January Ornament

I had this kit in my stash and I stitched it for my 15 month old grandson. It took longer than I anticipated. I am still not good at judging how long some of these small projects will take. I will finish it with a red felt backing and a green ribbon hanger.

Exciting

It is very exciting that my youngest son got accepted to the college and program of his choice. My husband and I are so happy for him.

It is exciting to watch my two grandsons ( ages 7 and 15 months) play with their new set of golf clubs (actually only the putters were allowed inside the house).

It was more exciting watching my older son jump up out of his chair every time the 15 month old approached the large screen tv swinging his putter.

It is exciting to have my husband home from a trip he was on. I missed him.

Revamping My Stitching Plans

I initially set the goal to stitch two hours a day. At that rate I will finish my stitching at a lot slower rate that I originally planned. That means updating my stitching rotation. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am a one at a time stitcher and I am focused on finishing the projects from my WIP list since most of them have been WIPs for a number of years. I will however give myself the opportunity to start new projects three different ways. I will do eduCATed later this spring because I want to give it to my son when he graduates from HS. I will stitch on Ornaments and very small projects as my travel projects. I may have a couple of these going at a time since I am going to participate in the 12 days of Christmas SAL and I also want to stitch some simpler ornaments when I need a break from confetti. The last will be for larger projects. I will stitch my WIPs OAAT. In the month that I finish a WIP I have the option to spend the rest of that month on a new start or move onto the next WIP in my plan.

I plan to stitch my WIPs and one planned new start in the following order:

1. Chatelaine's Christmas Tree Mandala - Done 1/16/08
2. TW's Wedding Sampler - Current Project
3. eduCATed for DS's HS graduation
4. Dragon Ride
5. Mira's Deco Spirit
6. TW's Autumn Sampler
7. Storyteller
8. Dragon Virtues Afghan

Travel projects:

1. Heart of Gold - Done 1/13/08
2. Pooh Bear Ornament
3. TW's 12 Day of Christmas - Day 1
4. Other selected ornaments

I will see how this plan works for me.

Finally!!!

I am committed to stitching OAAT for my major projects. There are a number of reasons for this but the major one is that I get comfortable with the design and can therefore stitch more quickly. I have been working on Chatelaine's Christmas Tree Mandala for several months. I haven't had much time to stitch since September so it is with great pleasere and pride that I announce that I have finally finished this piece this morning. It will become a topper for a wooden keepsake box which will be a gift to my parents. This piece was fun to stitch for the most part. Unfortunately it called for 29 french knots in each tree. After finding an online tutorial on french knots and practicing them I did one tree and did not like the effect. I then tried petite gold beads instead and did not like that either. I finally used gold very fine braid and stitched regular cross stitches in those locations. The only other modification I made form the original design was the use of DMC 500 instead of black for the outside border. I didn't like the idea of so much black on a Christmas piece. I also love DMC 500. It is difficult to see all the metallic braid and beads on this design but it has about 300 beads on it and lots of gold and silver braid. Thanks for looking. Now I get to move onto my next WIP which is TW's Wedding Sampler.

A Small Finish

I have been struggling to finish Christmas Tree Mandala so instead of working on it today I pulled out a little kit I had in my stash called "Heart of Gold". It is intended to be a little keepsake bag but I am going to make it into a scissor fob. It felt so good to start and finish something today. Now maybe I can face finishing Christmas Tree Mandala. I only have about 100 stitches of gold braid and 78 beads to put in and I am done with it. I will try to do it on Tuesday since Monday night I will stitch on Wedding Sampler as part of Monday with TW.