Annual Goals

As promised here are the goals that I had planned to work on for 2006.

2006 Goals
Current rotation goals:
-Finish Celtic Winter-Finished in August
-Finish Woodland Fairy-Finished in November
-Finish White Wedding by mid April-Finished in October
-Complete at least ½ of Olde World Map-Nope
-Finish one section of Mystery IX each month-I did up until August
-Complete ½ of Butterfly Rest-Nope
-Finish Lilies as part of Magazine Mania SAL-Nope

I also worked on the following-
1. Finished September Garden Sampler
2. Finished Santa at the Seashore
3. Thirteen Exchanges
4. Three rounds of a round robin
5. Worked on Christmas Elf Fairy
6. Worked on 17th Century German Garden.

For 2007 I WILL do the following:
1. Finish Mystery 9
2. Finish Bordeaux Mystery
3. Finish Christmas Elf Fairy
4. Finish 17th Century German Garden
5. Finish one Christmas ornament per month
6. Participate in a Seasonal Dragons RR
7. Get to the halfway point in either Olde World Map or Butterfly Rest (will eventually replace M9 as my weekend piece)
8. Participate in the two 2007 exchanges I have committed to and no additional ones

As I make progress on these goals, I would LIKE to work on the following pieces:
1. Halloween Fairy-Mirabilia
2. Stargazer-Mirabilia
3. Viking’s Prayer
4. Kitty Months-Calico Crossroads
5. My Lady’s Needlecase-Brightneedle
6. CHS alphabet

If by the end of the summer I am making great progress on these goals, I will be allowed to by the kit for Chatelaine’s St. Petersburg Mandala. I may also tie this in to some weightloss goals as well. Who knows.

December Progress and January Goals

The end of the month is rapidly approaching, so I thought I would post my December progress and goals for the first month of 2007. Later I will post some year long goals as well.

Here is how I did in December:
1. Finish center and part 9 of M9 (I mean it this time)-Hopefully tonight or tomorrow..shouldn’t be a problem.
2. Finish Santa at the Seashore-Finished, framed and will be gifted tomorrow
3. Stitch on Bordeaux Sampler with Anne and Carol-Yup, only a few more grapes to finish page one.
4. Stitch on Christmas Elf Fairy-Finished her dress and made a good start on her wings
5. Stitch on Butterfly Rest-Unfortunatly no
I also stitched on:
6. 17th Century German Garden

Not bad for the month…so on to January. For the upcoming month I would like to:
1. Make good progress on M9-I would like to have most of the corner currently being stitched finished
2. Finish Christmas Elf Fairy
3. Stitch on 17th Century German Garden
4. Stitch a name ornament
5. Stitch a Valentine’s Exchange
6. Stitch on Butterfly Rest
7. Stitch on Bordeaux Mystery

Holiday over

Well, Allen and I made it back safely from Southern VA. We had a great time visiting all of his family, but it sure is nice to be home. After stuffing ourselves with food over the weekend, it is time to get some good dieting and exercising going.

I did get some great stitching done over the weekend. First I worked on Christmas Elf Fairy. I got all of her dress done and made a good start on her wing. Boy is it taking forever to fill in all that wing. Eventually I got tired of working with tons of Crescent Colors Cloud, so I moved on to my LTD 17th century German Garden.

On the LTD garden, I made a good start on the flower beds around the center knot. I took the LTD class at CATS earlier this year and made a brief start on it there. I really like this piece. I think for January, my goal will be to make a quick finish on my Christmas Fairy and then work on this garden Wednesdays and Thursdays. In February, one of those nights will be given up to work on Barnabee’s Quest along with many other stitching bloggers.

Today I am kind of torn. Before leaving on our trip, I stated that I would work on my Bordeaux mystery for the remainder of this week before getting back into my rotation Friday night. While I love that piece, my elf and garden are both calling to me a lot. Must not give in and stick to my commitments.

In other stitching news, a LNS in Vienna, VA is offering a class on color in cross stitch this coming Saturday. Its focus is on what to do with those designs where you love the overall pattern, but dislike some of the color choices. I have several bigger pieces that I absolutely love, but I would rather stitch them in colors other than browns or yellows. For the class, I need to pick a pattern or two that I would like to swap out some colors. I will have to browse through my patterns over the next few days. While I am there I will probably pick out a fabric for my Barnabee’s Quest Sal if nothing jumps out of my fabric bins at me soon.

Mystery 9

Just a quick post before we head off to the lake for Christmas. Here is my most recent progress on M9. It is going really quickly now that I am more motivated! I love the corners.

This weekend, I am bringing along Christmas Elf and 18th century German garden.

Mystery 9

Just a quick post before we head off to the lake for Christmas. Here is my most recent progress on M9. It is going really quickly now that I am more motivated! I love the corners.

This weekend, I am bringing along Christmas Elf and 18th century German garden.

Leslie can you here me….

Nope, I cannot! I have one heck of a head cold and my ears are stuffed up beyond belief. I feel super stinky. When I was still awake and increadibly uncomfortable at 5am this morning, I decided that despite having tons to do before the holiday at work, there was no way I could drag myself in. I probably would have gotten some hateful stares as I sneezed and coughed all over everything, too:) Oh well, I will just have to work extra hard on paperwork between my groups tomorrow.

On the stitching front, colds have one benefit many other illnesses, I was not to tired to do some stitching. I worked very hard on my santa and finished him up on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully Allen will help me frame him one night this week and he is on his way to his destination at the end of the week. I need Allen’s help and I am centering challenged. Here is my finished Santa.

Santa at the Seashore
By: By the Bay Needlearts
Stitched on: 32 ct. grey Jobelan
Started: October 29, 2006
Finished: December 16, 2006

On Sunday I worked a lot on M9. I am still not quite done with part 9, but I really got my motivation for this piece back on track for this piece by doing some work on parts 10 and 11. Now that all the parts and the “mystery” is out of the bag, I think I will do a lot of skipping around on this piece based on what is calling me.

With some traveling coming up for the holidays, I plan on throwing away my rotation from now until the first of the year. For the remainder of this week, I will be focusing on a last minute Christmas gift and Mystery 9. Allen and I will be visiting his family Saturday through Tuesday, so I will be bringing along a small project. I will probably pack Christmas Elf Fairy and an ornament. Upon returning Tuesday night, I will pull out Bordeaux Mystery and work on that until M9 comes back around in my rotation again on Friday.

On that note, I am off to find more OJ and good sick person tv:)

Leslie can you hear me…

Nope, I cannot! I have one heck of a head cold and my ears are stuffed up beyond belief. I feel super stinky. When I was still awake and increadibly uncomfortable at 5am this morning, I decided that despite having tons to do before the holiday at work, there was no way I could drag myself in. I probably would have gotten some hateful stares as I sneezed and coughed all over everything, too:) Oh well, I will just have to work extra hard on paperwork between my groups tomorrow.

On the stitching front, colds have one benefit many other illnesses, I was not to tired to do some stitching. I worked very hard on my santa and finished him up on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully Allen will help me frame him one night this week and he is on his way to his destination at the end of the week. I need Allen’s help and I am centering challenged. Here is my finished Santa.

Santa at the Seashore
By: By the Bay Needlearts
Stitched on: 32 ct. grey Jobelan
Started: October 29, 2006
Finished: December 16, 2006

On Sunday I worked a lot on M9. I am still not quite done with part 9, but I really got my motivation for this piece back on track for this piece by doing some work on parts 10 and 11. Now that all the parts and the “mystery” is out of the bag, I think I will do a lot of skipping around on this piece based on what is calling me.

With some traveling coming up for the holidays, I plan on throwing away my rotation from now until the first of the year. For the remainder of this week, I will be focusing on a last minute Christmas gift and Mystery 9. Allen and I will be visiting his family Saturday through Tuesday, so I will be bringing along a small project. I will probably pack Christmas Elf Fairy and an ornament. Upon returning Tuesday night, I will pull out Bordeaux Mystery and work on that until M9 comes back around in my rotation again on Friday.

On that note, I am off to find more OJ and good sick person tv:)

A few more pics

I thought I would try and get more into the habit of blogging more regularly again. For the last two months, I have been particularly tired upon coming home from work, so blogging has fallen by the wayside. Today, I was sleepy, but after a nap, I am feeling like sharing:)

Over this past weekend, I made some big progress on M9. I should have some more Delica beads on the way, so I should be able to finish part 9 the next time I stitch. Since I didn’t have the beads to finish part nine, I skipped ahead a bit to start on part ten. I started on one of the small pools. It is really pretty and I enjoyed stitching on something a bit different on this one for a change. The last three parts, although big, have enough different looking parts that I think it will keep my interest a bit better than parts 8 and 9. It really is huge now on the bigger qsnap:)

Tonight and yesterday, I was so tired I really didn’t do much stitching. I worked a bit on Bordeaux Mystery.Plus the frogs visited…my one boxer ended up losing his legs for a while. I really like this piece. The teeny tiny over one letters take a really long time though.

Last weekend I also did some fabric cutting for some quilted pillows. I am going to make a bunch up for some of my closer co-workers. The group I spent the most time with at work used to be quite small and we all used to spend a fair amount of money on gifts for each other. Over the last few years, our group has expanded significantly and has gotten to the point that none of us can afford to buy for everyone. I figured that by making everyone some pretty pillows for their offices, I can do something for everyone without spending a ton of money. I got a several yards of black and cream fabric for the borders of the pillow and then got a handful of pretty, colorful fat quarters on sale for the centers. I hope everyone enjoys them and they will brighten up all our cubes.

My stitching plans for the next few days will kind of depend on our plans for the weekend. We still have not firmed up our visits to Allen’s family for the holiday season, so there is a possibility that we will be doing some traveling this weekend. If we do go away for the weekend, I will be swapping my days stitching on M9 and Santa at the Seashore. I can take Santa with me a little more easily than M9. I really need to get cranking on Santa as he is going to be a giftie:)

A few more pics

I thought I would try and get more into the habit of blogging more regularly again. For the last two months, I have been particularly tired upon coming home from work, so blogging has fallen by the wayside. Today, I was sleepy, but after a nap, I am feeling like sharing:)

Over this past weekend, I made some big progress on M9. I should have some more Delica beads on the way, so I should be able to finish part 9 the next time I stitch. Since I didn’t have the beads to finish part nine, I skipped ahead a bit to start on part ten. I started on one of the small pools. It is really pretty and I enjoyed stitching on something a bit different on this one for a change. The last three parts, although big, have enough different looking parts that I think it will keep my interest a bit better than parts 8 and 9. It really is huge now on the bigger qsnap:)

Tonight and yesterday, I was so tired I really didn’t do much stitching. I worked a bit on Bordeaux Mystery.Plus the frogs visited…my one boxer ended up losing his legs for a while. I really like this piece. The teeny tiny over one letters take a really long time though.

Last weekend I also did some fabric cutting for some quilted pillows. I am going to make a bunch up for some of my closer co-workers. The group I spent the most time with at work used to be quite small and we all used to spend a fair amount of money on gifts for each other. Over the last few years, our group has expanded significantly and has gotten to the point that none of us can afford to buy for everyone. I figured that by making everyone some pretty pillows for their offices, I can do something for everyone without spending a ton of money. I got a several yards of black and cream fabric for the borders of the pillow and then got a handful of pretty, colorful fat quarters on sale for the centers. I hope everyone enjoys them and they will brighten up all our cubes.

My stitching plans for the next few days will kind of depend on our plans for the weekend. We still have not firmed up our visits to Allen’s family for the holiday season, so there is a possibility that we will be doing some traveling this weekend. If we do go away for the weekend, I will be swapping my days stitching on M9 and Santa at the Seashore. I can take Santa with me a little more easily than M9. I really need to get cranking on Santa as he is going to be a giftie:)

So close…

but still so far.

Actually not that bad. I almost finished part nine of Mystery Nine this evening, including the beads. I have three of the corners fully stitched and beaded through part 9. The fourth corner has a little straight stitch left in the artichoke, 2/3s of one swirl and the beading on that swirl left. I should be able to get all the stitching done after some errands tomorrow, but unfortunatly, I do not think I will be able to complete the beading as I am almost out of the gold delicas required in part 9. I have read on numerous sites that this has been a fairly common occurance, but that the kit provider has be very generous with providing extras. Eventhough I did not finish part 9 this evening, I did go ahead and move the piece on to a qsnap with extenders. Hopefully with this I will have enough room to finish the piece without adding additional extenders.

And here is my progress onto page two of By the Bay’s Santa at the Seashore. I really enjoy stitching this piece and hope to have it done soon. The pine fronds in the bottom border are especially fun! You can’t tell in the pic, but I actually do have some of Santa stitched. His face and beard don’t show up well with the flash. Still have yet to find the sheep though:)