It's a new Year 2021 and Time to introduce myself, my hopes and my desires in the world of WIPocalypse

Hello new world, today is the 2nd day (and soon be be 3rd day) of this new year and with it comes new hopes.

This is the first check in for WIPocalypse which if you want to join this SAL you can see all the information on Measi's Musing

http://measi.net/measiblog/

I'm thinking this is my 8th year participating,  I know I didn't participate the first year because I didn't have a blog and at that time that was one of the requirements.  Some years have been more productive than others, but the bottom line is I have had some finishes, so I am happy.

The first post is to tell something about yourself, what projects you have planned to work on and the goals that you hope to accomplish.

Who am I?  That is a good question, I'm technically a senior stitcher now, but don't really feel all that old, but none the less Medicare is now an option.  I have been doing hand crafts for as long as I can remember, paint by numbers, sewing (clothes at first and then quilting), knitting (epic failure when I was in Girl Scouts, but much improved over the years), crocheting, and then finally cross-stitching and ultimately dappling in needlepointing.  X-stitching is still my main love, but needlepoint is a close second followed by knitting.  I don't do a lot of sewing, but hope to get back into making quilts.  I have 2 quilts that just need to be assembled and then off to a long-arm for actually quilting.  Another quilt just needs the borders added, that one I'll stitch in the ditch and quilt it myself.

About a  1 1/2 years ago we have relocated from California to Kentucky/Michigan (we have homes in both States).  Before moving to CA, we lived in KY and kept our house there as we knew we didn't want to stay in CA and really liked our house.  When my employer offered a work from home option for me, we quickly jumped on it.  Since we knew we'd be spending time in MI, we decided to find a small house in our home town, which is where we moved our CA belongings, that included my stitching stuff.  So when COVID hit and the stay at home order came, my life really didn't change any as I was already working from home.  What really changed was the amount of time I needed to spend at my parent's house, as I really don't want them going to the grocery store, and of course having to help my parents learn to zoom so they can stay in contact with their church family as well as their kids and grandkids.

So enough about me, now my plans for 2021.  I joined another SAL called NoNewStarts2021.  The goal is to only work on WIPs and not to start anything new.  There are people in the group who went wilded and started all sorts of things, we had to post our WIPS as of 12/13/20, and then show that they had least 200 stitches or 2 hours of stitching time by 12/31/2020.  As for me, I already had more WIPs that I know what to do with, so for me, with he exception of 4 new starts, all of my WIP's have been in process for years.  My oldest in this challenge is 24 years old.  Of the 4 new starts, 3 were started with my new grandchild coming this year in mind - I always do Christmas stockings and since my daughter has decided not to know the sex of the baby, I had to start a girl and boy stocking.  Then I started an angel for the baby - which I've done for first 3 grandchildren and had #4's angel in progress (Peace Angel), so this will be #5 (Guardian Angel)

So I picked 22 WIP's, no needlepoint are allowed, only cross-stitch.  The ones highlighted in Yellow are focus pieces, there are 12 of them.  Each month I will select one and work at least 40 hours on it so I can get some real progress.   There will be no repeats, but if I finish something I can pull out one of the old ones and work on it again.

1	American Flag Quilt	Rosewood Manor	2015
2	Autum Quaker	Rosewood Manor	2015
3	Family Tree	Thistles	2018
4	Four Mouring Angels		restart 11-2020
5	Family	Dragon Fire Designs	2016
6	Guardian Angel	L&L	Nov-20
7	Ice Angel	L&L	2004
8	Inspire Others	Hearts Content	2015
9	Letter A Mermaid	Nora Corbet	2015
10	Lucky 13	Amy Bruecken	2019
11	Noah's Ark Afgan	Curtis Boehringers	1996
12	Peace Angel	Lavender & Lace (L&L)	2015
13	PeliCan	Courney Collection	2015
14	Peter's Patch	Shepard's Bush	2013
15	Angel's Song	Shepard's Bush	2014
16	Earth Dancer	TIAG	2014
17	Walking to St. Ives	Indgo Rose	2015
18	jVexation Sampler	Plum Street	2017
19	Votes for Women	Nebby Needles	2020
20	Charland's Stocking	Shepard's Bush	Nov-20
21	Peter's Stocking	Shepard's Bush	Nov-20
22	Coming to America	Thread with My Needle	12-12-2020

Since I get bored easily, I will allow myself time to work on one of the other non-focus pieces and I have added some of my needlepoint as options.  I didn't put those in my list above, but do have them on my main WIP list, which has a total of 41 WIP's listed.

Now how will I make my selection?  Good question, just picking out something to work on, hasn't worked well for me in the past.  I need some kind of structure in my life so I decided to set up two decision wheels and will spin the main focus wheel on the 1st day of each month.  The second wheel I can spin as many times in month as I would like, but never more than once a day and I will  need to put at least 10 stitches in that project before I can spin again.  I'm hoping like potato chips, 10 just won't be enough LOL

I did my spin on 1/1/2021 and my focus project this month will be the SB stocking for a girl - Charland's Stocking.  I have the dress on the angel done in the middle, so feel pretty good about my progress so far and would love to post a finish by the monthly check in - or at least close to a finish.

The second spin was for CB Noah's Ark.  This is my oldest project in my goals this year.  I think I've gotten through P - for Panda Bears.  Which means I have 10 more animals, then I think Yesah, Noah and the Ark itself in the middle of the afghan.  This was for my niece, but lost interest in finishing it up when the designer pretty much put the center on hold.  I will get this one finished and it will find a home, not sure for who yet, could still be my niece.

I look forward to seeing what other's are doing and hopefully keep on track with my own goals.  I know I won't have many big finishes, but maybe some small ones during the year.  

So let the stitching begin!!

Sandy