Missing a post about Halloween Ornie SAL 2015 + WIPocalypse

It appears I seem to be missing a post I could’ve sworn I’d made about joining the Halloween Ornie SAL for 2015.  I haven’t been accepted by the blog owners yet, but I’m still going to go ahead and do the SAL even if it’s just on my own blog for now 🙂  In fact I got so excited when I first heard about the blog that I went ahead and created my own button just for the occasion 😉

And funnily enough, it seems that this SAL has spurred on my first finish of the year – the January theme is Witch, so here is my January finish:

“Halloween Ornament #5” by The Floss Box
Stitched on 32ct Thunderstorm Belfast linen
with recommended DMC floss (except I change the cat’s eyes to yellow)
Started 17 Jan 2015 – Finished 18 Jan 2015

I also just realised that I haven’t managed to do my January post for the 2015 WIPocalypse, so here goes my first post for the year.  You’re supposed to introduce yourself and outline your plans for the year … well, I’ve already outlined my stitching plans in the last couple of posts, so I won’t repeat myself here.  For those of you who don’t know me already yet (if there is anyone else reading this haha), my name is Anne, and I’m a duck-loving stitcher … hence the name of the blog, Feather Stitching.  I’m … cough … 48 years old, single and working in a job with some really long working hours. My stitching time is much more limited to what it used to be, so at least one day a week you’ll find me playing hermit in my bedroom with stitching in hand trying to ignore the outside world and catching on a week’s worth of recorded TV.  Born in England, I moved to New Zealand when I was 5, and as an adult followed my job to Australia, where I’ve now lived for 11 years.

So what stitching have I been doing since the start of the year?  I’ve still been working on Prairie Schooler’s Autumn Leaves, which is relatively close to a finish really, but I put it to one side while I started my monthly SALs.  Unfortunately, though, my January Smalls SAL isn’t quite going as planned ‘cos I’ve totally stuffed up the border for my first project choice – I didn’t read the chart properly, obviously, and thought the little corner crosses were the same as all the other crosses around the border … I only worked out how wrong I was once I was stitching with that hideous DMC metallic floss and doing the beading on the back section.  Now I’m in a quandary what to do … either rip out the entire border (and the sunflower centres) and start again (which I’m kinda loathe to do, ‘cos I hated stitching that border!), or perhaps just unpick the bottom bee’s ‘flight trail’ and make it sit closer to the border on the right, which is how it’s supposed to look … that’s probably what I’m going to do, as truthfully I don’t love it as much as I thought I would, and now I just want to get it over and done with so I can move on to something I enjoy more (like the Halloween ornie I stitched this weekend).  The only reason I really pulled this one out of the ‘to-do’ pile is because it’s been sitting kitted up for too many years to mention, and I want to get as many of those part-kits completed this year.  The design is “Bee Keeper” by Cindy Valentine.  Anyway, this is where it’s currently at – if I leave it as it is, it only has the sunflower petals, backstitching of one bee, and the front piece border left to be done:

And here’s the latest progress piccie of Prairie Schooler’s Autumn Leaves:

And that’s basically my stitching summary for the last month or so.  I’m hoping I’ll still get the Smalls SAL finished in time for the end of the month, if I can summon up the ‘suck it up courage’ to finish it and not throw it into a corner where it will hide for the next two years … 😉