2025 Year in Stitches (and glue)

Since I started keeping a spreadsheet stitch diary a couple of years ago, it makes it a lot easier to figure out how much I've done over the year and how it compares to the other years - and I definitely managed to squeeze in more stitching in 2025. (Probably because my brain needed the decompression/distraction more this year... as exhausting as 2024 physically, 2025 exceeded it mentally.) I had a very full ort bowl this time around!



I didn't set a lot of goals last year, but I did accomplish one that I explicitly stated and I got a little ways towards the other. The first was finishing my calendar magnets, so now I have the whole year all done! I should have changed up a couple of the lighter colors (or used the darker perforated paper), but all in all, I'm happy with how they turned out.



And the other was a partial success - I still have A LOT of things that need to be fully finished, but I did managed to frame three projects, two of which had been pinned for ages. (The other was the Mill Hill "Moonlit Kitties", which was on perforated paper, so pretty easy to slap into a frame.) I also bought a point driver to do the final finishing on the custom frames I've been ordering. So, here are the fully finished versions of "Moonlit Kitties" (stitching finished last year), "Wonders of Space" (stitching finished in 2020), and "Halloween Fairy" (stitching finished in *cough cough* 2010). "Wonders of Space" will be going to work eventually, assuming I still have some room on my office walls for it. And I'm so happy with the frame I chose for "Halloween Fairy"! Oh - and I fully finished "Panic at the Desko", which was my final finish of 2024 (and that one is at work already and has received quite a few chuckles).









I also finished a few WIPs this year, including two of the Cricket Collection seasons, "Spring" and "Winter". I worked on "Winter" a little at the beginning of the year, but then finished the stitching in December. "Spring" was a start in 2023, which I worked on some more in 2024, but then I was able to really get some work on it in 2025 and finish it. Part of that was that I finally figured out the type of stand that I *really* needed to work on these wide designs. And not surprisingly, it was another product from Ukraine! Now I just have "Summer" to finish (which I started this year) and I'll have all four seasons hanging in the closet waiting to be framed. :) I also finished "S'Mores, Anyone?" (started in 2023) and "Mediterranean Flavors" (a Dimensions kit, started in 2021). I switched out the kit fabric on "Mediterranean Flavors" and I now wish I had used a slightly lighter floss for the shading half stitches, but I still think it loooks fine.









I also had a couple of small-to-medium sized projects that I started and finished this year. First up was "Jaws Sampler" in honor of the movie's 50th anniversary. I made a couple of color changes in this one on the guys' clothes to better match the colors in the movie (yes, I actually pulled it up on my computer and paused it and held up colors against the screen... I'm that much of a nerd) and I changed the colors on the waves around the edges to be a gradient since I thought it would look cool (and I'm happy with how it turned out).



And I finally did two small autumn designs that I had kitted up ages ago - "Apple Pumpkin" and "Halloween Pumpkin Silhouette":





I also did four small Mill Hill Kits (and started a larger one, "Spooky Gate") - "Taco", "Enchanted Moon", "Taboo Kitty", and "Fall Fun" (taco picture coming later since it's at work):



And finally, I did the cute little "Purranormal Activity" from this year's Just Cross Stitch Halloween special issue:



I finished the May block in "A Year at Hawk Run Hollow" but haven't started any of the other months yet. Something for 2026! (I decided to put the whole piece of fabric in the photo so I can do similar progress pics as I continue on it - definitely the largest project I've ever done!) I also did a little more on "Sleepy Hollow" but was really struggling with it. I'm kind of tempted to scrap this version and start again on a different fabric, because I think that's what's holding me back from progressing more on it. I really like how it looks on that fabric, but I really struggle with 32-ct linen these days.





And the one major non-stitching project I did was to finally finish the miniature room kit that I started in 2024. I have two more that I purchased last year, but I'm going to hold of on starting those for a while. These are fun to do, but I think I'm going to have to explore some different types of glues and glue applicators before I do another (at least another with the variety of surfaces - plastic, paper, etc. - that this one had). I'm really happy with how it turned out though!





Goals for 2026

I have a couple of other WIPs that I didn't touch in 2025, and I think I can get at least a couple of them finished this year, if not more. After watching some year end WIP Parades on FlossTube, I realize that I have far, far fewer WIPs than the typical stitcher (assuming that's a representative sample), but I do tend to have far *older* charts, kits, projects, etc. than other people do. I have some 30-year-old kits in my stash! Maybe I'll pick one this year and start working through some of them (although I'm definitely modernizing the fabrics).

Most of my purchases in 2025 were from a fabric of the month club and buying DMC and specialty floss to kit up some charts that I hope to start on soon, including some Nora Corbet fairies, more Hawk Run Hollow designs, and a couple of the Cricket Collection month designs (since I'm nearly finished with the seasons). So I'll probably start a few of those projects once I finish getting all of the floss.

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you all have a good crafty year!

2024 Wrap-up!

As I expected, I didn't get as much time to stitch this year was I would have liked, but I did get a little done here and there. And I did a few other crafty things, including finally starting a miniature kit I bought a while back and doing by first book nook. I did have a couple of finishes this year and a couple of FFOs, including a finish of one of my longest WIPS!

FFOs and Other Finishes

I technically finished and FFOd the November calendar magnet at the end of 2023, but I didn't post it in last year's round-up, so here it is, along with the December one (which WAS finished in 2024). I also did the June one in 2024, but I'll wait and just add that to the final photo when all 12 months are done - hopefully by the end of 2025!



And as I was recovering from the all the work leading up to the solar eclipse (and then the event itself - which ended up just being one thing of the most exhausting work week I have had in quite a while), I started this quick stitch. I made a slight alteration in the text from the original and there is a goof in one of the greens, but I was too lazy/tired to unpick it, so I just left it as-is. I painted a hoop to fully finish it. This one definitely went to work!



And towards the end of the year, I FINALLY finished the Mill Hill "Moonlit Kitties" kit that I started about 12 years ago. It was one of several projects that languished when my eyes started going downhill, and then I was having trouble holding it while stitching even once I got the eyeball situation sorted. The last key to me finally getting this project done was seeing on Flosstube - and then buying - these wonderful wooden magnetic frames that seem to have originated with crafters in Ukraine (see below). I've started to see more people making them, but I made a point to get mine from Ukrainian sellers to support them. (It's ironic that I had problems with all three of them arriving safely at my house - not because they were coming from a literal war zone... all of the issues were with the US postal service!) I think I'm just missing one size now, so I'll probably go ahead and order it just to complete the set. :) There was one panic moment at the finish of Moonlit Kitties because I wasn't sure where the pumpkin button was since I had started the project so long ago, but thankfully I found it on a project bag with some other Mill Hill kits.




One final finish, which I put the last stitch in on December 31, is this cute pattern I got from Happy Sloth Patterns on Etsy. Needless to say, once this one is FFOd, it's going to work. I finally pulled out one of the DMC variations threads to use for the rug on this one. I like the effect!



Starts and WIPs (that I actually worked on)

I started The Cricket Collection's "Winter" and worked some more on "Spring" in 2024 ("Autumn" was completed a couple of years ago, but isn't framed yet, and "Summer" is eventually going to happen). You can't really see it in the photo, but the snowman is sparkly! I used whatever blending filament was called for, so I got a reminder in how annoying they can be to stitch with... but in person the effect is really nice.





And for my other big start of the year, I finally decided to start a Hawk Run Hollow design! I started "A Year at Hawk Run Hollow" with the May block, and this was how far I got in the month of May (which was when I took a bit of time off work in a vain attempt to use up vacation hours so I don't lose them).



Other Crafts

I'll hold off on posting a picture of the miniature kit until it's complete, but here's a photo of my first Book Nook. I saw this while browsing and had to buy it since I've become quite the Van Gogh fan in recent years and "Cafe Terrace at Night" and "Starry Night" are my favorites of his paintings.



I'm not going to detail all of the stash aquisition for the year since I'm not even sure I can, other than going through my purchases at 123Stitch and Etsy - suffice to say, there were quite a few of them! But I did want to mention that I joined a fabric of the month club, this time through Be Stitch Me, even though I really don't need a bunch more fabric - I can't help myself! I recently changed the fabric choice from the mix of colors and neutrals to opalescent colors to build up my sparkle collection. I think I'll end the subscription at the end of 2025 though since I have quite the fabric stash now and I'm still not stitching enough to really work my way through it.

Goals for 2025!

I'm going to try to get the remaining five calendar magnets done in the first part of the year - if nothing else, I'll do them in the month they reprensent (January-May). Now that I have the brilliant Ukrainian magnet frames, I think they will go much faster. (Although it's not like they take all that long anywyay... at least they shouldn't!)

One other thing that I'm really going to try to do this year is to fully finish more of my projects, especially framing some of the larger ones. I even already have four of them pinned on boards - I just need to get off my butt and order some frames! There are one or two pieces that I might take the plunge and have professionally framed, assuming I can find a person in town who has good experience with framing needlework pieces. (This is a big town, so I'm sure such a person exists, it's just a matter of actually locating them.)

I haven't really decided what else to single out for my 2025 goals stitching-wise, so like in 2024, I'll probably just go where my interests take me!

2023 Wrap-up and plans for 2024

It's the end of yet another year and time to check in on the stitching that I managed to do in 2023. Considering that all of the WIPs that I had pictures of in last year's wrap-up are not only still WIPs, they are WIPs with the exact same amount of stitching in them since I didn't touch any of them... that gives you a bit of a clue as to how things went in 2023. But I did manage to do some stitching - and even finished a few things - and started a couple of projects that will just get added to the WIP pile as we head into 2024. One other thing I did this year was to keep a stitch diary on a spreadsheet (as opposed to a written journal) which made it much easier to track what I stitched this year so I could do this write-up! There was a fair amount of stash aquisition this year, but a lot of it was for organizing things (mostly threads and beads). Once I get it all finished, I'll post some photos!

Other than the magnets below, this was my only FFO for the year (stitching finished in 2022) - it's probably going in my office at work.



Although it took me a whole year to post about it, I did finish "Autumn" from The Cricket Collection not too long into the new year (February), so it is hanging the closet with a bunch of other things waiting to be fully finished. Here's a photo of the completed stitching (click for larger version):



And I did Caterpillar Cross Stitch's "British Isles Sampler" stitch-along and mostly kept up with it month-by-month. Sorry that the color of the background fabric gets a little weird toward the left... I was trying to get it into some natural light for the photo but I couldn't quite get the whole thing in. It's also hanging in the closet waiting to be framed - maybe something to try to concentrate on in 2024! (click for larger version)



One little thing I did was "Moonlight Nessie" by Lola Crow Cross Stitch (purchased on Etsy). Since this one was on a very dark fabric it prompted me to finally buy a new magnifying lamp that was brighter and had more magnification than my old one. This one is also waiting to be fully finished (once I decide what I wante to do with it).



And finally, I started doing each month of Tiny Modernist's "Folk Calendar" on perforated paper to make magnets to put on the giant metal filing cabinets in my office. I back them with felt and then glue a ~1-inch long section of a strip magnet on them. Here are the four that I've finished (and fully finished!) so far:



And the new starts from this year that will finish 2023 as WIPS are:

"Spring" by The Cricket Collection - not much done here yet! The fabric has slightly more of a greenish tint than you can see in the photo.



"S'Mores Anyone?" by Lola Crow - this one benefitted from the new craft lamp! I stalled on it a little when I got to the part with the blended threads (not my favorite). But I expect to get back to this one in 2024 and hopefully finish it. (Wow, you can really see all the lint on that black fabric...)



And finally, I started "Hayride Happenings" by Blue Ribbon Designs when I was in the mood to stitch something autumnal after Halloween. But I didn't get a lot of stitching time for the rest of the month, so I didn't get too far.



Plans for 2024

To be honest, for the first few months of 2024, my goal will be to find some time for ANY stitching. I realize that a very busy and stressful time is exactly when I should try to find more time to stitch, but who knows if I'll manage to make it happen. If I do actually get any stitching done in early 2024, most likely I'll keep working on the Tiny Modernist "Folk Calendar" magnets since they are small and go fast, so I'll feel like I've actually accomplished something. After that - who knows? I think I'll just work on things that I feel like stitching on instead of trying to follow a plan. Maybe if things ever manage to slow down at work (HA!) I'll try WIPGO or something like that in the years to come.

I think that's about it for 2023 - Happy New Year!

A look back at 2022 and a look forward to 2023!

Just like everyone else, I find myself at the end of a year wondering where the time went! Especially the last two weeks since I'm not ready to go back to work on Monday.

I had one finish since my last post - I had hoped to get it done by Halloween, but I didn't quite make it (it was a fast stitch, but I wasn't getting a whole lot of stitching time). This is "Candy Corn of Mischief" from Bent Creek, which I purchased as a kit and was stitched with pearl cotton over 2 on 20ct raw linen. It was fun to mix things up with a different kind of thread and fabric count that I'm used to!



And I *almost* managed to get "Autumn" by The Cricket Collection done before the end of 2022 - I had originally hoped to get it done before the actual end of autumn itself - but there isn't a whole lot left. Since I'm so close to a finish, I'll just post an update in the new year once I'm done.

Older Works in Progress

Since it's customary on Flosstube to end and/or start a year with a WIP parade, I decided to pull out all of the projects in my WIP basket (and the two that are too big for it) to take progress photos and discovered that I had far fewer on the go than I thought! Although a number of those projects have been in progress for several years so I probably should actually try to make some progress on them in 2023. I think part of the reason I thought there were more things in progress was that I had a couple of projects that I abandoned, mostly to restart because I wasn't happy with how the stitching was coming out on the fabics I had chosen, so they aren't WIPs at the moment. Well, one is, which I'll talk about below.

These two biggies in my WIP pile that I didn't touch last year are the Janlynn "Fairy House" and the Glendon Place "Sleepy Hollow". Part of the reason that Sleepy Hollow has stalled is that I'm still trying to find a comfortable way to stitch on it, so I'm giving Rolaframes a try. Here are the status pics for those two, along with the pictures of what the final version will look like:





And poor "Moonlit Kitties" by Mill Hill has managed to go another year with barely any stitching on it (but I *did* do some!) - maybe this would be a good one to try to finally finish next year. I'm not sure why this one is taking me so long, especially given how quickly I make it through the small Mill Hill kits!



I think I stitched a bit on "Tudor Cottage" by Cross My Heart at the beginning of the year, but then set it aside for some reason or another. This is another one that I might try to focus on getting finished next year.



I worked a little more on another of the "Christmas Kitties" kit that I picked up AGES ago. I finished that first cat quite a while ago but then didn't pick it back up to work on any of the other ones until just in the past year or so. (Ignore the slightly yellow-ish tinge to the image - I forgot to color correct for the lamp I had shining on the table.)



I did a little stitching on the Dimensions kit "Mediterranean Flavors", but not a whole lot of progress. This is another that might finish up quickly if I concentrate on it since the part that I *have* stitched didn't take all that long. Although there will be quite a bit of backstitching when I get to that point.



The last two are a couple of things that I haven't done much on at all - the starts were mostly just a test to see if I liked how it looked. The first is the restart of Celtic Seasons, this time with 1 strand of floss instead of two. I'm still not sure how well the backstitch will show up, but I should be able to tell if I like it when I get a bit more of the light green on the right done.



And finally, the 3-D cottage kit that I bought ages ago, but only started recently... although I somehow managed to not put it on my tracking spreadsheet so I'm not exactly sure when. I've really been wanting to try a 3-D stitching project, so I might give this one some more love in 2023.



And last but not least - my ort jar (or bowl) for the year! And because I was amused at what it looked like when I took the threads out, a photo of that too.



Plans for 2023

I would REALLY like to make some progress on both of my really big projects - Sleepy Hollow and Fairy House - and maybe finish up some of the smaller ones, especially the Tudor Cottage magnet and Moonlit Kitties since they both have a fair amount of progress already. Given how few WIPs I have compared to a lot of the stitchers I follow on YouTube and Instagram, I probably shouldn't feel all that guilty about what I have. Although I would say the AGE of some of my WIPs isn't as common, I've noticed. I just chuckle when I hear someone say that have "such an old WIP" and it's from 2019 or so. I have a few things that I'm pretty sure are about 10 years old at this point, and in the past I've had things that were WIPs for even longer!

On new projects, my goal is to do the rest of the Cricket Collection seasons this year, since I've discovered they actually stitch up pretty quickly. And maybe, just maaayyyybbbeeeee, I'll finally start to tackle a Hawk Run Hollow design... most likely Autumn or Year at Hawk Run Hollow.

I'm sure in between some of these larger things will be more Mill Hill kits since I can't resist those and they stitch up so fast! And I've already pulled out a couple of small things to work on after I finish "Autumn" and before the fabric for "Winter" arrives. One is a freebie that I'm going to use to test a potential fabric for a Hawk Run Hollow. I have a feeling that it is going to be too rough and thick for such a large project, but we'll see how I like stitching on it with this small design.

One other thing that I would really like to do is finally get some of my older finished projects *fully* finished, mostly framing. I have 4 or 5 all pinned and ready to go, I just need to choose and/or order the frames. And some of those have now been finished for something like 15 (or more?) years, so it's time to finally get those things on the walls!

I think that's it for 2022! I hope everyone has a good stitching year in 2023 (myself included!)!

Crafty catch-up

I need to start finding more creative titles for these posts. 😁

As I expected, my stitchy/crafty productivity of the early-to-mid pandemic fell off as everything at work started getting back to normal. And by normal, I mean completely hectic. And then I moved in May, which certainly didn't help (especially with a longer commute)! But the positive side of the move is that I finally have a real home office/craftroom/library and I'll eventually post some pictures of that once I get things a little more to the final layout and organization I'm aiming for. It's actually not that far off right now but I'd really like to replace one of the tall cabinets with some shelving instead so I can SEE my stuff all the time. Even if I don't have as much time to use the stuff, I can at least look longingly at it on the days I work from home.

FFOs

I actually have a few FFOs since my last update, several of which were stitched, finished, and FFOd this year. I also finished and FFOd the Sun and Moon Mask by Olga Antropova that I posted as a WIP back in January. I made a few small changes to the backstitching and extended the beading from the design to make the hanger. You can see that here:



My next set of finishes were my Tiny Van Gogh paintings by XStitch Obsession on Etsy. I decided to do them on perforated paper, so I had to make a small adjustment to the backstitching on Cafe Terrace. They are all backed with felt and made into magnets and are currently stuck on a filing cabiet at work.



And an FFO from just last week - yet another Mill Hill kit! This is the second of their butterfly designs that I've done and I'll be on the lookout for more to go with the ones I've already done.



Finishes

I have a few stitching finishes that need to be FFOd, but I'm still making decisions about that. So here are the stitched pieces in the meantime!

First up is Wakanda Forever by Parkhopper Bart. I made one main color change since I really wanted to use this fabric and the original yellow (which I changed to green) just completely disappeared on it. I also changed the original white around the Black Panther mask to silver Kreinik braid. This one will probably end up framed eventually, and maybe I can get it to fit in a standard frame size!



Next is a cute little picture I bought on Etsy from Craft Time in Arkham and it will probably end up in a hoop frame and will go to my office. I made a small goof on this and did the backstitching on the dino in black instead of the dark-grey-green-blue it was supposed to be. And I did the lettering with flower thread since it's a little bit thicker.



And finally, Nightmare Before Coffee, from the 2021 Just Cross Stitch Halloween magazine. I had this nice orange-y fabric from Fortnight Fabrics that I really wanted to use for this, but the lettering kind of got a little lost, so I outlined it in a medium orange color. I probably should have used a slightly darker shade, but I think it will show up okay with decent lightling (which I didn't have when I took the photo). This is the one that I'm still trying to decide how to do the final finishing on, but I'm leaning towards a little flatfold since this will probably end up in my office too, over by my little coffee-making area.



WIPs

I didn't take photos of my WIPs today, but I have a couple of things that I've been working on since I finished the Mill Hill butterfly. I'm still slowly making my way on Mill Hill Moonlit Kitties, which I'm pretty sure I've been plugging away on for about 10 years at this point. (Admittedly, there were several years of almost no stitching while my eyes got gradually worse.) I've also started on a little kit by Bent Creek called Candy Corn of Mischief that I ordered a month or so ago and it just arrived this past Friday. It's stitching up pretty fast so that might be a finish next time!

Haul

I won't detail all of the stash aquisitions I've made so far this year - and there has been quite a bit of it - but I did want to mention that joined the Fortnight Fabrics "Oodles of Ornaments" fabric club for 2022 so I've expanded my selection of fabrics for smalls. Expect even more ornaments in the years to come!

That's it for this catch up post. I'll try to get at least one more update in before the end of the year - which is approaching rapidly!