Thursday, January 16, 2014

WIPocalypse 2014 for January

The first question or writing idea for the first WIPocalypse blog of the year is to describe myself and my projects and goals for the year.  Right, so here goes:
Trying to look snobby but only looking like more of a dork.

My name is Carla and I am an Employment Security Specialist with the State of Alaska living in beautiful Juneau, Alaska.  I made it to my 48th birthday, and for you regular readers you know how that went down, ha, ha. I have three grown children, two of which live in Alaska and the third is stationed overseas at this time with the US ARMY. Not only am I blessed with my beautiful children, all three have beautiful mates.

I was introduced to knitting by my maternal Grandma which led to crochet and sewing.  Having been introduced at such a young age to the wonderful world of crafty things, it wasn't such a hard leap for me to fall madly in-love with cross stitch.  My second son's aunt Jane was the enabler for that relationship in 1988. How empty life would be without my beloved cross stitch! And now that I am older and I no longer have wee ones running around dragging the youngest around the house by her feet, I am free to stitch all of the time.  The more I think about it, the more I think "why retire?  I could continue working so I can afford to continue stitching!"  I'll have to think about that a bit more later.

My girlfriend Nancy and I decided to do 2014: The Year of the Magnificent Teresa Wentzler as our project. So far we have two other brave souls, Krystal  and Leonore who have signed on to do one or two or ten projects and anyone is invited.  You don't have to do anything complicated if you don't want to.  You can join and just do something small.  Our point is to celebrate TW as best as we can by stitching her beautiful patterns.

Current WIP list is as follows:

1) Christmas Challenge
2) Bookmark Kit
3) Nouveau Biscornu
4) No Drama
5) They
6) Celtic Goddess
7) Quilted Snowman
8) You Can't Drink
9) Tiny Butterfly
10) Cosmos
11) Skull

WIPs 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 and 10 are all patterns provided for me or parts of kits.  The rest are patterns I have to create or have created because they have been requested by other's who think I have nothing better to do with my time.  I'm actually happy to have all of these things because I've been warned that the larger TW projects take some time and due to the repetition on the border's makes for some tedium so breaking it up is an option.

Now, I have tried to have more than one project going at one time and honestly, it hurts my brain.  This is how I ended up with so much on my plate right now and it's only the middle of January!  Some of this is bleed over from 2013, and with all of the distractions going on last year (moving, bronchial pneumonia, a most beautiful summer, and so on) it was difficult to stay focused on the task at hand.  Still, I'll get these cleaned up and out of the way in no time.


My first big TW project is English Cottage Sampler.  My girls came through and found the fabric I required in just the right size. It has been ordered, but sadly puts me over budget for Stitch from Stash  in January.  Sigh.  I'm waiting for my fabric to arrive from the UK.  I would REALLY like to start this project in January.  


Until then, I'm finishing up Christmas Challenge this week and will work on Stretch the Magic Dragon which is a small, free TW pattern from her website TW Designworks.  

Don't forget, this weekend is IHSW and if you want to join us in my Hangout on Saturday the 18th, just let me know!

Until this weekend my pretties.....

9 comments:

  1. Hmmm WIPocalypse is one I have joined. Of course the way I plan I don't have anything extra hanging around, only two and the occasional three going at the same time. Pinky got her gift so I'm now showing it off everywhere, I have got to do some more of those blackwork things, they are so pretty.
    I am on the start of 5 days off in a row just in time for IHSW and one day in I've already stitched enough that my thumb is sore (since when did that start happening) Bookmark 5 is almost finished. Probably tomorrow.
    Also you've been teasing me with that Nouveau biscornu for a while now, I wanna see it.

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    1. FIVE DAYS!!!! I have a three day weekend so YAY for us :D For the WIPocalypse you just introduce your self and what you are doing and yoru plans for the year, pretty simple this time. Show us what you have done to make your thumb sore!!

      Well, I ripped out all the stitching on the Nouveau biscornu and now the fabric is blank again, I'm re-considering my fabric choice for that one. I can see what I want in my mind but when I tried to stitch it, well, that wasn't what I wanted :(

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    2. Hmmmm, that meant to say HAVEN'T joined, bad fingers. I just spent all afternoon watching West Wing and stitching, progress shot that I'll put on the blog tonight will be pre-today's marathon. Can't wait to hangout tomorrow, might be on before noon, but definitely after.

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    3. WOO HOO!! I'm very excited to see where you are at :D

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  2. To start this comment on a slightly unrelated sidenote, I was a little (read: VERY) bored at university during the last few days, so I spend some (read: way too much, though I don't regret it!) time reading through a few (read: just about all) of your older blog entries. And I have to say that you, my dear, are a wonderful person who does (possibly even more) wonderful crafts, and from reading this posts I got quite a lot of motivation and useful advice for my own projects and life. Go, you!

    ...to get back to the topic at hand, I can't wait to see what progress you will make on some of these projects (thanks to the above mentioned reading-orgy, I also know something about some of this projects - whoohoo!). I think this year is gonna be amazing, for all of us :3

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  3. Knowing that you went and read past blogs, well, gosh....it made me cry...it's not a bad thing, I just really appreciate the fact that you took the time to do that, thank you!

    On the list, everything is either started, or I have it all together and ready to be stitched. Last night I finished working on the pattern for THEY which is an entire blog unto itself ha ha! Speaking of which, you just gave me an idea on how to really make that pattern work...thank you!

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    1. I'm always happy to be of service, even though I don't have any idea how ^.~

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  4. Carla, I cannot get past your hair!! its BEAUTIFUL.....you should be sooo glad i don't live near by cos I'd annoy the daylights out of you by asking if i could just photograph you with your hair draped this way and that,

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    1. Liz you are hilarious!!! I'd let you do it too just to see what you come up with! :D

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