Author’s Note: Here’s the first half of the projects I’ll be working on in the coming months. I plan not to start anything new (the exception being Christmas ornaments which I will probably start in late summer/early fall) so that I can make progress on these pieces.  I hope you enjoy this stitch-y journey as much as I already am.

Bethlehem – Imaginating/Diane Arthurs: This was one of my last starts of 2017 and I’m making it for our church’s Christmas craft fair next December. I was on 123Stitch looking at holiday patterns and just fell in love with this one. I love the Assisi stitching aspect of this, where the negative space makes the picture instead of the stitches and I am going to have a hard time giving this one up.

Lincoln Quote – Cloudsfactory: My favorite quote and one that I desperately try to live by. I’m successful about 50% of the time, it just depends on when my internal censor works and when it fails. I started this one weekend when Bill was out of town and should have already had it done, but other last minute projects intervened and I haven’t worked on this one in a few weeks. Shouldn’t take more than a week or so to get it done.

Dragon Welcome: X’s and O’s/Jo Gatenby and Jennifer Aikman-Smith: This is a piece I’m stitching for my goddaughter, and I hope to have it finished by April in order to have it framed for her birthday in May. I’m stitching this one with the called-for colors with the exception being using a Mo’ s Sale overdyed purple for the welcome. Love these dragons and am having a blast stitching it. I just need to get down to brass tacks and make some serious progress.

Emily Dickinson Is My Homegirl- Lindystitch (Etsy): You can find the picture of what it will look like here since I couldn’t find my copy of it and I’m not allowed to show the pattern (it’s a copyright thing). I have loved her poetry since high school and now I live fifteen minutes from where her  house (more or less) stood in Amherst, so this is a fun tribute to one of western Massachusetts’ most famous residents. I have never stitched a piece more than once, but I might make this again for my framers at Hope and Feathers since they’re across the street from the homestead and take their name from one of her poems.

Granny Is No Square – Carolyn Manning Designs: This was a stich-a-long last year and you can see how far I got with it! Ms. Manning designs beautiful patchwork and granny square patterns, and this piece will eventually look like one of the beautiful afghans my mother crocheted years ago. I crochet as well, so the subject matter of this piece definitely floats my boat, but I also really love stitching geometric patterns. It’s very relaxing to get into the rhythm of it and I hope to see some squares take shape in the next few months.

Mini Owl Family – Heaven and Earth Designs: Didn’t really mean to start this one, but I was scrolling through the website looking at their new patterns and fell in love with this one. This will (EVENTUALLY) be for my best friend and her family, as her husband loves owls.  It’s one of those really long term projects but if I put a little bit of work into it every month, at least I’ll have gotten some of it done by the end of the year.

Mini Winter Song – Heaven and Earth Designs: This is by far the biggest piece I’ve ever stitched in hand, but I don’t have room for a floor stand, so I will use the hoop I bought to stitch my niece and nephew’s baby quilts with; I’ll clamp the excess fabric (I’m stitching on a fat half of fabric, so there’s a lot of it) to the hoop with binder clips and go from there. I’m stitching it in boxes of 100 stitches at a time over one, so the going will be slow, but worth it in the end as much as I love cardinals. The only fly in the ointment right now is that I’ve misplaced the thread bag I had sorted out for this project, so it is a no-go until I find it.

Fruit of the Month Sampler – Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery: Ok, I’ll admit I’m probably WAY past the age where I should find anthropomorphized fruit adorable, but sorry not sorry, I do, and this piece is going in my kitchen someday. From the Orange to start January to the kumquats to end December, this piece is so freakin’ cute I can’t stand it. I think I’ll work on each piece of fruit each month instead of just stitching each until I finish it, does that make sense? Then at least at the end of the year, if I don’t have a finish, I’ll have a start on each month’s fruit.

Well that’s it for this post, hope you enjoyed it. I could “talk” (write?) a blue streak about cross stitch, so I hope I didn’t bore anyone. Part two will have the rest of my Wips and then I plan to do progress report post at least every two weeks (can I get on a tear and stitch enough to do a post a week? Probably not!), so be sure to check back to see if I’m successful with my “make progress” stitching goal for 2018. It’s the closest thing I have to a resolution this year. Let’s hope I don’t break it.