WIPocalypse - Year in review

Well, it's the 31st of December and 2019 is nearly over. We are celebrating the new year with some friend and we are leaving for their house in a bit more than an hour, so I will try and squeeze in my end of the year report for WIPocalypse. The original posting day was on Sunday, but since I did a fair bit of stitching in the last days (I am having some time off from work), I waited until today with my check in. But a couple of other people already wrote their entries, so be sure to check those out here.

So how was my year? It was not always easy, especially the trouble with my right hand and all the pain and medication, but the situation improved a lot after I went to hospital to get treatment for chronic pain and I am off my medication for several months now, sometimes I still have a bit of trouble (lifting heavy things, opening jars and writing on a blackboard for more than an hour in [almost] one go), but I am very optimistic that things will go back to normal gain.
On the sunny side there was my wedding in September, certainly one of the best days in my year and life and even though the time before was quite stressful, it was worth it all. Also our honeymoon in Greece was wonderful. We spent a lot of time with friends and family (even the situation with my mother in law improves - no socks for Christmas, she finally got it!) and my phd thesis is working out as well.

On the hobby site, I am fairly happy with the amount of reading I did in 2019 (134 books, including like 20 audiobooks) and I read a lot of fantastic books. There are only a few books I didn't like at all and I think only one or two books I did not finish because really didn't enjoy them. Please don't ask me how many books I bought, I can just tell you that it's way more, lol :D
On the stitchy side, I worked on 16 of my bigger projects (out of I think 27) and I am currently stitching an ornament) and I did 68 182 stitches on my full coverage projects (54 582 on projects for WIPocalpyse and 13 600 on projects for the GG SAL). I only had 2 new starts (3 if we count that ornament) and no finishes (what else?) and I bought 5 new charts and (I think) 6 kits, so I have been a good girl!
But you are here for some pictures, right? So let's have a look at what I did. I am just following the order in which I made note on the projects (like stitchcount) in my journal, it's approximately the order in which I worked on them

First up is my 2019 new year start Noble Spirit by Jody Bergsma. Since I started this in January, I don't have a before picture. But I did 4500 stitches and here is my progress:

Second is my focus piece Kriemhilds Revenge by Howard David Johnson. I did 20 097 stitches on her and finished the 5th row of pages in early December. At the beginning of the year she still looked like this:

And now:

Number 3 is one of my supersize projects - Ride of the Yokei by Ruth Thompson. I did 1 860 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 4 is one of my Quick stitches - QS Paddys Luck by Joana Bromley. I finished the first row of pages by doing 5 440 stitches. Before:

And now:

Number 5 is Starlight by David Hoffrichter. I did 1 680 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 6 is Danielle by Sara Butchere, I did 2 400 stitches on her and went from here:

To here:

Number 7: Garden Gate by Done Gelsinger, also a new start for this year and therefore no "before" picture. But I stitched 2 400 little crosses on it:

Number 8 is my second supersize project and actually not a haed, but a Golden Kite: Crossing the stream. I did 3 350 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 9 is again a Quickstitch, this time  QS Trapped by Melanie Delon. I finished the first row of pages and did 5 200 stitches. Before:

and now:

Number 10 is again by Melanie Delon, but it's Whispers. I stitches 4 960 stitches and went from here:

To here:

Number 11 is Yule Angel by Anne Stokes, I don't think I shared my progress for December yet, but I did  2 695 stitches on her and guess what? I found one of her wings! I went from here:

To here:

Now here are some projects on which I did not count my stitches. Number 12 is Cliffside Beacon from the Dimensions Gold petite collection. I went from here:

To here:

Number 13 is Miss Christmas Eve by Mirabilia. I put her on the frame on the 25th and since then I did some work on her skin and her head. I did the first stitches with the Caron Waterlilies and the colors are just gorgeous! I went from here:

To here:

And I am throwing in that Mill Hill ornament I am stitching, I started this some time before Christmas. I already did all the crossstitching, so the beading fun can begin in the new year!

It is called "Woodland sleigh" and I think I own all the sleigh ornaments form the collection, they are so pretty! I will definitely bead this in the next days and it will look amazing then! 

The other three projects on which I worked are Wolf Kiss by Dimensions (not counting the stitches here), In the Moonlight by Cindy Grunsten and charted by Tilton crafts (1 600 stitches) and my Map of Middle Earth (12 000 stitches), but I worked on those for the GG SAL and shared my final updates on them last week. 

Well, those are the things I worked on. There are a buch of projects on which I did not work and even more on which I would have liked to work more, but considering my health issues, I am super happy with what I did and I am super optimistic that I am going to stitch a storm in 2020 =) 

I must confess that I did make a few goals at the beginning of the year, but when I realized that the issue with my hand would slow me down, I decided to forget about them and just work on what I felt like working on. I wanted to make a start in row 6 on Kriemhild, but at least I finished row 5, so that was a close one. I also finished the first row of pages on both Paddy Luck and Trapped (but did not finish the next page on Trapped). I only stitched one instead of two pages on Crossing the Stream and Ride of the Yokai has only 12 500 stitches instead of 15 000 complete and Cliffside Beacon is still not finished. But those things don't really bother me, I did my best and that is what counts.

Since we need to leave for our friends house soon, I am ending this extra long post now and hope you are all as happy with your year in review as I am. I hope you all have a great 2020 and a lot of health, happiness and stitching time =)

See you next year =)