2024 Stitching Plans and WIPGO Start!

After two (or was it three? Time is flying by so fast) years without any definite plans, this year, I actually felt like making some again this year, so of course I am going to share them with you! I am still leaving some wiggle room - in fact, if all goes will the plans should make up for about 40 hours of stitching a month, which is between 50 and 80% of my crafting time, depending on the month, so I still got plenty of time for my other crafts and sudden obsessions...hopefully! 

There are three parts to my plans this year:

1) Continue working on TLoA with a slight possibility of a finish this year. This is my monthly SAL with Rachel, and while she is aiming for ten hours a month, I usually try to do the equivalent to one length of thread a day, which takes me anywhere from 10-15 hours depending on the area I'm working on.

I am currently at ~80% done with 23518 remaining, so a finish would require me to do almost 2k stitches a month, which is above my usual total of 1500-1800 stitches. Since I am now filling in pages and doing a lot of confetti stitches, the stitch count is even lower some monhs. But then I might just be triggered to do a little more as I get close enough to *smell* that finish, so I am including the possibility, without it being a definite goal.

2) Joining the Smalls SAL - I've been watching this SAL for a couple years now without ever joining myself, but I accumulated quite a collection of small over the years, and figured that aiming to actually stitch one a month would be a great way to actually stitch a couple of them while also getting that start/finish thrill each month while focusing on my bigger projects.

My first plan was to pull 6 charts and 6 kits and grab one each month, but I have now decided that I want to finish the Sheep Virtues series by Little House Needlework. Here are the last eight charts I bought, but I actually own all twelve, including the matching buttons.

I already stitched two, which leaves ten. So I am going to start Januarty with stitching my yearly Valentine's small for Felix, then spend ten months stitching sheep, and for December I am doing my usual Christmas ornaments, so that should cover it. The sheep are a little bigger than what I usually count for smalls, but they are not too densely stitched and easy to count, so I think it sill works.

3), and this is the big one - WIPGO! This has been going for some years now and I always liked the concept, but was so firmly in my 'I do not want to make plans right now' mindset that I never bothered joining. This year I finally did! My board consists of 12 slots for Guardian of Wayfarers, 12 WIPs that either need some love or are so neglected I need to pull them out to reevaluate if I even want to keep going. The 'free' spot #13 is a new start, and while I haven't put a definite project in yet, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the Greenhouse of Oddities by LolaCrowCrossStitch. The goal is 10 hours on each project (or the decision to trash it) which, on Guardian of Wayfarers, should be just enough for a finish.

The numbers for January have been called and perfectly in accordance with my plans I will have one slot of GoW and one on another WIP this month. GoW is starting here, at 49%:

For now I will continue filling in the upper half of the circle and I think once I reach the right side, I will get a start on the (quite extensive) backstitch.

My second project for January is one of my longest neglected WIPs - Angel of Cross Stitch by Joan Elliott. This is not the crazy, uses-every-colour-known-to-dmc version of the pattern, but the simplified one that was published a a Design Works kit. The thing is, I bought this when I was still quite new to anything other than the simple Vervaco kits sold in stores here, it was one of the first JEs I ever saw, but while I was quite mesmerized with the possibilities, I never fell in love with the pattern explicitly.

However I do remember enjoying working on it, I switched out the fabric from the kit with a very soft evenweave that was quite nice to work on, and the colours are so pretty...also, picking it up I realized I had more done of the border than I remembered, which was a pleasant surprise!

So I figured I'll give this a couple hours, see if I still enjoy it as much as I remember. Even if I am not completely in love with the end result, it is a cute pattern and I think I know some people that would like it as a gift, so if I still love working on it, that's enough reason to keep it in the WIP pile! Will let you know my decision (and show any progress that happened in the meantime) at the end of the month.

So here we go, these are my 2024 stitching plans (along with my usual SALs that do not require specific stitching goals for them - don't worry Jo, I'm still aboard for GG and all your Blog Hops!). See you around soon for some progress, I hope.