10 for Jo

In honor of her 10th Anniversary of blogging, my friend Jo of Serendipitous Stitching has invited her readers to write a “10 for 10” post. I’m happy to participate! Jo is such a welcoming, friendly, and thoughtful person, and is the hostess par excellence of blog hops throughout the year. Congratulations on your 10 years, Jo! It is a huge accomplishment! And without further ado, here are my 10 for 10 for you!

10th Finished Project (Posted On My Blog)

There were projects finished before I started blogging but I’m not sure how many, or if I even have pictures of them! So here is the 10th finish I posted after I started blogging, not including the pile of Mill Hill ornaments that started it all! Here is For the Birds by The Drawn Thread. I still love it!

10th Blog Post I Wrote

It is about a little Friendship project I made for a dear friend. I am happy it is my 10th post because since I gave it away I have just about forgotten I ever made it! And probably most of you never even saw it! I still think it was a quality finish and am quite pleased with how it came out. I’d make it again with different colors next time though.

10th Blog in Sidebar Blog Roll

Our friend Faith of Faithfully Stitching is the 10th blog in my list on the side over there!

A Designer Whose Work You’ve Stitched More Than 10 Times

I have stitched more than 10 Just Nans. Here are 10 of the JN smalls I’ve done, as many as I could gather up for a quick picture (I’ve also stitched 3 framed pieces):

I found out I’ve also stitched more than 10 from The Victoria Sampler (mostly those Beyond Cross Stitch kits)! That surprised me! But they are not handy for picture taking so you’ll just have to take my word for it!

A Project That Took/Is Taking 10+ Years to Complete

I admit it. I have one 10+ year old WIP: Peacock Tapestry by Theresa Wentzler. I don’t think I’ve ever even shared a picure of it before! I started this project in the fall of 2002 and worked diligently on it for a year (the year we lived in the Netherlands and Spain when I had loads of time on my hands). Then we moved back to the USA (Indiana), followed soon thereafter by a move to Arizona where I started grad school, and I sort of stopped stitching for several years. It had been sewn on a scroll frame and was packed up securely so I didn’t get it out, and I also didn’t start anything new at that time because I felt guilty not working on it. But clearly I’ve overcome THAT! I think all my other UFOs are a lot younger than 10 years! Back when I started it I told my husband it would be my “life project.” It might just take my whole life to do! I still love this piece. I need to figure out a more efficient way to work on it than the hunting and pecking color by color approach that I’ve used until this point. Should I get it out and get back to work on it in 2022? Vote below! Ha ha!

Project with “10” as a theme

The closest thing I can think of for this prompt is the Joyful World SAL, because I have not actually ever stitched a 10 days of Christmas chart (even though I love them!) So we’ll go with a calendar. Here is October, the 10th month, from the Snowflower Diaries’ Joyful World Calendar.

10th Color in Current WIPs

I’ll pick a few that are handy. 3 of the 4 are pretty blues!

Amy Mitten’s Summer Casket Butterfly: Mrs. Peacock from Fibers to Dye For (I love the “punny” names of all her colors!)

Strawberry Garden from BBD: I’m using Blue Cotton Frocks from Thread Gatherer but remember this is my conversion-it is supposed to be a color called Shamrock which is a little greener.

The Bargello Roll: NPI 561, the lightest blue in the set of 4 blues used in this design.

The Italian Peacocks Purse: It is supposed to be Dung Paper from Thread Gatherer but I subbed in Mocha from Gloriana since there is only a small amount and usually for me, brown is brown! Plus I didn’t want a color called Dung Paper in my stash so I didn’t want to buy it! Ha!

10th WIP in Current Projects List

I didn’t have a list of current WIPs ready, but in honor of this questionnaire, I decided to make one, and since I work on everything pretty randomly, I will just put it in alphabetical order. These are all the started designs in my stitching basket (ones that haven’t been totally relegated to UFO status):

Victoria Sampler Beyond Cross Stitch Learning Design

Bulles de Bonheur SAL from Lin Pulsion

Jenny Adin-Christie’s Butterfly Brooch

Elegant Lady’s Bargello Sewing Roll

Canevas Folies’ First Garden

Chatelaine’s Frosty Knotgarden

Hands Across the Sea’s I Bathya

GPA’s Italian Peacocks Purse

Janet Reid 1835 from Chessie and Me–I have only made a small start on this and I realize I have never shared it! It is a fun project. I’ll get it out to share with you soon.

Snowflower Diaries’ Joyful World Calendar

Blackbird Design’ s Strawberry Garden (Looks like this one is number 10! I worked on it a little bit to have a fresh picture to share with you in honor of this post.)

Summer Casket Keepsake Butterfly from Amy Mitten

So yes! Out of 11 “active-ish” WIPS the grand winner is Strawberry Garden. I am recalling it to a more active status. Let’s get ‘er done! I love this one!

10th finish of the year (2020)

I haven’t gotten 10 done yet this year, but last year my tenth finish was the March Hare from Just Nan. I even had FFO’d it. Super cute!

How your style has changed in 10 years

In the past 10 years I’ve discovered true needlework stores. More than 10 years ago I was stitching Dimensions and Janlynn kits from the big box craft stores, as well as Mill Hill kits, and I had recently discovered The Victoria Sampler on eBay when I was looking for more Mill Hill kits. It was all I knew! But then, probably in 2006 or 2007 The Attic just happened to be on my new route to work. I spent a year or so wondering what The Attic Needlework was all about. I finally had a chance to stop and go in, and be still my heart…everything changed! I have grown to really love samplers and primitive style designs especially those from La D Da and Blackbird Designs, the pretty and cute designs like those of Just Nan, and more challenging embroidery techniques as I discovered Inspirations Magazine and all the amazing needle artists on Instagram and Facebook. I don’t have a particular style at all. It just has be be beautiful or sweet to me to be worthy of my time and materials! And…I’ve definitely changed my approach to stitching. I used to be a one at a time girl. But now I’m totally comfortable and very happy with a good number of diverse WIPs going.

This has been such a fun post to write and to reflect on my stitching and share some things with you. Thank you so much, Jo, for all you do for our stitching/blogging community! Here’s to many more great years of sharing our stitches!

3 thoughts on “10 for Jo

  1. I enjoyed your “10” post so much, Mary. Especially enjoyed seeing those lovely finishes of yours–I do love that DT bird piece so much. I’m quite sure I have it somewhere in my stash–really do need to get more of my older treasures stitched. Hope you have a wonderful day!

  2. Thanks for joining in with my celebrations! I loved reading about your ten tens, of course Just Nan had to be in there. Such a sweet collection of designs.
    I love looking back at older blog posts too, sometimes I laugh at my ambition “I’ll finish this by the end of the year”. Ms Hindsight says “no, you did not”!
    I definitely think the Teresa Wentzler needs some attention, it’s a beautiful design and you’ve done a lot already.

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