Finally I stitched tonight!

I took a few days off from stitching and focused on trying to get myself onto a schedule for household chores now that my depression has been relieved. I haven't felt this good in a very long time (it has been a year which is a long time) and I am enjoying feeling better! I've been focusing on getting back into control of my house and straightening things out, cleaning and all that. So I haven't been stitching this week.

I did stitch tonight and worked on Christmas Dreams. I realized that I seriously miscounted when I posted that it was time to switch back to the Quaker. I posted that I pulled out Christmas Dreams on the 7th, but the date of the post was the 14th and for the life of me I can't remember if I had stitched on it for that week, or if I had just looked at the wrong date on the calendar while writing the post. So to try and settle it I chose not to swith and kept Christmas Dreams out for this week. I didn't stitch until this evening. I worked on the blank area where his hair/sideburns meet his beard and filled most of it in. All that is left is the second blue color that marks the curls which I hope to finish tomorrow. Then I will return to the bottom and continue working on his beard. Sorry but I didn't get a picture.

After a couple hours on Christmas Dreams I pulled out Woodland Fairy by Teresa Wentzler. I haven't stitched on this piece in a very long time. I had started it for someone I considered to be a very close friend and whom I loved a great deal. Suffice it to say that my love and trust were badly misplaced. When I realized that, I lost the desire to work on this piece and that was 4 years ago (it was already a ufo). It has been languishing in my stitching drawers as a UFO. I decided to stitch it for myself instead! As today is Thursday it is UFO stitching day on the yahoo group Friendly Stitchers ( a great group that I really enjoy!) so I pulled her out and put in a couple threads. The progress isn't noticable from the last picture I took so I didn't bother taking another one. I did enjoy working on her though so maybe I'll do a bit more on her this weekend. Here is my last progress pic of Woodland Fairy, just so there is at least 1 stitching picture on this post LOL

I only have 2 UFO's and they are both Teresa Wentzler designs. The Woodland Fairy and Stroke Of Midnight (Cinderella). I love her designs, but they are complicated and take a lot of attention to keep from making major mistakes. The end results are fabulous and worth all the aggravation of stitching them (at least I think so). Here is a picture of The Guardian, a gold dragon of hers that I did. The border (an intricate Celtic Knotwork pattern) didn't get stitched because I damaged the fabric, but the dragon itself is just gorgeous!

Clickable to enlarge for detail

I then pulled out the Quaker for a short while and added the letter "B b" to the alphabet at the top of the page and graphed the change in year from 2006 to 2010. I didn't take a picture of this either, sorry.

On Sunday I will be rotating back to the Quaker and before I do I will take pictures of Christmas Dreams and Woodland Fairy to show my progress.

Thank you for the comments, I really do apprecaite them. They mean a lot to me and I read every single one.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

It is time to rotate back to the Quaker piece. Here is a picture of Christmas Dreams as of March 20, 2010. I didn't get as far as I wanted to but I did get quite a bit done. I focused on filling in the areas above Santa's face, and his beard (which forms the crescent moon shape). I miscounted on the blue (which outlines the waves/curls in the hair) on the right side. I will pull those stitches out before putting this away for the next two weeks.

I can't believe it has already been 2 weeks since I started the rotation. But my blog says I switched to Christmas Dreams on the 7th, so it has been 2 weeks and tomorrow is time to rotate back to the Quaker piece.

On Friday I got some stitchy mail! I ordered a few Quaker charts and here they are:

A Quaker Halloween Sampler by: Cherished Stitches
A Quaker Christmas by: ByGone Stitches
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm by: Heartstring Samplery

I love these three charts and can't wait to get them done. I think they'll make a beautiful set hanging on my wall together!

Thank you for the wonderful comments, they mean a lot to me and I appreciate every one!

Well that's it for stitchy news for me. Enjoy your stitching!

Time To Rotate The Stitches!

A while back I tried doing rotation stitching. This is when you set a time table to switch projects. I tried a 2 day rotation. I think I lasted all of 2 weeks with it. I also got seriously depressed so instead of just altering the rotation timing, I stopped stitching for the most part.

I used to stitch only one project at a time because I worried that I would never finish anything if I had more than one on the go. Finally I started having 2 wips: an easier one for stitching when I was in a lot of pain or otherwise unable to concentrate solely on a complicated design (Teresa Wentzler) and a larger project for those times when I could focus better or had more time. I continued to finish projects and realized that I liked having more than one on the go because it allows me to choose which one to do within whatever my current circumstances are. Also having more than one on the go allowed me to take breaks from the larger projects without having to give up stitching completely. Being able to do that helped me to keep my interest up on my projects, which of course resulted in faster finishes on larger designs than I was getting stitching one at a time.

Some switch projects after so many hours spent on a project, some go by months, some by days etc. Whatever works best for the individual stitcher.

I was reading a friend's blog (Peggy) and she uses a weekly rotation. She stitches on one project for a week, then switches to a different one for the next week. Of course there is leeway should something come up like a wedding sampler or the need to stitch a birthday card. But this sounds like a better chocie for me than the other rotation schedules I have read about. I do real well stitching on a piece for a week or 2, then I tend to need a break and either stitch a different project or not stitch at all. So I figured I would give a weekly (and consider making it a 2 week ) rotation a shot. If it doesn't feel right to me I'll just go back to what I have been doing, stitching whichever of my wips strikes my fancy on that day. lol

When I stitched last night (well really early this morning, 3-6AM couldn't sleep) instead of working on the Quaker, I pulled out Christmas Dreams. I, once again, really enjoyed stitching on it and made some decent progress. Due to the time I didn't take any pictures but I will try to put one up later today or tomorrow.