Saturday, December 12, 2020

Another Monthly Challenge - WIP Wranglers

This month the Semi-Sane Facebook group is hosting WIP Wranglers. It's mostly a chance to work on a lot of different WIPs, although they have a Christmas theme to it by calling each WIP a "naughty elf" that keeps running away instead of working in the workshop. You don't have to have a bunch of WIPs, but can use up to 20. No problem there! 

As I mentioned before I was hoping to try and finish some more WIPs before the end of the year, and I think that might be possible. I chose 20 that didn't have a ton of work left on them and a couple I'd just like to get more progress on before the end of the year. There are 3 levels to the challenge, easy, regular and hard. You need 20 WIPs because you use a 20 sided die (or an app) to roll to choose which one to work on. You also use a regular 6 sided die and multiply by 100 to find out how much to stitch on each project. 

For the easy level, you halve your stitches, therefore, rolling a 1 becomes 50 stitches, regular means you stitch the whole 100, and hard means you double it. So you stitch 200 stitches if you roll 1. Any guesses what I chose? :) Also, if you roll a WIP you've already worked on once, you halve the required stitches, and it's "wrangled" then, so you don't stitch on anything more than twice.

My list of 20 WIPs is here:


I have the hockey stick marking the ones I've stitched already, because if I have the choice to use any emoji, I'll always pick the hockey stick. :)

My first roll was 16 and 2, so I worked on Frosty Friends #1 for 200x2 (400) stitches. It looks like this now:
Frosty Friends by Dimensions
kit stitched 2 over 2 as charted with kit fabric

I'm not going to add the before pics on most of these because I have a fair amount of photos to show already. Mostly I just had the outline and a little of the half stitch done before starting on this one. 

Next roll was Butterfly Quote for 1200! That was a lot, I'm so used to Pattern Keeper for these larger projects that I struggle with the multi-paper charts a bit now. But it looks good!

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri
stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct fabric with Jodyri threads
Sparkling Citrine, Pink Laydee, Sunshine State, City of Oz, and 2 others, plus WDW Purple Iris?

I definitely need to get more Sunshine State to finish the "butterfly" part, it's nice to get it moving a bit though and some of the difficult cross page stitching is complete. 

I rolled In the Gloaming for roll 3 and 5, and it had 800 total stitches added:
In the Gloaming by WBTW
stitched 2 over 2 with DMC 167, 422, 3823 and 3866
on 28 ct Mirage evenweave by PTP 

I had planned to make my life easier by adding a bunch more of the gate in DMC C3799, the Etoile, but I've misplaced the bobbin, so I did the slightly harder work around where the fence will go. The last row is almost the bottom of the mausoleum, so it's quite far along. 

In between the two rolls for In the Gloaming was Winter by Bent Creek. I had a very small start on this previously, which I'll show since this hasn't shown up on my blog for a long time:
and I rolled a 5, so needed to add 1000 stitches:
Winter by Bent Creek
stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads besides white and 310
on 28ct Feldspar by Chromatic Alchemy

One more roll might finish this one, it's really just the snowman on top and a few details on the penguins at the bottom. 

Happy Halloween was rolled next and it didn't have a lot done either, but with the addition of 1200 stitches, it now looks like this:
Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street
stitched 2 over 1 as charted
on 18ct Fiddler cloth/aida

This is my first and so far only Satsuma Street, although I do enjoy many of her designs. I have a few others in stash, so hopefully will get them stitched up soon too. 

Next up was another one that hasn't been touched in a long time, since the New Year New Start of 2019 I think:
Animal Parade by Lanarte
stitched 2 over 1 and 1 over 1 with black
on 25ct included kit painted fabric

I had only worked on the rhino before, and it's sort of across a page, so I started on the next animal this time. Can you tell what it is yet? It will be easy as I get farther down. I realized after I'd stitched most of the 400 stitches this one needed that I was stitching 1 over 1 instead of 2 over 1 like the rhino. I feel like that's okay though, because I could stitch the next animal to the right 2 over 1, and alternate, or I could leave the rhino 2 over 1 for a little more emphasis on the animal most likely to be extinct first. Suggestions are always welcome!

An old favourite came out next to get another 1000 stitched into it. 
Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations
stitched 1 over 1 with DMC 310
on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

This only needs about 7000 stitches to be finished! Kind of incredible. I don't think it will be a finish this year, but definitely next year. And you never know, if I get this WIP Wrangling task finished early, maybe I'll pull this out for the end of the year. 

Letters from Nora was rolled next and G is the last one that needs any cross stitch done. The rest only need beads. I rolled a 2, so added 400 to this one:
Letter G from Letters from Nora by Nora Corbett
stitched 2 over 2 as charted
on 28ct Nuriel's Forest by Chromatic Alchemy

This is the last one in the series of 3 I'm stitching for DD. I need more CC Smoke because I'm out, so hopefully the colour will match what I've stitched already. 

Another one that doesn't come out often, even though it's fairly small, is Twilight LeMans, and it had 600 stitches added to it this time:
Twilight LeMans by Heritage Stitchcraft
stitched 2 over 2 as charted
on 28ct linen, unknown dyer

You can kind of tell these are headlights on a wet road I think now. The far right and left blue are the bottom corners, so a little more in the middle and the bottom is complete. This is probably half done or so.

I don't know if you'll remember this last one, it was started a long time ago and has mostly lingered in the pile of WIPs, not really moving along very far. I rolled my first 1 for this project and added 200 stitches:
Dragon silhouette by Lisbei (ludinthemist.com)
stitched 2 over 1 with Caron Waterlilies Holiday?
on 14ct gold sparkle Aida

I found this one while browsing for dragons and really liked the look of it. It will circle around so the tail almost meets the jaw. It probably needs another 600 or so stitches for a finish. 

And that's all for now! I know that was a long post. I may try and get another one up after just a few rolls if I can. I hope you're all staying healthy and enjoying some good weather. We've had snow enough to build a snowman, but tomorrow will be 8C/47F! So the snow will melt, then we drop down to -14C/7F in a few days. Winter in Vermont isn't consistent anymore. 

Happy Stitching and stay well!

Tiffstitch














12 comments:

  1. I really love reading about and admire you for joining these challenges where you are 'told' what to stitch and for how long. It's not something I could do, although would definitely benefit from it!
    You've made lots of lovely progress and, like you say, are close to finishing one or two. Fingers crossed the die rolls in your favour again. :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! It helps guide my stitching in a way, so it works. I don't think I'm the type that can stick with it all year though, especially going by my past history. :)

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  2. That's a great challenge, good luck with your projects. I'm not disciplined enough to keep records of my stitches, I tend too to stitch a project at a time although there are a couple of UFOs lurking somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! It is difficult at first to count, but I'm used to it now. The first counting challenge was almost 2 years ago. I use Google keep and keep track in my head of a strand and then add it up at the end of my stitching time.

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  3. So love all of the projects you worked on Tiff. Awesome progress.

    Linda

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Linda! I hope you're able to stitch a lot now too in the cooler weather.

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  4. Tiff: I admire the fact you have so many designs going, I am a one at a time girl, I do wish I could do more but I get antsy when more then one is going.
    I am looking forward to seeing your progress.

    Catherine

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  5. This sounds like a fun challenge! Nice to see progress on so many lovely designs, especially the dragons!
    I'm doing WIPGO next year, it should work well with my WIPocalypse choices.

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  6. Since I've discovered that I hate counting stitches, this type of challenge wouldn't work for me, but I admire the amount you've accomplished because of it.

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  7. That is a lot of stitching you have done and have coming up! Good luck with getting everything all stitched up.

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  8. Oh, what a fun challenge! You got so much done, hopefully a couple of these will be finished by the end of the year.

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  9. Sounds like a fun challenge but I don't like stitch counting. I prefer hours stitched. Love your progress though!!

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Thanks for any comments!

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