WIPocalypse Year End

Apparently I was so busy stitching ornaments in November that I forgot to blog at all, so this will be very photo heavy. This months question is:
Recap your accomplishments for the year! (Your finishes, your final before/after photos, etc).

I had a really good year for stitching I started off the year with the goal of finishing the Fractal, which I did,

I originally planned on starting another big project (Angel of the Harvest) right away but then decided that maybe this was a good time to back off a bit and so some more small stuff, So I did.  Including a ton of ornaments. Also note, I have never managed to make the photo's sit properly on this site, I give up, they are everywhere.

My favorite of the ornament binge was the Nutcracker Suite from Satsuma Street, I loved these ones so much I bought a tree just for them.

Another thing I just finished was the blackwork SAL Mini-Mandala-a-Month from  Brodeuse Bressane of course I had to be a little extra and provide an appropriate border for the lovely things

At the moment I've got my usual two things on the go, Narnia

And a Mill Hill Polar Bear kit, been doing this one a while, soooooo much white.

As for what I watched


Critical Role: and Talks Machina 

We’re Alive: Frontier - Another role playing game from Alpha this one is a futuristic Zombie survival game

The Librarians S01 and 02   Watching all the commentaries first as like with Leverage, these are wonderful commentaries and a really good adventure                                                           series in general

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines - Second Movie in the trilogy, also a lot of fun.

The Librarian III - The Curse of the Judas Chalice - I think this is my favorite of the three movies, good story and the characters are far more fleshed out

Footloose - For me, this is a perfect movie, I feel good anytime I watch it.  Also I believe this was the start of my life long crush on Kevin Bacon

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms - Not bad, but not great either, it’s pretty, but the story doesn’t really track a lot of the time,  it’s kind of a cross between The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Santa Clause 2.

For Your Consideration - By the same people that made Best in Show, it’s not a good as that one, but still a fun movies about an indie film that starts getting oscar buzz and the way the actors react to that knowledge

Frozen - Still magical as ever

The Full Monty - Unemployed steel workers decide to earn money by stripping, this is a British movie so that means this isn’t about some hot young studs but just some average blokes and it is all sorts of awesome

Fantastic Beasts: the Crimes of Grindelwald - A solid addition to the story, my only complaint about this is that I took my mother who is a huge Harry Potter fan but a little hard of hearing, and both Eddie Redmayne and Johnny Depp (in everything, not just this) tend to mumble and speak without opening their mouths which made it very hard for her to follow the story.  She says the she’ll just wait for the rest of them to come out on DVD and watch with subtitles.

All the regular Christmas movies, nothing new this year so refer to previous Decembers

Mortal Engines - A good post apocalyptic movie, made me want to find and read the book, so job done I guess

October, but in November

Oops, missed that deadline, good thing it's not a strict one. 
So here is the October WIPocalypse blog,  The Question of the Month is
Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time?
I am very much a one project at a time person, though technically I usually have two, one upstairs which is usually a small project as I really only stitch upstairs when watching Jeopardy or Curling.  I do most of my stitching downstairs where the light is better so that is where my BAP usually lives, and I almost always finish one thing before I start the next. There are exceptions to that rule such as the Mandala of the Month

 I've been doing this year which I do the first Thursday of the month, the Halloween SAL will cause my to set aside my BAP until they are finished, and sometime in November I set everything aside to make ornaments, because I love them.

I've been pretty busy for October, I finished the two Halloween SAL projects, both from Lucky Star Stitches 

Worked more on Mr. Tumnus

But have now officailly put that aside to do ornaments, already finished this one which is two sided. 

I have two Secret Santa exchanges that I will need ornaments for and then the rest will just be for fun, and probably gifts.

As for what I watched


Critical Role: and Talks Machina 

Between the Sheets - an excellent interview program of the Critical Role cast

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 3 Wow this series was a good as I’d heard.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - I’m not sure what I
think about Johnny Depp being in the Potter franchise but other than that I love how this expands the world,

Field of Dreams - So a man builds a ball field in the middle of a crop of corn because a voice tells him too, and then it gets even stranger. But on the other hand, this movie is perfect in every way

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - The story has great heaping plot holes but it’s still a good way to spend an afternoon, also it’s kind of fun to see what was cutting edge graphics 17 years ago

Finding Nemo - Is Pixar capable of putting out a bad movie? This is so fun and sweet and lovely and I will forever adore the “Mine” seagulls

The First Knight - I’ll be honest, the only reason I own this is because it came with A Knight’s Tale. I saw it in theatre in 1995 and haven’t watched it since until now.  It’s claims to be a story of Camelot, but the only resemblance to the legend is the names, but if you set that aside, it’s not a bad romantic adventure movie.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear - First movie in the Librarian trilogy that went on to be a delightful TV series.  It’s Indian Jones light and on a budget

Flight of the Navigator - A fun family friendly sci-fi from Disney in the 80’s and actually the story and special effects hold up quite well

All the Spooky stuff

Anyone remember when I used to update this once a week, now I struggle with once a month, if it weren't for WIPocalypse I'd never update at all.

So this months question is
How do you keep your stitching stash organized?
I have managed to keep it mostly in one room, the office, which is where I watch Netflix and Critical Role.  The office is where I do almost all my stitching because it has the best light in the house. The floss hiding in the desk, but most everything else is in this lovely cabinet that sits behind me.

My printer hangs out on top, the middle shelf hold all the fabrics, and the black boxes hold scraps and notions and my nail wraps.  The bottom has beads in the tower, more notions and floss in the boxes and pattern and magazines behind.  As you can see I don't have a huge stash.

September has been a good month for me aside from the killer cold that kept me doing anything for a week. The month started off with the Mandala, can't believe there's only 3 more to go.

Then it was time for the fair,  I work with the fruit but enter in photography and stitching,

I won third in photography for this shot of Emerald Lake in the experienced catagory, the hardest place to win so I was really pleased with that.

I made the Celtic Cross into a wall hanging so that I could enter it as well as the Fractal,  and both won first place in their categories,  Fractal also won best in show, I had a good fair.









Other things I worked on this month were these adorable little Spooky Critters from Brooke’s Books.  I also started a Polar Bear Mill Hill kit, but there is no picture as it is nothing but white on white at the moment.

 Carla and I worked on the Carla and Leonore's Halloween SAL on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and I finished both the Boo Cat and Velcome from Lucky Star Stitches
The big(ish) piece I started this month is Mr Tumnus, but Lesley Teare from the March 2013 Cross Stitch Gold Magazine. The Narnia series are my favorite books so I've been wanted to find time to do this one, and I found the perfect fabric for it hiding in my stash.

As for What I Watched

Critical Role: and Talks Machina 

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 and S3 Ep 01-06- This is a really well done series

Salvation - Season 1 - Disaster TV show, the only question is why it took me so long to get to this.  Lots of fun, decent story line and some really good characters, on to Season 2

Fantasia - Less of a movie, more an experience, an amazing one that I can rewatch again and again

Fantasia 2000 - As good as the original but this one includes two of my all t
ime favorite pieces of music. Gershin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Stravinsky’s Firebird

Downsizing - I missed this one when it came to theatres, interesting concept, people willingly make themselves small to save the environment, some parts were really predictable other parts very original

Fantastic Four - The one from 2005ish this one is definitely elevated by having Chris Evans as the Torch,

The House With A Clock in it’s Walls - The screenplay for this was written by the creator of Supernatural, he was saying the book was one of the inspirations for Supernatural and was asking fans to check out the movie, until he did that this movie wasn’t on my radar at all, glad he did as it was excellent.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Typical in every way, but not a bad way to spend the afternoon