I realized today that I never checked in for January on the Theme-a-licious challenge Heather is hosting this year. Oops! 
I’ll try to do a better job in February! Since it’s also WIPcalypse update time again, I figured I would just combine them into a single post to make things easier for me. 
The first piece I’ll report on is just for WIPocalypse and covers Celtic Christmas. I spent about a week after the last update just plugging along on her and making some great progress. Unfortunately, when I was in Vegas with Terri and Annette in mid-January, I discovered I’d made a colossal error in her skirt at some point and had completely left out three rows in the middle of it, so nothing was lining up as it should have. As a result, I ended up frogging ~600 stitches from her skirt. This means I actually made negative progress on her this month. 
Progress as of January 7, 2012
Progress as of January 15, 2012
As you may notice from the photo caption, I haven’t worked on my Celtic Christmas piece in nearly a month now. It was so disheartening having to frog so many stitches that I just needed to put her down for a while and work on something else instead.
The something else I chose to work on was Hannah Beeby 1816. Not only was it on my WIPocalypse list, but it would also satisfy the January Jardin Theme-a-licous goal since I knew there was a flower motif I could stitch.
I started this sampler three or four years ago as a Stitch-a-Long. So far, I think only two of the original stitchers in the SAL (Carol and Heidi) have actually finished it. 
After some serious stitching time over the past week or so, I’m finally starting to make some real progress!
Progress as of 31 December 2011
Progress as of 5 February 2012
In other stitching news, Tracy surprised me with an early birthday present on Thursday! She gifted me with the Stargazer chart from Mirabilia as well as a $50 gift certificate to Needlecraft Corner. I’ve had the Stargazer chart on my wish list ever since it came out, so I’m excited to finally have it! I used a gift card I got for Christmas to pick up some fabric (Angel Dust) from Jo over at Polstitches. I’m going more for an early morning/twilight look instead of the typical evening/dusk look that many folks do with this design. Here’s a mock-up of the look I’m going for:
Stargazer on Angel Dust Fabric
Well, that’s my January Theme-a-licious and February WIPocalypse updates. The current Theme-a-licious goal is Fangirl February which means stitching on designs from your favorite designer(s). My current designer du jour is Nora Corbett from Mirabilia, so I’m planning to put in some work on my Lady Alexandra WIP. Since she’s also on my WIPocalypse list, this will be another two-fer month for me. 
Until next time …
