WIPocalypse 2014 - January
So....I'm a little late in this post as it's not Jan 16th but....I kinda forgot about it. Oh well, better late than never right? ^_^
So the topic for this month is to introduce ourselves, my projects, and my goals for the year so here it goes!
Hi!! My name is Krystal. I'm 27, live in Texas and am married to the best guy in the world! Okay...I'm slightly biased. Thomas, my husband, and I have been together since high school, that's oh.....11 years now and we have been married for 2 although not without some difficulty. Thomas was my brother's friend in HS through scouts, lacrosse, and all three of us were in band together - Thomas played percussion, I played flute, and Jason was a base/alto clarinet player.
Oh! One more thing in regards to that....I'm a triplet. I have a brother, Jason who is a sports photographer for the Woodlands newspaper, and a sister, Lindsey, who was in choir in high school and works as a teacher's aide in a afterschool/daycare classroom with 3 year olds (God bless her). I also have a younger brother, Joseph who is 25 (don't remember when that one happened as I swear he was just 18 not too long ago) played tuba in high school, and an assistant manager at Krogers.
Also, Thomas is an officer in the Army so....we are going to be moving...a lot.
So...that difficulty I mentioned earlier in regards to the wedding? Yeah....so our first difficulty....one week before the wedding was supposed to happen I got into a really bad car accident and no...I don't know what happened. So I was in the hospital for 11 days all because my lung wouldn't cooperate and stop collapsing on me *sigh* so I was still in the hospital the day I was supposed to get married. Then, remember how I said Thomas was in the army? You guessed it....deployment! So we got married before he deployed in a small, family only, ceremony at my church that my pastor did for us. Then.... almost 2 years later I got to wear my pretty white dress and have the wedding my Mom and I had originally planned. This ceremony was on the same weekend as my previous planned one only 1 day (and 2 years) later.
Probably more than you wanted to know I'm sure since none of that applied to cross-stitching :P As for that...I learned how to stitch when I was really young, about the same time I learned how to sew as my Mom had wooden toy things with yarn that we could use over and over. I picked it up again in college my freshman year as a way to keep busy on the weekends since almost everyone I knew there went home on the weekends and I didn't live close enough, nor did I have a car, to be able to do so.
I started with a few small projects then decided I was going to move on to a bigger project for Thomas. Which was kinda like running before I could walk. It took about 4-5 years to complete because I would get frustrated with it and set it off to the side to work on something else.
Well, that's enough about my past and all now on to my projects/goals!
I have a couple of projects I have planned for this year. First ones are for my brother Jason and his wife Sarah. They are expecting their first child (yay!) and so I am making a birth announcement and a Christmas stocking for my new (first) niece or nephew.
I got the kits in on Tuesday and have started the announcement already. I will work on the stocking once that is finished.
Also, since I am part of the Teresa Wentzler project that Carla has started I have a few of her freebies as well as her Romeo & Juliet pattern that I am hoping to get started, if not finished, this year. Although....with as detailed as her patterns are I'm not sure if that will be accomplished but we will see.
I also need to go through my stash and organize it a bit more. Right now everything is just shoved into a draw of my entertainment cabinet in the bedroom.
I also have started keeping a journal with the name of the project, the start/end date, and the stitch count for each day. Now that's not as intimidating as it sounds since I'm having to count how many stitches of each color I have in a row anyway, I just mark that number off to the side. When I finish that row I put it into my calculator and move on to the next. When I'm done stitching for the day I add it all up and write the total down. If I don't stitch for that day I put a mark down on the top of the page. I'm doing all this so I can 1) see how many days of actually stitching I do rather than just the bulk time (ie: 2 months) to do a project and 2) figure out what my average stitch/day is.
I have a nice journal to keep it all in that I got at Barnes & Noble (a dangerous store for me to be let loose in as I love to read) in the clearance section.
WIP List:
Pictures!! ^_^
How far I got before I stopped to work on the birth announcement project. I almost finished another orchid and stem so I might work on that in between projects. I would really like to get this finished this year.
Current progress as of 1/18. I got a lot done since it was IHSW. ^_^ All of the green section and I started the blue. I also decided to try something new with this project. Instead of starting in the middle, I blocked out part of it with extra thread (which I then picked out) to find the right most corner and started from there. ^_^ 392 stitches that day for a current total of 802 stitches. I only stitched on 4 days though. I took one day off to play SWTOR online with Thomas and then Diablo 3 with Thomas & Jason. Yes, I play computer games too. I'm a nerd and have no problem admitting it ;)
I think I will also back stitch as I finish each section rather than waiting till the end like I normally do....I'm still debating this though so we'll see.
The journal I mentioned with a few of my notes. I like the idea of keeping track of everything. With the pineapple I did I kept track of the start/end date of each 'section' (each part of the border, pineapple, top of pineapple, etc) and that was fun but I had to do so on the back of my pattern. I like the idea of having a journal so I can keep track of all my projects for this year in one location. It will be nice at the end of the year to go back and see what I did.
Till next time! Happy stitching! ^_^
So the topic for this month is to introduce ourselves, my projects, and my goals for the year so here it goes!
Hi!! My name is Krystal. I'm 27, live in Texas and am married to the best guy in the world! Okay...I'm slightly biased. Thomas, my husband, and I have been together since high school, that's oh.....11 years now and we have been married for 2 although not without some difficulty. Thomas was my brother's friend in HS through scouts, lacrosse, and all three of us were in band together - Thomas played percussion, I played flute, and Jason was a base/alto clarinet player.
Oh! One more thing in regards to that....I'm a triplet. I have a brother, Jason who is a sports photographer for the Woodlands newspaper, and a sister, Lindsey, who was in choir in high school and works as a teacher's aide in a afterschool/daycare classroom with 3 year olds (God bless her). I also have a younger brother, Joseph who is 25 (don't remember when that one happened as I swear he was just 18 not too long ago) played tuba in high school, and an assistant manager at Krogers.
Also, Thomas is an officer in the Army so....we are going to be moving...a lot.
So...that difficulty I mentioned earlier in regards to the wedding? Yeah....so our first difficulty....one week before the wedding was supposed to happen I got into a really bad car accident and no...I don't know what happened. So I was in the hospital for 11 days all because my lung wouldn't cooperate and stop collapsing on me *sigh* so I was still in the hospital the day I was supposed to get married. Then, remember how I said Thomas was in the army? You guessed it....deployment! So we got married before he deployed in a small, family only, ceremony at my church that my pastor did for us. Then.... almost 2 years later I got to wear my pretty white dress and have the wedding my Mom and I had originally planned. This ceremony was on the same weekend as my previous planned one only 1 day (and 2 years) later.
Probably more than you wanted to know I'm sure since none of that applied to cross-stitching :P As for that...I learned how to stitch when I was really young, about the same time I learned how to sew as my Mom had wooden toy things with yarn that we could use over and over. I picked it up again in college my freshman year as a way to keep busy on the weekends since almost everyone I knew there went home on the weekends and I didn't live close enough, nor did I have a car, to be able to do so.
I started with a few small projects then decided I was going to move on to a bigger project for Thomas. Which was kinda like running before I could walk. It took about 4-5 years to complete because I would get frustrated with it and set it off to the side to work on something else.
Well, that's enough about my past and all now on to my projects/goals!
I have a couple of projects I have planned for this year. First ones are for my brother Jason and his wife Sarah. They are expecting their first child (yay!) and so I am making a birth announcement and a Christmas stocking for my new (first) niece or nephew.
I got the kits in on Tuesday and have started the announcement already. I will work on the stocking once that is finished.
Also, since I am part of the Teresa Wentzler project that Carla has started I have a few of her freebies as well as her Romeo & Juliet pattern that I am hoping to get started, if not finished, this year. Although....with as detailed as her patterns are I'm not sure if that will be accomplished but we will see.
I also need to go through my stash and organize it a bit more. Right now everything is just shoved into a draw of my entertainment cabinet in the bedroom.
I also have started keeping a journal with the name of the project, the start/end date, and the stitch count for each day. Now that's not as intimidating as it sounds since I'm having to count how many stitches of each color I have in a row anyway, I just mark that number off to the side. When I finish that row I put it into my calculator and move on to the next. When I'm done stitching for the day I add it all up and write the total down. If I don't stitch for that day I put a mark down on the top of the page. I'm doing all this so I can 1) see how many days of actually stitching I do rather than just the bulk time (ie: 2 months) to do a project and 2) figure out what my average stitch/day is.
I have a nice journal to keep it all in that I got at Barnes & Noble (a dangerous store for me to be let loose in as I love to read) in the clearance section.
WIP List:
- Birth Announcement - started 1/14
- Christmas Stocking - received but not started
- TW Romeo & Juliet - not started - need thread & fabric
- TW Stretch - planning
- TW Dragon Rampant - not started
- TW Future Cast - not started
- TW Knotwork Bookmark - not started
- TW Renaissance Bookmark - not started
- WIP - Butterfly/Orchid - set this one aside so I could work on the birth announcement. May or may not get back to it this year. It all depends on how long it takes me to finish the first two projects.
Pictures!! ^_^
How far I got before I stopped to work on the birth announcement project. I almost finished another orchid and stem so I might work on that in between projects. I would really like to get this finished this year. I think I will also back stitch as I finish each section rather than waiting till the end like I normally do....I'm still debating this though so we'll see.
Till next time! Happy stitching! ^_^
You have me intimidated with the "count per day" thing, but I love it. Is it going to bug you to have several projects going at once? And how do you keep your stuff together when you aren't working on it?
ReplyDeleteActually this isn't the first time I've had several projects going at once. I typically have at least 2 if they are big ones if only because I get bored/frustrated with one and bounce to the other, going back and forth as needed. As for how I keep my stuff together.....I either throw it all in a tote bag (I have TONS of these but one can never have enough totes in my opinion) and keep 1 tote per project or I just clear off my coffee table and keep it all in a pile. The good thing about keeping everything in a tote bag is it makes for easy grabbing when I go on car trips or on a plane. It also helps me keep anything from being spilled on the project.
DeleteThere is nothing saying we have to FINISH the TW project this year, Thank God, I thought I was going so fast, and then I hit the sea of quarter stitches. You are keeping track of everything far better than I am. My journal is my camera, which has actually always been true about me.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm pretty certain I won't finish my TW project this year, but I am hoping to make a good dent in it. :)
DeleteTypically my journal is my camera (on my phone) as well. I just thought this would be a neat idea and hopefully it will motivate me to not take forever on a project. ;)
It is a good idea, and an interesting one. Carla convinced me to try and make a progression video, so I'm taking a pic a day.
DeleteI did one with my pineapple cross-stitch. I'll probably do another one with my TW piece
DeleteThis stitch count is actually pretty cool, I'll try to do that too - I'm kind of a math nerd anyway, it's fun to keep count of things ^_^
ReplyDeleteI also like the projects you have planned, can't wait to see them grow!
Thanks! ^_^
DeleteYou are really organized keeping track like that! And look at that list of TW's!! I look forward to seeing pics of those :)
ReplyDeleteHehe we will see how many I actually get to this year. The smaller projects should be easy. It's the big one, Romeo & Juliet, that I'm not sure I'll get far on. It is all going to depend on how long it takes me to do my baby gifts.
Delete