WIPocalypse January: And so it begins.

Topic: Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year!

I'll go ahead and give a full introduction, because maybe I'll have a visitor or two who doesn't know me at all.   I'm Suz, Suzy, Suze, or Suzemo (my usual username).   I've been stitching since 1992, which means more than half of my life.   I like french knots.

In 2008/9 I moved to North Carolina (I say 2008/2009 because I left TX at the end of 2008, but didn't arrive until Jan 1).  And stopped stitching.    I just picked it back up last year  and now I have a lot of VERY, VERY old WIPs I'd like to finish off.   I did a significant de-stashing when I moved a couple of times, and luckily(?) I feel like I have a stash that is manageable without being overwhelming, but I can't let go of old UFOs.  Yes, my pretties, you will all be done someday.

I work full time, I have other time-consuming hobbies (mostly yoga and board-gaming, though I go on video game spurts as well), so I'm limited in my stitching time, though I try to do as much as I can.

I am using WIPocalypse to whittle down my WIPs that existed before I joined for the first time in 2014, so they're the only ones that "qualify" in my mind, most of them are more than 10 years old :)

Here's the list of what I have, and my goals towards them:

1. Egyptian Sampler (TW) - Done
2. Fantasy Sampler (TW) - Done (subject of a January-spring SAL "race")
3. Fortunate Traveller (TW) - nope
4. Enchanter (TW) - Progress? (I keep looking at this one, it whispers to me in the night ;) )
5. Celestial Dragon (TW) - nope
6. Ferret Knot (White Willow) - Progress or Done
7. Phoenix (Dracolair)
8. Freshwater Pearls (DMC) - Added to the Turtle Trot, even if it's just one length of thread.
9. Chinese Dragon (Pinn) - haha, nope.
10. Book of Ink Circles (IC) - Progress or Done
11. DecoSpirits - Done

I want to get down to a 6 WIPs, each in a themed slot, 5 of those slots are represented here.  It's not happening this year, not with that many TWs (or my raging case of start-itis), but I'd like to at least get it down a bit!

Coincidentally, the January 5 full moon date is also the start of my "Race to Spring" SAL.

Here are the rules:

 January 5 - 2015 you have to pick up a UFO (unfinished object/wip) that you have not worked on in at least 6 months. You have to finish it by March 20 2015 (the first day of spring). So make sure that the piece you pick is not so large that you could not finish, and not so small that it would be unfair towards the other participants. As usual there will be a winner who I will choose using the random number generator. The winner will get a goody bag filled with stitchy stuff. You HAVE TO finish your chosen piece in order to be entered in the give away. I hope this will be an incentive to some of you who have been struggling with finishing a piece. Once we start, please post progress photos on this event page for all of us to admire.  Hope you love this challenge. Good Luck and Happy Stitching!!

So why am I talking about this SAL/Race, you ask? Well, it does dovetail nicely with WIPocalypse, so I am choosing Fantasy Sampler to "enter" into the race.  I  thought about Egyptian Sampler, but FS is calling to me more right now.   I can't wait to see how far I can get on it.  I'll start at the top right corner, the lion motif, and work my way down, doing the vine, then finishing the vine and border at the bottom, doing the two motifs next, and then finishing the central box.   There's a lot to do, but I'm hoping that this spurs me into finishing.    I don't care about the stitchy stuff prize as much as I do the finish.

This puppy is 15!  I'd like to finish it before it's old enough to drive.

The only other large TW I've finished was thanks to a race I was participating in.  

Coincidence?  

I think not.

And here we go....