Welcome to August WIPocalpyse, were we stitch as if it's the end of the world! I'm checking in with Measi the Geeky Witch, our host for this SAL for...basically ever (at least longer than I have my blog). The question of the month is Do you belong to any stitching groups or guilds (either in person or virtual)? If so, tell us about them. I don't belong to any organized groups or guilds, but have several seperate groups of stitching friends that have formed over the years. There is my original group from back when I started blogging and discovered the wonderful world of online stitching communities on deviantArt, but most of them are not all that active anymore online. katjykay still checks in with WIPocalypse semi-regularly though, and of course many of you know Ashley aka PinkyThePink!
I also consider our little bloggoverse here a group of stitching friends, namely the regulars who check in with Jo's SALs and bloghops throughout the year.
And lastely, my newest stitchy home is a group of stitchers from the 'Stitchy Quest to Destroy the one ring' facebook group that came together on Discord during the pandemic, when many of us felt lonely and isolated. It's not quite the same constallation as back then - some have left, some have joint in the years since - but we've become quite the tight knit group, and two of them will join me in real life for Stitch Basel this month!
As we are moving closer to autumn, naturally I start thinking about my stitching goals for the year, and what still seems reasonable to reach at this point. One of my big (hopeful, but not actuall important) goals for the year was to finish The Loneliness of Autumn, my regular WIPocalypse project. At this point I can say with confidence that is not going to happen; as I neglected it way too much throughout the year in favour of different goals - I still hope to make a little progress, but won't burn myself out trying to push for anything. In August, I managed another page finish (or actually two, but one was a partial page and barely ten stitches wide), and thus finished the second row of pages on this design. I was only missing some very scattered about stitches for this, so actually only did a little over a hundred stitches this month. Hopefully, the next row should bring some actual progress in stitch numbers, as there are a couple larger areas left to in, and not just confetti stitches!
My new total is 101,356/118,800 stitches, or 85.32%. Not much of a progress, but every stitch counts!
Measi has also reminded us that October will be a new One-Stitch-a-Day challenge, so I want to finalize my plans for that. As usual, I am torn between using the opportunity to really press for a finish (or progress) on a focus piece, or revive an old project that has been neglected for far too long. Currently, I am leaning towards focusing on Guardian of Wayfarers, which is getting awfully close to a finish - depending on my progress in September, focusing on this in October might mean a finish, and leave me free for other projects the last two months of the year...still pondering, though!