Floss Friday #123

Hope Everyone had an awesome Christmas Holiday (and any other holiday you celebrate at this time of year.)

December 26th was a very rainy day to contrast with today where we have sunshine. The joy of being in California!

I seem to still being have some focus issues this week. I have been reading a whole bunch and being distracted from stitching or quilting. 📚 All is good, I am planning a New Year’s Stitch-A-Thon to work on any WIPS that are on my goals list but might have been slighted during the month of December. 🧑‍🎄

Let’s check out those projects from this week!

Starts & Finishes

I haven’t had the finishes I expected. Instead I had an unexpected finish which inspired me to make it my second small project for 2025. Let’s take a look.

FINISH: WIPGO Project: Monthly Markings by Heart in Hand

It was more of a struggle to finish this project than expected. Once I finished stitching the green (and figured out how to shorten the border top and bottom by 10 stitches each) it went super fast. I love this project a lot. I definitely want to frame this one and maybe hang over a doorway. I just have to decide if I am capable of framing it myself or if I need to have it professionally framed. ❤️

FINISH: 2009 Santa by Prairie Schooler

This was a surprise finish. It looks so detailed and I was expecting it to take a lot longer than it did. I worked on it three times during the month. This Santa is the one that inspired me to collect the whole series. I will need to decide if I will be making into an ornament or if I will be finishing some other way.

Can you imagine my surprise when I realize the whole series uses the same floss? 🫨. So obviously, I decided to make this a year long project for 2025 and this will be my “small” project. I don’t think it will take any longer than the Year of Celebration series have been taking. The chart really flows with these.

START: December Year of Celebration Season 2 by Hands on Design

While I love how this series finishes, they have been the biggest pain in the butt to stitch. I will be honest and let you know that I procrastinated starting the last one in the series. Last night I decided to bite the bullet and get started. It turns out this one is a little easier to stitch than most of the others have been. Who knows, maybe I can finish this by December 31st.

WIP Updates

With missing another stitching night this week, I have really slipped working on my WIP list. #sigh. These two projects ended up having two nights on them as a goal while hindsight suggest I should have left them as one. Oh well. Let’s take a look at both of these gorgeous Christmas projects.

Fabulous House: Santa’s House by Cottage Garden Samplings

This project is really flowing pretty darn good. I can’t believe I am almost done with the first floor of the house already. Loving the colors that the designer picked. Still second guessing the cloth I picked but, we move forward. One of the things I learned in the Prairie Schooler project is that maybe I should have been using Ecru instead of white with this very “blue” background. The white tends to fade into the cloth. Love these designs….

Quaker Happy Holidays (2021) by OracleTale

I have never worked with silk thread before. I was told it wouldn’t tangle as much. I haven’t found that to be true, but the colors… they seem to just be more vibrant. I am loving working with it. While the silk thread that I am using is not the ones I hear others using, it has defintely been fun to work with!

January WIPGO

While WIPGO is all about finishing WIPs, I throw in series that I am working on as a WIP. The active series that I have selected for 2025 are:

• Prairie Schooler Santas (12 to go)
• Tiny Town Series (6 to go including one under the needle)
• Stackables series (4 to go including one under the needle)
• Snowman Collector Series (10 to go including the one under the needle)
• Triple Play Pillows Series (2 to go total of 4 more charts)
• Calendar Crates series ( 7 to go including one under the needle)
• Stitch Quarterly projects (8 to go)
• Calendar Gnomes series (3 to go)
• Month 2 Month series (11 to go including one under the needle)
• Pop of zipper series (5 to go)
• Fabulous House series (11 to go including one under the needle)

When I am working with Series, I put the current project on my electronic bingo board and if I finish before it is called, I replace it with the next one. This year I have included a couple of new projects that I plan to work on this year which are:

• Field Guid to Dragons by Climbing Goat Designs
• 2025 San Jose Temperature Moon Phases (also by Climbing Goat Designs)

Otherwise it will be projects that I have been working on forever that you all know and love. ❤️🤪

Project 11: Fruit of Plenty by Modern Folk Embroidery

First up. Surprise!

I started this project in 2021 and am going on year 5.

This project was selected already for January. Now that I have it loaded in my new cross stitch reader app (Markup RXP) we are going to do a stitch goal for the month instead of nights. The goal is 2500 stitches in January. Eek! My default goal is 400 stitches so this is upping it to 500 x 5 nights or 2500. Definitely a stretch goal. I am anticipating maybe one night might be more and another less. My first time setting a stitches goal. This will be a nice way to kickoff the final third of this project.

Project 20: Mr January a Calendar Gnome by Charlie’s Needle

Having finished Mr. September back in November, I took December off to try and focus on all projects Christmas. Therefore, this project will be a new start for January. While I do have fabric I purchased last year for this project, I haven’t committed to it.

Since I knew I would be working on this in January anyway, I have started to process of kitting this project. But I am missing some floss. I just have to decide whether to use the DMC substitute or order the special floss this week!

Looking forward to working on this project in January. I so love gnomes and snowmen!

Afterthoughts

I have only started thinking about what I want to do for 2025. I barely got together my WIPGO list before the numbers were announced on the 25th. Whew! Obviously I have had some thoughts but nothing in writing. I had to laugh because I know I have had some great ideas … then forgotten them. Too bad I didn’t write anything down. 🙊🙉🙈

One of my ideas is to start a new “village” after I finish my Snow Village. I didn’t put it on the WIPGO board because I have every intention of finishing this project started in 2020 in January. I have a few that I have collected from Country Cottage Needleworks as well as few other designers. Something to think about but not necessary to decide today.

This week’s plan

For this last week of December here is what is on the calendar:

• WIPGO #4 & #5 for Christmas Calendar (then it will go back in the closet)
• Finishing Dec Year of Celebration
• 2024 SJ Temperature Library books (Dec 13 – 24)
• December 31st Stitch marathon to work on:
  • September Calendar Crates
  • February Month 2 Month
  • August Stackables
  • The Shepherd
  • November Snapshot
  • Seaside Tiny Town
  • Start 2025 San Jose Temperature Moon Phases
  • Work on Jan WIPGO project: Fruit of Plenty

That should keep me busy right. I have some supplies to order and some more planning I need to do but I look set for the month of January. I have all the winter projects pulled and my new winter starts ready to go.

Have a great weekend everyone. Happy Stitching

Peggy Stockwell in San Jose, California