simple this year
2012 Goals:
Jardin January
The holidays were a little stressful…let’s relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.
For January’s theme, I’ve got three pieces to include:
I’ll probably work on these three along with working to finish off Lizzie*Kate’s A Good Marriage and dare I hope… my Mermaid RR?
About 1/3 complete…
On Smokey White Belfast with included fibers.
I love how “Don’t go to bed angry” is split across two lines. I briefly considered leaving the “Don’t” off and somehow adding “and plot revenge” but elected to go with the original intent
Last year, I spent a couple of days organizing The Stash. I sorted, shifted, alphabetized, labelled, bagged and boxed for more hours than I care to admit. Today, I spent a couple hours tidying up and putting away purchases from the last year.
It wasn’t *that* bad – I did do some thru the year and drastically reduced my stashed purchases.
A couple things I learned while tidying today:
In preparation for the WIPocalypse starting on Sunday, I decided to take some time to catalog my actual WIPs. See, I’d made my list strictly from memory… of what I *knew* was started and that I wanted to finish.
I thought I’d find about 30. Maybe 35, tops.
Yeah.
I found 46.
Oh wait…. make that 47.
Holy cow. I’d have to finish my entire WIPocalypse list to even approach 35.
Based on these findings and the fact that the year is quickly drawing to a close, I’ve made a couple adjustments to my List. I added the two pieces (A Good Marriage and my Mirabilia Mermaid RR) I’d hoped to finish before year end as my optimism evidently knew no bounds on those. I also eliminated all but one new start from the list. Given the plan is to finish it next year (the monthly CCN Cottages), I’m leaving it on.
Now, I’m off to add a page with the full list…..it’ll be on one of the fancy tabs above
It’s been a fairly hectic vacation (for me) this year.
DH started work today (YAY!) so last week was a series of orientation meetings, testing and paperwork bits to put in place for today’s first day of training. Z’s last day of school was Thursday, so the daily shuttle service for him to/from school was in play. A few last minute gifts and errands to run, etc.
I decided on a couple of last minute hats for my niece and met a friend at a new yarn shop near my office to get supplies.
The red one is Blue Sky Alpaca (both yarn and pattern). The pink is the Elf Hat from More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. My friend had shown me several she had finished the last few weeks for various nieces and nephews and before I knew it I had the book on my Kindle app on my phone and was hunting for the yarn shop. The yarn is Collinette Calligraphy in Fushia. Each hat took about two hours from cast on to weaving ends and have been well received by their intended recipient in New Mexico
Next on the list was finishing off Homespun Elegance’s Holiest of Nights…
Fabric is Vintage Misty Rain in 40-count. I did convert the Weeks threads to Crescent Colors (with the help of Ms. Heather on her recent trip to AZ). The cover picture is lousy for colors…. I like my version much better If you’d like the list of colors used, mention in a comment and I’ll reply…
Here are the coversions from Weeks to Crescent Colors (DMC and GAST were not changed):
The corner angels are still in question. I have two options in mind. Option A has been ordered, we’ll see how that looks as soon as it arrives received. I’m not loving it, so Option B is now in play. That one will take some time to work out
The last thing on the 2011 list is finishing my Mirabilia RR. I left one final square to fill on the return. I did start Queen Mermaid and given I’ve got a week of vacation left, there’s a good chance she won’t get added to the 2012 Wipocalypse list.
However…. I did find myself reaching for another newly purchased design last night after all the Christmas festivities were complete:
What can I say? It was practically screaming…. (it’s on Smokey White Belfast. Photography is not my strong suit).
In the front – my monthly orts since the last TUSAL update (on Thanksgiving). Yup, it’s packed full! I’ve had a very productive December this year.
In the rear – all orts and assorted bits for 2011 (except December). It was a good stitching year
