Stitching, WIPocalypse, Works in Progress

March Stitching Wrap-Up

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The past month is a bit of a blur for me. The super busy season that I normally have at work in the spring arrived a month early in early March, rather than mid-April, and it took me by surprise. It’s not a bad thing – it means that I should be able to enjoy the warmer weather a little more and settle into summer project work a bit earlier than normal. And I will definitely look forward to that!

Because of the unexpected work load combined with the expected break for PaxEast, my stitching went a little slower in March. I still got a decent amount done, though – and I’m happy with my progress. Still steadily working toward some yearly goal accomplishments.

I Love New England by Sampler Needlework as of April 1, 2023 – stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct antique white linen with charted DMC.

I Love New England was my focus piece for March for the WIPocalypse. While I didn’t manage to stitch on it every day, I definitely completed more than the “one stitch minimum per day” on it, so I’m pleased at the progress. My goal had been to complete the inner “small” lettering. I have about… ten words left? What slows it down a bit are the sneaky one-off color changes in the words. But still – I’m getting there. I don’t know that I’ll have this piece ready for the fair this year as I’d originally hoped, but it will definitely be ready for next year.

My goal for this in April is to get that small lettering done.

Celestial Medley by Sudberry House as of April 1, 2023 – stitched 2 threads over 2 on 28 ct antique white evenweave with charted DMC

I only spent a couple days on Celestial Medley this month, and it was spent in confetti stitching of the blue cloud on the top right. Really happy with my progress on this one. The chart isn’t the clearest, due to its age. It’s a hand-drawn one with very small symbols. Next time I stitch on it, I’ll finish that fill-in and then move back over to the yellow moon on the upper right. Eventually I’ll have to figure out what I’m going to mount it on when I finish it. I don’t know if it will be large enough for a standard metal cookie tin, but that’s the idea I’m going with for right now.

Snowball Fight by Dragon Dreams as of April 1, 2023 – stitched 2 over 2 on 28 ct unknown evenweave with charted DMC.

I figured out why I stopped stitching on Snowball Fight last time I’d worked on it – I was off by a row with that dragon’s wing on the right. So aside from starting a little bit of the snow they’re standing on, most of my two days of WIPGO were spent frogging and correcting that wing. Thankfully not that many stitches, but it took me a bit to figure out why things weren’t matching up! (I apparently failed at counting to two… seriously.) I wasn’t really feeling this one since it’s getting to springtime, so back into its project bag it goes for a while. I’ll give this one another whirl in autumn.

I didn’t stitch at all on my fourth WIPGO piece, Halloween Candlestick SAL. Like Snowball Fight, there’s frogging to do. My tiny start wasn’t even correct (UGH!). And after frogging Snowball Fight, I decided to just get back to that one later. I’ll get it done this month at some point!

And that’s all I did in March. Hopefully April will be a little more productive!

Until next time,
Mel.

Stitching, Works in Progress

WIPGO 2023 – Week 9 – I Love New England

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Four new numbers have been pulled for March – time to introduce another set of WIPGO projects!

First up this month is my focus piece for the WIPocalypse for March. I’ll be putting in a minimum of one stitch per day, but ideally a length of floss if I have the time.

I Love New England by The Sampler Needlework (now OOP). Photo is from the cover of my chart. Excuse the glare!

Sometime back in 2002 or 2003, I was wandering through a lovely second-floor stitching shop in an old main road house in Plymouth, Massachusetts called The Sampler Needlework. It was a shop I’d meant to get to for quite some time, but I hadn’t had a car up to that point living in Massachusetts. Getting to Plymouth was a bit tricky. Plymouth to Boston where I lived until 2002 was approximately 40 miles. There was a commuter rail stop, but it was quite far from the downtown area where the shop was – so impractical. And of course – this is the days pre-Uber. So the shop remained on my list of places I wanted to eventually get to to see what the mystery was all about – the website for the shop was completely unhelpful with no – and I do mean no – information beyond the address and the shop logo.

And then in 2002, I moved out of the city and into the suburban apartment Erich and I shared to start this crazy geek life we’ve built together. I needed a car. I was suddenly not MBTA dependent to get anywhere. And that meant I finally started really getting to the places I’d only dreamed of in New England that had been out of reach before. Plymouth, Mass – that little seaside down I’d learned about since grade school with the inaccurate Thanksgiving myths – was on that list.

The whole atmosphere of the place was wonderful – old worn wide floorboards with little round tables displaying all sorts of little treasures. A little nook with the more needlepoint style stitching, including some wool threads. And then up front there was a huge window area with a couple of window shelves and multiple shop-designed patterns on display. I remember turning to my left and I saw this huge beauty and instantly fell in love. One of my first true impulse, need-it-now stitching purchases.

It wasn’t the only treasure I left with that day. I know I purchased at least one of the Teresa Wentzler wool cross charts while I was there – the owner had all of them. But I Love New England was a piece I needed to stitch. As soon as I could get it going. At the time I had never heard of rotation stitching. I didn’t know it was okay to have more than one piece going if I felt like it. I hadn’t even found the online stitching groups at that point!

So it quietly sat for a while as I trudged through the rocks of The Castle by Teresa Wentzler. I’ll get there, I said. I’ll get it started. And it quietly lingered… and lingered… and lingered, quietly waiting for me to get off my butt and get it started.

Finally as one of the pieces to join my first year of the WIPocalypse for 2012, I started it. January 2, 2012. The day after I started Deep Blue Sea. And I was plugging right along.

And then… I got pregnant. The same story for so many of my projects! I Love New England sat quietly waiting as I worked through those early parenting years, untouched. Sampler Needlework shuttered its doors at some point officially during that time. I’d heard the shop owner had some health problems, her daughter tried to get it going again… but it seems that it just couldn’t recover. It’s sad because it truly was a lovely shop.

A couple years ago I really got some momentum going with the lettering on this piece, and it’s been moving right along in my rotation. I’m now working as much of the remaining small text as I can finish. My goal for March is to try to complete the four lines you see here that are incomplete, and hopefully add at least one more below.

I Love New England by Sampler Needlework as of March 1, 2023. Stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct antique white Zweigart linen with charted DMC.

I changed the top right corner – I didn’t care for how random the speckles were in the original charted heart. Plus it was so light that it just felt unbalanced to me. So basic filled-in heart it is, to counter-balance the eight-pointed star that will go in the bottom right (omitting said “freckles” again).

My hope is to finish this project in time to have it framed to submit to the Big E fair in September this year. That may be one of my slightly over-inflated goals, though. Regardless – I fully plan to have this one completed this year. It is the completion goal that I absolutely will stick to, even if I have to drop the rest of my WIPGO to accomplish it!

Until next time… happy stitching!

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