Happy 2024!

Happy New Year stitching friends! 

I had a great day yesterday participating in the 12x12 event hosted by Keabee on instagram. You can see my "before" video here showing my projects for the day, and the "after" video here showing the things I actually stitched.

It has been my tradition for many years to bring in the new year by sewing a New Year's Day mystery quilt. This year the mystery is called Mardi-Gras Magic and is designed by Kris at Scrapdash and is a wonderful quilt pattern (yes, I cheated and looked at the mystery ending!)

Some years I have been able to sew with friends, and some years we sewed together via the magic of zoom. Some of us sew the mystery, and some of us sew other projects. It's always a fun way to bring in the new year.

For the first time in many years, I am not sewing a new mystery on January 1st! I know, it's shocking! But I have all my pieces ready to sew for the Quiltville mystery and I'd really like to be caught up in January, so I am focusing on that project.

This turned out to be a good decision because Bonnie Hunter posted a surprise step on her blog today and I was able to make great progress on sewing the blocks.

Here are my first 12 blocks on the design wall. Don't think I'm being an overachiever here, since I still haven't finished steps #2 and #6! 

Tomorrow is back to work, so the stitching progress will be much slower, but it was a wonderful way to usher in beginning of 2024 with stitching by hand yesterday and today by machine.

I wish each and every one of you a wonderful year full of stitching, with lot of happy memories and adventures!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Slow Sunday Stitching - New Year's Eve

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! It's New Year's Eve today and the whole world will be preparing to wrap up 2023 and start a fresh year ahead.

In 2023 I naively entered the wonderful world of Flosstube and discovered so many interesting folks enjoying a wide variety of hand stitching - mostly cross stitch.  As a result, I experimented with a number of new products such as variegated hand dyed threads, and the world of Mill Hill kits which combines stitching with beading. There are so many amazing creative opportunities!

I recently heard about the 12 x 12 event started by Kea Bee. The idea is that on New Year's Eve you start 12 new projects, and starting at noon you put stitches into a new project every hour. That is a lot of new WIP's to add to a collection that is already too big! 

So I decided that I will try a variation of this idea and work on 12 projects, one each hour, but they will mostly be projects that I have already been working on. What better way to bring in 2024 than by stitching all day long!

I have spent time the past week on preparing to start a few new projects, but mostly working on WIP's. I put command hooks on the wall and hung up my projects so that I could put stitches into 12 projects today. I have spare ribs, carrots and potatoes in the crock pot for supper, so I have the whole day to stitch...I'm so excited! You can pop over to my Youtube channel to see what I plan to stitch today.

Are you ending 2023 with some hand stitching? We love to know what you're working on so tell us in the comments and/or link up your blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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