A new year for craftiness

Sometime around Yule, I received a postcard in the mail from my local stitching addiction supply store that they were having a storewide sale on threads at the end of the year. As in, 30% off. Which meant that I could get the big-time supplies that add up in a hurry for a heck of a lot less money.

I quickly pulled out all of my patterns, and over Christmas weekend, developed my crafting plans for 2006. On Friday the 30th, I headed up to the store, gift money in hand, to have some fun. $80 later, I'm ready to go. I'm missing only two colors for one pattern, which I'll search for this Saturday. All of these threads were the more expensive kind- overdyed and hand-dyed silk threads that I'm honestly a bit nervous to stitch with because I know they're not colorfast and somehow I already sense a can of Diet Coke sneaking quietly up to them in the storage drawer, threatening to pour itself over them. But I'm also excited to try some new threads. It's a step up in the stitching advancement department. :)

My entire year of stitching is starting to firm up. I have several projects that are "works in progress" from last year. I have about a dozen others that have all supplies ready to go. And I'm psyched-- it's going to be a fun year of craftiness.

The big goals for this year are:

- Finish both wedding samplers (mine and Ivanna's)
- Finish two Teresa Wentzler pieces (The Castle and something else)
- Finish 5 other pieces (of any size)

This might get revised, but with the condition of my pieces, I think this is definitely do-able.

Here's my working rotation for the 1st round of 2006. I'm estmating that this will take me through about mid-February or so. I'm working it at 20 hour intervals:

Apache Wedding Blessing <-- current at home
TW slot (The Castle) <-- current traveling plus weekends
Cat slot (Staircase)
Wedding Blessing
Finishing slot/mini piece (will be used to backstitch. If no backstitching needed, I'll work on a really small piece here)

I started Ivanna's Wedding Blessing sampler this past weekend. So far, it's stitching up surprisingly easily and quickly- but it's still a mass of jumbled stitches at the moment, so I won't put up a photo until the weekend. At this rate, I may have it done within a couple of months.

I'm also still carrying my second rotation piece, The Castle, back and forth with me to work. It guarantees me at least one hour (and possibly 2, if my brain is awake enough in the morning to stitch) to work on the project every day. I only have about 10% left to go on it-- just some lower rocks plus the backstitching of the lower half of the pattern. And then it's done. Could I possibly finish this by the end of January?

It would be nice. :) Really, really nice. And it's very possible. (yay!)

My entire rotation might wind up going this way for a while: working a wedding sampler at home. Carrying the other pieces with me on the train. I honestly don't care, as long as the pieces are progressing. And I'd really, REALLY like to have some multiple finishes this year.

Once the wedding samplers are done, I'll take one of those slots and make it into a small to medium piece (any designer OTHER than Teresa Wentzler) slot. The other one will probably be open to whatever is screaming the loudest at me to start it. :)

It should be a very interesting craft year.