New Year, New Stitching Plan

This stitcher doesn't like goals or deadlines. I stitch for pleasure and to hang really cool stuff on my walls. I believe this to be a noble endeavor.

So 2007 is going to start with a wee bit of a stitching rotation but nothing set in stone. Rules are made to be broken and most of my stitching plans are all out of whack a couple of weeks into the year but I believe this "rotation" I've got planned will work out fairly well for me for a little while at least.

Mondays are for Mouline Rouge and a TW project. Chances are the TW will only see an hour or two at the most on Mondays. I have to be in certain frame of mind to work on a TW. I would love to have MR finished sometime this year. On Tuesday I completed the first motif in the top left corner that I started last January. I do believe devoting one day a week to this project I'll make good progress. I've spent the last year following Carol's and Jo's progress on their various SALs and they've both finished several good sized projects this year.

Tuesdays are for By the Bay's 13th Colony Bay, Parts 1-3 all on the same piece of fabric. I want this to be my first big finish of 2007. I want it on my kitchen wall like yesterday.

Wednesdays are anything goes.

Thursdays-By the Bay's 13th Colony Bay

Friday-wild card, anything I want

Saturday and Sundays are for My Missouri(Florida) Home SAL I'm in with some friends from my email loop.

I feel this is a pretty stick to it kind of rotation, not too disciplined, room for other projects, but enough of a plan to maybe keep me focused because my goal is to get this stuff on my walls! Stitching is supposed to be fun so I don't want to suck all the joy out of it but I do need a few guidelines or I'll never finish anything.

Along with the above mentioned projects I'm also working on CHS Strawberry Blonde and trying to get it finished ASAP so that I can start CHS Garden Glade. I'm obsessing over these designs at the moment. Not sure why, but they are what I want to be stitching and I will not start Garden Glade until I finish Strawberry Blonde.

If you want to see some walls full of major stitching, check out the Samplerfarmer link under "People who inspire me" there in the sidebar. Wander around that Webshots album and prepare to be awed. That's some serious stitching on those walls.

I read two great novels on my trip home to Memphis. My new favorite character, Jack Reacher from the Lee Child novels. All I can say is "Wow!" great books. I read Tripwire and Fatal Warning on the plane to and from Memphis and laying in bed when I was the only one awake in my dad's house and pinned in bed by a 150lb doberman. I became his new best friend. I'm currently reading The Enemy. I'm enjoying these books a lot. Great stories, good character development, love everything about this series.

I'm saving for a new sewing machine, my friend borrowed mine and told me it was beyond repair. She said it probably never worked when I got it but since I don't sew that much I didn't realize it-assumed it was my incompetence. I want to learn to sew. I want to do it well. I want to make the zippered clutch from Amy Butler's In Stitches book. I don't know why I have decided that I must sew, that my life will not be fullfilling if I don't conquer my fears of sewing and the sewing machine but I am going to be miserable until I rectify this situation. That's just all there is to it.

My knitting skills are improving and that makes me happy. I can set a project aside for a while, pick it up, remember to check right side and wrong side before I start knitting and manage to make my new stitches flow into my old stitches. That's pretty cool if you ask me. You see I used to forget to check the sides and just start knitting, that doesn't work out too well. It's kind of important information.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments about HOHRH. Kathy Barrick just rocks doesn't she? I love all her designs. I mean seriously, I can't think of any of her designs that I won't stitch. They are all fabulous.

Also thanks again for the sweet comments regarding my grandmother. This year will be rough. I talked to that woman a lot more than I ever thought I did. Apparently she was who I called for just about any information I needed about cooking or family gossip, so I reach for the phone often only to realize she won't be on the other end of the line. Breaks my heart, but that's life.