A Look Back at 2022

I find that I’ve been quite remiss in writing actual blog posts, and instead relying on my flosstube show notes to provide a record of my finishes, my WIPs, my plans, etc. I’m hoping to remedy that situation in 2023 and spend a bit more time writing about the pieces I’m working on and my thoughts about them. In that vein, I thought I’d better start with looking back at 2022 and what I finished.

I started five new things in 2022 and was able to finish three of those. My WIP pile still feels unmanageable, but I was able to finish a total of seven pieces in 2022.

My first finish of the year was Mary Snow by Hands Across the Sea. I stitched her using the DMC conversion on 40ct Antique Sampler by Victorian Motto. I did use DMC 504 instead of 3813 and I also decided to use AVAS Soie d’alger 945 for the red, just because. When HATS released Mary Snow, I knew immediately I wanted to stitch her because of the swans. When Kristie from Crosshatch Quilts suggested a SAL for Mary Snow starting on December 23, 2021, I jumped in with both feet. I loved that the reds and greens of the sampler made it a perfect choice for Christmas stitching. This was such a fun piece to stitch. I love the swans, the owls, the parrots, the little houses. I finished Mary at the end of May.

My next finish was actually a start and a finish. In July, I started the next of the sabbat pieces I needed to stitch from The Primitive Hare, Lammas. I stitched this on a leftover piece of 40ct Picture This Plus Dill and I did my own conversion to overdyed cottons. I used Classic Colorworks Barn Door, Blackbird, and Cocoa Bean, along with Old Willow Stitchery Lancaster Gold. I modified the wheat to look more like wheat and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I fully finished it into a little pillow filled with crushed walnut shells and love how it looked set up on my altar with the Primitive Hare Lughnasadh piece gifted to me by my friend, Kristine.

Back in July of 2018, I started From the Deep by Plum Street Samplers. I wanted to stitch just a portion of the design to specifically fit in this frame my dad had given me years ago that I’ve just never found the right thing to put in it. I went looking for a mermaid design that would work size-wise and stumbled across From the Deep. Paulette designs the best mermaids and I liked this one especially. This is a long OOP design, so I put the call out on Instagram if anyone had the chart I could borrow. A wonderful stitcher passed her chart along to me and I was able to get started. The mermaid herself and the seaweed stitched up fairly quickly, but I got bogged down in the background water so it took me until July of 2022 to get this one finished, picking it up and putting it down. I stitched this on 40ct Lambswool (not a fan of the fabric, but since it was full coverage, why not use it?) and she’s stitched with mostly DMC. I did make some modifications though. I used 931 for her eyes, NPI 152 for the water because I wanted a more grey/blue water color, and then I chose 3685 and 154 for her tail to more closely match some flowers I have in my bathroom where this piece now lives.

Mabon was the next sabbat piece I needed to stitch from The Primitive Hare (these are freebies on her blog). This one is charted to be a cluster of grapes, but when I saw another stitcher (sterlinggirl31 on Instagram) change this into an apple, I knew I had to do the same. Stitched with my own overdyed conversion on 40ct PTP Doubloon. I started this for Dark 13 Stitching in September and finished it about five days later. It still needs to be stuffed and sewn closed, but I love how it turned out.

My next finish was Cecropia Moth, a freebie by Whistlestop Stitcher, which I believe is still available via her Instagram. I stitched this with mostly the called for DMC on 40ct Zweigart Anthracite. I did change the color of the antennae from the called for DMC to Olde Willow Stitchery’s Medallion Black – it was a cooler grey which worked better against my fabric. I started this one back in August of 2021 for Friday the 13th/Dark 13 Stitching but quickly set it aside because I was second-guessing my fabric. I picked it back up in August of 2022 and stitched on a good bit more and eventually ended up finishing it during Dark October Stitching. I love how it turned out.

In February of 2022, I saw that several people were stitching Moon Sicke by Primitive Needle as a full moon SAL (they stitched on this piece during the full moon each month). It’s a piece I’ve been wanting to stitch forever so I quickly gate-crashed their SAL and started this piece on the full Snow Moon in February. I stitched this on 40ct Duxbury by Fox & Rabbit with my own thread conversion. It called for all Silk n Colors, but I used a mix of several different things.

I used: Belle Soie Icing, Gloriana Pecan, AVAS 3723, Silk n Colors Chestnut, Pure Palette Cinnamon Toast, Pure Palette Ocotillo, Belle Soie Oatmeal Scone, Dinky Dyes mystery black, Belle Soie Scarecrow, Olde Willow Stitchery Quaker Meetinghouse Red, and Classic Colorworks River Rocks. I worked on this during the full moons each month and finished it up during Dark October Stitching.

My last finish of the year was A Lady’s Dream by Kathy Barrick. This was one of the blocks in the collaboration piece, A Most Noble Pursuit. I’d loved this block for a long time and decided to stitch it as a birthday gift for Sylvia. This is another piece I started in 2021 (November), set it aside, and then picked it back up again in 2022 and finished it in November. I stitched it on a 40ct cream HDF linen with a combination of DMC, GAST, Weeks, and Olde Willow Stitchery threads because I wanted the larger areas to have some variegation. I decided to finish this as a little mat and I love how it turned out. I did the finishing later in April of 2023 and finally gifted it.

So, that’s it for my 2022 finishes. I mentioned I started five things, up at the top of this post. Three of them I also finished: Lammas, Mabon, and Moon Sicke. The other two things I started that I carried into 2023 were Tombstones Spots by The Primitive Needle and my model for Fifteen Friends: Jane Ann 1871, the Bristol Sampler I was reproducing.

I started Tombstone Spots in May on the only Friday the 13th of the year with Emily C (eclecticpossessions) for Dark 13 Stitching. I am stitching it on 40ct Affogato by Fiber on a Whim with the called for Weeks threads.

Here’s my progress on it at the end of the year.

Fifteen Friends: Jane Ann 1871 (what I typically refer to as just “Jane Ann”) is a Bristol sampler I was reproducing and I started the model stitch for it on my birthday in 2022. She was stitched with Soie Surfine 2523 on 56ct Hogbristle by Fox & Rabbit.

Here’s how she was looking at the end of the year.

So that’s my wrap up of my starts and finishes for 2022. Of course, I worked on a number of other WIPs and tried to move them a little bit closer to being finishes. Hopefully 2023 will bring a few more WIPs off my WIP list!

It’s been so long since I blogged, I almost forgot to add my gratitude statement! I am grateful for stitching friends that lure me into SALs, the beginning of a new reproduction, and another year of dark stitching.