Challenges – Feather Stitching

I’m almost reluctant to set any goals this year, but what the heck … go big or go home, right? I’ve pretty much copied over the goals I set two years ago before my stitching hiatus, with a few adjustments and removals. I originally wanted to finish Quaker Diamonds by Rosewood Manor and also Three Kings by Mill Hill, but I don’t want that pressure if my mojo doesn’t stay so most items are for ‘progress’ instead of finishes.

My needlecraft goals for 2023 are:

Progress on 12 WIPs/UFOs (WIPGO should hopefully help me meet this goal)
Progress on three canvaswork projects (WIPs or new starts)
Progress on a crochet project
Complete 12 Christmas ornaments (as part of the JCS ornament SAL on Facebook)
Sew an item of clothing
Finish and frame the Ronald McDonald charity stitching
Start a bed quilt
Complete at least one cartonnage project
Complete at least three sewing projects (eg pouches, pincushions etc – WIPs or new starts)
Progress on at lease one project with specialty stitches or non-cross stitch (eg stumpwork, hardanger etc)
Finish-finish at least 12 items in my finishing pile (eg Christmas ornaments etc)

The starting point for those projects on my WIPGO board this year:

It’s been a veeeerrrry long time since I stitched anything on a regular basis … well, truth be told, anything at all really. It’s been an emotionally traumatic couple of years after the passing of my Dad, then losing employment for a while during Covid, then my Mum deteriorating after a couple of strokes. For the first time in many many years, stitching no longer brought me comfort, but rather was an emotional trigger – perhaps because it reminded me of my Mum too much, as it’s something we’ve shared since she turned 70. Instead of stitching, I turned instead to a new-to-me craft of cardmaking, which can be found under my Instagram account, Shacks Papercrafts.

This year, though, the bug has finally started to rear its head a bit and I’ve decided I may attempt the WIPGO challenge while my motivation is here. I’m trying to be gentle with myself and not put too much pressure on, and kept all the goals as 5-hour blocks. Most of my projects chosen are older WIPs, with some newer WIPs thrown in for good measure, and a few new starts just to keep things interesting. I may change projects on the board on a whim, just to keep myself interested and to keep the momentus going, but time will tell. For now this is the board how it stands at the start of the year.

January’s project numbers are 6 and 10, so I kicked off with number 6, Mini Sunflowers by Marianne Broome and Heaven and Earth Designs. This was one of the projects I was really keen to work on, so I was thrilled to have this as the first project off the ranks. I enjoyed putting needle to fabric so much I ended up stitching through the night until 6am – that was pretty insane, but it was oh so enjoyable … like returning to an old love. It has been really difficult to put it down, but I want to try to balance my crafts this year and splitting my time between my cardmaking and stitching, so eventually I put it to one side. I’ll soon start on my second WIPGO project for January, and the January ornament for the Just Cross Stitch Ornament SAL on Facebook, then I may return to the sunfowers again before we move into the February projects.

Here’s where I started from: