Hi everyone, it's me! I debated for a while if I even wanted to post a 2024 recap after it felt like I failed misserably at all my goals starting in about October, but ultimatively I decided to do so before (hopefully) starting afresh for 2025. So let's do a little crafty soul searching about what went wrong and what went right in 2024 :)
I started the year with such grande plans - I had my WIPGO board and was very excited about participating for the first time, I was going to catch up on (and finish) The Loneliness of Autumn, and I was also going to stitch a small every month! Besides that, I had a lot of gift making to do, so my crafting time was basically all planned out.
Things started out relatively well and I was on track for the first couple of months, although I was starting to feel first signs of frustration as I had a series of projects picked for WIPGO that I either really loved or that were pretty close to a finish. WIPGO was supposed to let me pick up some of my neglected projects and see if I still love them, but most of them I just loved *too much* and was sad to have to put them away again so quickly!
Then came May and brought the 'New Start' square on the board, and I started the Book of Funghi SAL. I really loved and enjoyed that one and for the first couple weeks even managed to stay caught up (in fact I stayed caught up until one part required a decision, which I stalled on). This caused me to miss a couple of my goals, and from this point on I felt permanently behind on everything, which added to the frustration.
I continued picking up (and putting away) projects I really wanted to stick with month after month - I had long given up on TLoA and the smalls in favour of just trying to get caught up with WIPGO) and then in September, StitchBasel happened. That brought to big changes - I finished Guardian of Wayfarers, which was the focus project on my WIPGO board, and a huge finish for me, and I started SAGA, which I instantly fell in love with. I think that was the point when I decided to give up on the SALs, focus on just stitching what I loved, and also getting a couple more of those gifts done!
And that's pretty much what I did for the rest of the year. I made some decent progress on SAGA, which I still need to show you, finished a ton of Christmas gifts, which I already have shown you, and dropped off the face on the blogging world. So in summary, what happened to my different 2024 goals?
1) Continue on TLoA with a slight possibility of a finish this year: I worked on this some, filled in a couple pages and added a grand total of ~5% to the project. Which is not nothing, but not even close to what I was hoping, either!
2) Joining the Smalls SAL - I was planning to stitch Little House Needleworks Sheep Virtues and only kept up until May. After that I still joined the SAL occasionally, but with different projects, mostly gifts I was working on.
3) WIPGO - This one I wanted to complete the most, and also actually did the best on. I think I had only 3 or 4 unfinished squares at the end. But while not unsuccessful, as outlined above, this was also the source of a lot of stitching frustration this year!
For WIPocalypse, I had three projects picked out to work on - I finished the Meadow tablecloth (my oldest WIP) and The Guardian of Wayfarer and made some progress on TLoA, which was the third. So I think except for a missed check in or two, I didn't totally fail this one!
On the whole, I am satisfied with the progress I made in 2024, but not totally happy with what I got there. So my plans for 2025 are a little different, and I will let you know about them soon-ish :)
