I don’t think I got a lot done considering the time I spent. It’s a fun idea but probably not for me. Oscar made it almost impossible. I wasn’t going to stick him in his little fenced area so I could stitch for 12 hours and even though I know he’s a handful, I didn’t realize how many times I have to stop and deal with him. Even though we had leftovers and all I had to do was heat and serve, that knocked out about a hour – heat, serve, eat, clean up the kitchen. New Year’s Eve is football night! Once I stitched right through on one project for well over an hour watching the TCU game and not even remembering I was supposed to stop in an hour. I could have set a timer but didn’t because if I was stitching from 9 – 10 and had to go out with Oscar for 10 minutes, then I added those 10 minutes back to my time and stitched til 10:10.
It felt like frenzied stitching to me. I’ll never be a monogamous stitcher but I do like spending a lot of time on projects and an hour on each one wasn’t for me.
I did like having the kits done – floss on tags/rings; working copy of chart made. One thing I didn’t do that I will do with my kits in the future: I use the stitch calculator to get the size of my fabric, I pulled a thread to make sure the linen was straight, I cut the linen to size. Not all pieces are cut with the same amount of “margin”. If I needed a piece of fabric to be 12″ x 16″ and the larger piece I’m cutting from is 18″ x 30″, then I’m going to cut 12″ x 18″. Not much I can do with an extra 2″. I try to cut the fabric so as to make the best use of the larger piece. Also, if I’m making a pillow, I don’t need 2″ of margin on all four sides. If I want a wider border, I may want to leave 2.5″ of border on each side.
I didn’t have any notes in my project bags as to what size the cut piece of fabric was so in all of them, I had to run the numbers through the stitch calculator again, measure the fabric and decide where to start. Going forward, I will stick a note in each project bag as to what size margins I planned for, and I will use basting thread and make an “x” on the spot where I should make my first stitch.
On some charts, it’s easy to know where to start – right in the front right corner (because that’s where I like to start). If there border is a straight border and the corner of the border is a real corner, that’s easy but if there are flowers and stems sticking up and where I’ll start the border isn’t really going to start on the true corner of the stitching, I have to do a bit if figuring. I’ll do that all ahead of time so I don’t have to pick up a piece and remember what I was planning to do and where I was planning to start.
I have other thoughts but this is getting long so here’s the photo recap:
Project #1:
Eloquent Christmas by Bygone Stitches. This is a good example of what I was saying. I had been working on this project so I knew exactly where I was headed. I was able to finish the “r”, stitch the “h” and get a few stitches on the “C”. Keep that in mind when you see how little I got done on some of the others.
Project #2:
Deck the Halls by Liz Mathews. It’s in the Winter/Christmas 2022 Punch Needle & Primitive Stitcher magazine. I stitched a few holly leaves and filled in a few more scallops around the edge.
Project #3:
This was one of the redwork Santas from Prairie Schooler.
Project #4:
Ellen Carr by Needlework Press. I extended the top brown border and did a little more on the blue border.
Project #5:
Sergei by Plum Street. This is one where I had to figure out where to start and it took way more time out of my hour than I expected.
Project #6:
Peace on Earth by Samplers Not Forgotten. I started with the green border to help get the placement for the “Q”. I’m a bit short on fabric on this one so I kept checking and re-checking my measurements/calculations.
Project #7:
This is a Prairie Schooler Santa and I could have kept going on this one. I’ve wanted to stitch these and just never did. This one is from 1997.
Project #8:
This is For the Love of Nature by Teresa Kogut. I added to the deer and stitched the “S” and “T”.
Project #9:
This is Hannah’s Brownstone by Scarlett House. I was hoping to get started on the house, which is next after the flag pole. I started this one in the bottom left because getting the house stitched is a good reference for the other motifs.
Project #10:
I stitched 6 flowers on the border and added a couple more stitches to the border.
Project #11:
This is Come Into My Garden by Blackbird Designs. It was another one that I didn’t have a clue where to start and that took a bit of time to re-calculate the space needed, measure the fabric and this is a good example where I don’t start at the exact corner of the fabric.
Project #12:
This one didn’t happen. I pulled out Love is the Key. I had saved it for last because I figured I’d stitch more than an hour on it because I want to finish it sooner rather than later. The floss ring was not in the bag. I spent about half an hour looking for the floss and couldn’t find it anywhere. It could be in a wrong bag, I could have stuck it somewhere. No idea! There were a couple of extra skeins of some colors in the bag so I thought . . I’ll just stitch on whatever parts use those colors. This one is on Pattern Keeper so I got the tablet out and the battery was at 2%. My personal battery was probably lower than that so I figured it was a good time to go to bed!
Cindy F says
I decided this event wasn’t for me. I too had the issue with having to look up where to start because I hadn’t notated it on my copy. I didn’t even get to any of my WIPs but I did get 7 new starts. I began before noon but by the time it got to 10:30 I was tired, sleepy and my right shoulder was hurting. With 5 projects to go I decided I was done stitching. I found I didn’t like to put the projects down. When an hour was up I’d get up, take a photo and post it to Instagrarm, walk around, get a new cup of tea, etc and by the time I would sit down to stitch I think 15 minutes or more would go by and then of course I had to stop and eat dinner. I only counted the hour once I sat down to stitch so perhaps I wasn’t doing it right…lol Of course there was also some ripping back too. Oh well, glad I tried it and I know now I won’t be doing this again. 🙂
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I didn’t even do IG but I was like you. I was just getting a rhythm going and it was time to put it down. I’m with you – had I not tried it, I knew I was going to wish I had but now I know.
Barbara Yarnell says
I agree, I’m glad that I gave it a try but its not for me. Did help to make a few decisions on fabric and floss and helped to firm up my plans for 2023, so all in all it was a good day but not one I’m likely to repeat 🙂
TuNa Quilts says
I loved this post!! You kept it real! After reading your post on project six, I was cheering for you-you go girl!! Then you showed us how life really does get in the way of our best intentions and that potholes can show up on our road to success. Happy New Year!
JackiesStitches says
I think you did great! I did manage to start all 12 starts. My approach was whatever I got done in the hour was fine; not to stitch for an hour necessarily. We all have lives and have to eat! I did start at 10 and that helped with meal times. My husband is the primary human for Murphy and he was home so those two hung out all day and he was good about handling meals for us both. Nothing big. It was a long day but a good one. Last year I found I only started a small handful of other projects so I was good with the 12×12 however it worked out!