Year of Projects 2021-2022 Roundup!

So this once-a-year round-up post has been a favorite post of mine for the last 6 years, but I'm realizing that several of my regular visitors at this point might be unaware that for the past seven years I've participated in a blogging community called Year of Projects (aka YOP).  This is a group of knitters and crocheters and weavers and various other fiber crafters who come together from around the world on a site called Ravelry and encourage each other through our blogs as we pursue our common (and some uncommon) handcrafts.

By this point I think I've slid almost completely off the radar of the group in terms of my actual participation, but my handcrafts of choice do still remain crochet, knitting, and cross stitching/embroidery - even though I haven't been very active at any of those things for many months now.  

In looking back at my record of what I've actually completed over the last 12 months, I see I have very little to show, but wanting to complete my 7th YOP year, I've rounded up pictures of what I have done.  

I started the YOP year with a bang by finishing probably my all-time favorite project:

Mr. Fox was kind of hard to let go, but it was made as a gift so as soon as I finished him (and took some pictures), I packed him up and mailed him off to his new owner.

One of the other projects I had begun a year or so earlier was to work at completing as many as I can (or want to) of the small doilies in the book, 99 Little Doilies.

I managed to add six more to my small collection of little doilies:

And before I was done crocheting with thread and tiny hook, I finished three medium sized doilies:

When I show doilies I've made I am often asked how I use them.  I don't use them all at once, but I often tuck one into a little vignette on a table top, or place one or two together at a jaunty angle under a collection of pictures in frames, or peeking out  at an angle under a potted plant.  Hubs then comes along and "straightens them out" and much to my dismay I find them later no longer looking "artsy", or like something fun and surprising.   I've often thought some day I may put a several together and create something unique, but by the time I have enough to do that, the idea will probably be so ordinary I'll not want to do it anymore.  That tends to be how I roll.

And finally, this spring I pushed myself to finish an afghan I had begun for my youngest son - I believe in 2020:

And that's it!  Even though it wasn't a prolific year of crafting, it's still fun to pull together this post and see what I managed to finish - all in one place.    

While I think I've figured out a way to possibly get back to cross stitching to some degree, I'm planning on stepping back from the YOP group at least for the upcoming 12 months.  It seems an obvious decision since I don't envision having anything regular to show for who knows how long.  That said, I will continue to enjoy watching what my favorite YOPers are up to, and plan to continue visiting your blogs.

Anyway...  I wanted to kind of explain this post to some of my newer visitors - since it isn't like anything that's shown up here for much of the last 12 months.  

And this post wraps up my 7th Year of Projects year, and that alone feels like something of an accomplishment.  I just can't believe that many years have flown by so quickly.  But ain't that always the way it goes. 

It's been a fun 7 years!