Crazy January Challenge: Days 10, 11 & 12

January 10: TW's Tracery Dragons. I wanted to pick out something rather special for this day since it is my 40th wedding anniversary ... something big and wonderful and especially challenging to stitch. I thought this would fit the bill.
I am using the recommended DMC and Kreinik fibers but have substituted a 32ct Belfast linen, Silkweaver's Romance, for the recommended fabric. I am determined to stitch as much from stash as possible this year. I received this chart as a Christmas gift from my daughter in 2009 and it has been calling my name ever since. I realize this doesn't look like much of a start, the really interesting stitching won't happen till I have the border done and even then it won't look like much till I do the back-stitching ... such is the nature of a Teresa Wentzler piece.

January 11: Town Square SAL Knotted Tree Needle Art's Post Office. This looks like it will be another ornament sized piece, albeit a bit large at 4 1/2" by 4", like the Fire Station. Now that I have taken the time to really browse through the whole set of charts, I realize that the vast majority of them are sized for ornaments. It was just a weird coincidence that the first four I chose to stitch were not. So rather than re-chart design after design as quilt block size, I am going to deal with reality and stitch the pieces as charted. Next year, I hope to add a Small Town Americana-themed tree to my Christmas decor, decorated with these ornaments and some red, white and blue miniature lights as well as my red, white and blue Quaker hearts and any other ornaments from my collection that seem to fit into the theme. Those few pieces that are larger ... well, I am going to borrow an idea from Rachel [of the What Seems Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day blog] and finish those as cubes with dark blue fabric printed with white stars and elaborate red, white and blue bows so that they will look like presents placed under the tree.

January 12: Town Square SAL Church by DeeBee's Designs. Another large ornament. I didn't get very far at all on this one since I started it at 9:00pm and only worked about half an hour on the piece ... and that included time spent kitting it up. I know a lot of folks kitted up all their 15 challenge projects way back in December. I, on the other hand, am proud of the fact that I managed to put all the charts in one binder and ordered whatever floss I needed back in December. Of course, some of that floss is still on back order ... including some I will need for my Day 2 project. Worse comes to worse, I'll just have to stitch my challenge products out of chronological order. Not a hardship, since I love them all.

We are coming down to the home stretch on this Crazy January Challenge and I have to admit that I had my doubts early on as to whether I'd be able to start 15 projects ... it is really irritating having to abandon a piece to the newly dubbed Challenge tote just as I have gained some momentum on it ... it has also been disappointing to make so little progress on WIPs and UFOs left over from 2010 over the past few weeks ... but soon all that will be a thing of the past and I shall return to my normal stitching routines. I do wonder how long it will take to work through all the Challenge pieces ... some are quite small to be sure, but others are rather complex. I hope to complete Sue Hillis' Cookie Santa in January. It had been my original intention to work through the remaining challenge pieces in chronological order ... such a rational plan, don't you think ... but I foresee the need to skip around a bit. The Bird in Hand and The Gilded Cage are quite insistent about being moved to the head of the queue.

Today is another snow day, so again I was able to get in a bit more work on some 2010 WIPs instead of devoting all my stitching time to a new start:

I finished stitching the back of my Workbasket Quaker Santa Bride's Tree SAL ornament and assembled it. So consider that one stitching and one sewing finish. It was a bit of a disappointment not to have all of my Bride's Tree SAL ornaments done in time for this year. I still have to stitch the November Angel but though I Have a vision of the finished ornament in my head, I haven't had time to sit down and turn that vision into a usable chart.

I then picked up the Town Square SAL Fire Station. I had started this in December but never got around to finishing it. It is stitched on 28ct linen in a color called Meditation using the recommended overdyed floss. I will finish it as a padded flat ornament and trim it with handmade braided cord. I believe I have some bright navy fabric printed with pale blue stars in my fabric stash to use as a backing fabric.