Thursday, January 16, 2014

WIPoclaypse January Introduction...

I am excited to join in with the 2014 WIPocalypse that Measi is hosting at Measi's Musings. I last did WIPocalypse in 2012 and it motivated me to finish a large sampler. 
Measi wants us to introduce ourselves also. I guess most of my readers know me and my style but if you don't here is a little detail. I am mid-40s and live on an island, Tasmania in Australia. I am married to David, a newly qualified obstetrician and gynaecologist about to start private private in 2 weeks. So exciting and scary but yes, this means he is moving back home permanently with us (he has been working and living 4 hours away from us over the last 12 months). I am also a doctor who works part-time in general practice seeing a wide range of patients. My favourite thing about GPLand is following a patient through a pregnancy, then meeting their new addition and watching the baby grow and thrive over time. 

To balance my work life I have a creative side. I have been cross stitching since I was twelve. It was something I always went back to as I found it relaxing and easy to do in the evenings. I have become much more serious about it since 2009 when I joined Blog Land. I found bloggers who cross stitch were so friendly and inspiring that my craft/quilting blog has become pretty much all about CROSS STITCH!

Back to WIPoclaypse now.  Here are the projects I want to work on and hopefully finish. during 2014.  I will post progress at every full moon.  I have two largish projects that are my WIPocalypse stitches.  I only have two as I know that plenty of stitching time is needed on both of them this year in order to finish them. Cross stitch is slower than it looks (in my experience). I probably only get to stitch for 1-2 hours per day.

Project 1
Promises Kept by Dimensions The Gold Collection.  

For those of you interested in buying the kit you can purchase it here. 

I have been stitching this Noah's Ark project since 2009 when a friend gave it to me. She had stitched half of the ark and lost interest. I think she started the project in 2000 so it is an oldie but a goodie. I have picked it up from time to time until more recently when I have been working on it more regularly. 

Finally I am working on the lower half of the ark.  The project looks deceivingly close to a finish but alas it has a vine border with lots of little animals surrounding it. There is a lot of mixing of colours too which makes this project slower.  Admittedly, when I stitched the giraffe this week I totally eliminated a mixing colour.  I couldn't find the second colour to blend with the yellow as it wasn't labelled well, so I just used the yellow as a double strand. 

Before photo:

After photo:



Project 2
Cut Thru' Castle Bothy Threads
I started the Cut Thru' Castle mid-2013.  In January, I have almost finished stitching the fourth room which is the Royal Bathroom and the Dragon's Lair.  There is just a little man climbing a ladder to stitch on the right of the sampler to finish off before I move stitching the 5th page.  There are 9 pages in total so I am almost halfway there.  Over January I have done more backstitching in the King's Chamber.

Before photo:



After photos:



 You need a medal if you have read all of this post!  Happy WIPocalypsing…

                                                                 Jan x

13 comments:

Linda said...

How nice it was to meet you Jan. Both pieces look great and you have made good progress.

Linda

Anonymous said...

Nice to meet you Jan, lovely wips, love to see them grow even more

Stitching Noni said...

How lovely to "meet" you! :o)
I love your WIP's - great progress. Looking forward to your next update :o)

Justine said...

How nice to hear more about your life, Jan. your WIPs are both lovely. I know what you mean about projects growing more slowly than you think so I think you have done the right thing sticking with two projects for WIPocalypse.

Sarah in Stitches said...

I had no idea you and your husband were in medicine! It was great reading your introduction. Good luck finishing these two projects - you made a TON of progress last year, so I'm sure you can finish them off this year :D

Preeti said...

Nice to know about you, Jan !! :) It's great that with your job you can manage stitching too. I was a full time professional two years back and could do some art n craft during weekends only.
Wish you good luck to complete the WIPs!!

Brigitte said...

So nice to read about you and your life.
You are right, cross stitching a big piece takes a long time, much longer than you think it would. The WIPs that you chose for this year's Wipocalypse are both very interesting to stitch and certainly a fun stitch. I wish you good luck with them. Maybe you can finsih them this year.

Julie said...

Good luck to your hubby in his new venture.
Both are splendid, but the cut throu always makes me smile when I see progress on it.

zenuwpees said...

Bel avancement au deux broderies bravo Marie-Claire

Basia said...

Lovely WIPs and you have so much done on the arc already. Best of luck in WIPocalypse!

Basia said...

Lovely WIPs and you have so much done on the arc already. Best of luck in WIPocalypse!

Catherine said...

Fun reading more about you ~ what a cute pic! Congrats to your husband too ~ how wonderful that he will be home! Great progress on your stitches!

Shebafudge said...

I read to the end...where's my medal?

It will be lovely to have hubby back home full time. I hope he enjoys his new role.

Your stitching as always is lovely...especially my favourite one of yours!