The 2014 SALs Post

I said I was gonna try and get my butt on here before the end of the week and work out what SALs I was gonna do for 2014, but due to emotional exhaustion and rediscovery of my love of reading (turns out The Hunger Games is a great trilogy, if you haven't read it) that never happened. But, it's Monday, it's two days before Christmas, I've just given blood and have no energy to do anything heavy-duty, so I thought, "Why not; it's about time I worked out what I was doing."

So, essentially, next year I'm doing EVERYTHING. No, seriously, I'm planning to do:

-Turtle Trot 2014 (10 pieces - more on this later)
-WIPocalypse 2014 (10 pieces)
-TUSAL 2014
-Theme-a-licious 2014 (mostly to focus my stitching!)
-YOTA 2014 (one piece)
-AAN Facebook Mystery SAL
-Thread Pickerz Facebook SAL
-A private SAL with my momma
-The monthly IHSW
-The hinted-at Passione Ricamo Mystery SAL 3

This looks like a hell of a lot more than it actually is. 10 pieces for Turtle Trot, 10 for Wipocalypse, one YOTA piece, and four one-piece SALs. Theme-a-licious will help me pick out the pieces I stitch each month, using the monthly themes to guide me, and IHSW will give me an uninterrupted weekend of stitchy time.

I won't tell you what I'm stitching for each SAL just yet - you'll have to wait until 2014 to hear about most of them! - but I will tell you about the SAL my mum and I are doing. She's going to be stitching Nora Corbett's Trick or Treat Fairy and I'm going to be stitching the Elegant Scarecrow from the JCS Autumn issue. They're gonna be companion pieces and hang next to each other, when they're done - and I'll try to keep you updated on both!

Now, Turtle Trot is what I'm doing instead of my weird Crazy January... thing. I'm taking the 10 pieces and starting one a day for the first 10 days of January, as planned - and then, by the first post on January 10th, I'll have my 10 UFOs to work on! It's a little less crazy that way, and Turtle Trot is just that bit more relaxed than crazy January. So that's less stress for me!

I decided not to do the Stitch from Stash 2014 challenge, for the one reason that I want my spending limit to be more fluid than the $25 set by the challenge (and stitchy bits are more expensive in the UK anyway, and converting everything is a bit of a nightmare... Essentially it's just not worth it). So, I'm gonna come up with and set my own challenge - probably a yearly stitching spending limit, or a specific limit on the number of patterns I buy, or something like that.

So, come January 1st, I'm gonna have a LOT of stitching to do! I also have a self-imposed work routine to get back into from then on, so it's gonna be quite tough fitting things all in. And I'm gonna give myself book challenges too, so it's gonna be a busy year.

Hopefully I'll be back within the next couple of days with a finish on TARDIS. It's looking great (though I have no photo because the current light doesn't do it justice).

Happy stitching!

Heather xx

AAN "Tea"

Yup, I'm still here, and with a FINISH!

Design: Tea
Designer: Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks
Fabric: 28ct Beetle Shell (Jodyri Designs)
Threads: Oink! and Perfect Purples (Jodyri Designs)
Started: 7th November 2013
Finished: 10th December 2013

I really enjoyed this stitch, which I did as a SAL on Facebook with four other ladies. There's talk of doing Hot Chocolate and Coffee from the same series next year, which is very tempting, so this has gone to the side, in the hopes that I can afford one day to get them framed together. This is the first time I've tried railroading, too, and I've been pretty pleased at how easy it is.

I've moved onto the Jodyri Designs' TARDIS I started a while back, and I'm trying to get in a 10x10 square a day on Mourning by Austitch. Meanwhile, I'm still working out what SALs I'm gonna do next year, since new exciting ones keep appearing, and Jo who can't think of a clever nickname brought a few more to my attention. Hopefully I'll get my brain in gear in the next few days and work out my 2014 stitching plan!

Happy stitching :)

Heather xx

I'm back!

So it's been about 500 years since I last posted on my blog. Life's been quite complicated recently, as does happen sometimes, but I am definitely still alive and stitching. I'm hoping to get back to blogging regularly now, so if you don't hear from me again for a long time, I give you all permission to whip me into shape in the comments section! :D

The long and short of it is, I'm no longer in Spain, and I've recently found myself single (not by choice), so I've taken some time to just get my head back together. The good news is that that's involved a LOT of stitching! I don't have any pictures at the moment, but I'm currently working on AAN's Tea and Mourning by Austitch (the artist, Omnipah, is my sister, and I'm SO proud of her for getting herself signed as an artist at the tender age of 16).

I've also continued to read everyone's blogs, and I'm not all caught up as there were a few weeks where I got behind and I still haven't managed to make up for that so currently I have about 275 unread blog posts on my Feedly, but I've loved seeing everyone's WIPs during my time away, which has really kept me excited for stitching (and, of course, my wish list has grown a LOT in that time).

So, I've had a few ideas for SALs for 2014. Crafty Rahenna suggested something the other day that's been on my mind a lot, which is a "Stitch From Stash SAL", and given my current surplus of free time, I think I'd be happy to set it up and run it, at least for the coming year. The basic premise would be to limit the amount of stash participants buy, and everyone would be able to set their own limits - my own, for instance, would be that I'm only allowed to buy a new pattern when I finish a design from my stash, but you could limit yours to a pattern a month, or two patterns a month, or a fabric a month, or absolutely nothing for the whole year, or only buying things to kit up patterns you have, or... well, you get the idea. Please let me know if you're interested in the comments below!

I've also thought about starting a Dragon Dreams "12 Dragonlets of Christmas" SAL and a Mirabilia/Lavender and Lace Christmas Freebies Ornament SAL, but I'm less sure about these. I have about 20 WIPs at the moment and I'm not really sure I need to add too many more, but again, if you're interested, let me know.

Other than that, I have plans to take part in WIPocalypse 2014, and a condensed version of Crazy January (doing 10 projects instead of 15), but I've also thought about Turtle Trot, Theme-a-licious and YOTA. Are there any other SALs I should consider? TUSAL I'll definitely be doing too.

It's nice to be back on my blog again. I'm gonna try and comment more on people's blogs in the future, as I read them all but I'm very bad about actually commenting. Feedly + tablet =/= many comments from me.

Happy stitching :)

Heather xx