Trying to merge reality and stitching

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I thought I might set some goals for my stitching this year. In years past, I had a set rotation, and I just hoped for the best as far as something actually being finished. Hope springs eternal, as they say, and so did my WIP pile. Occasionally, I would have a "focus" piece or be doing a stitch-along (SAL). The SAL pieces were usually what ended up getting finished. I don't think it was the accountability factor (I believe I have the best SAL-to-FO ratio of the group, though not by much). I think it was the fact that I had broken the project up into concrete chunks, worked to finish them, and felt a sense of accomplishment when I finished a chunk.

So, here's what I did:

1. Went through the list of WIPs I keep on my PDA and marked the ones I'd like to finish this year


2. Went back and picked the ones I thought I could realistically finish this year. Made a secondary list of projects I'd like to work on this year


3. Made a guess at how many hours I had left to complete each project


4. Considered the likelihood of warping the space-time continuum


5. Threw a couple more projects out of the list


6. Figured out how many hours a week I could possibly stitch


7. Realized I had never, ever, stitched that much in one week and decided four hours a week was the best I could hope for


8. Figured the "weeks" each project would take to complete


9. Ranked the projects by how soon/how much I wanted them done


10. Wrote myself a checklist

I was pretty pleased with myself. It was definitely doable, and at the end of the year I'd have 4 shiny completed projects and some good progress on others. Then I realized that there was also knitting and beading.

Oh.

I thought about how I've been crafting since we've moved. Mainly, I've been too distracted to do anything too complex. I've been knitting a lot. Why? Because it's a lot easier to pick up knitting and do it for 20 minutes than it is to pick up stitching and do it for 20 minutes. Or, at least, it seems that way. Plus, the lighting where we watch TV is less than optimal. And that's usually the only time I'm crafting...while we're watching TV.

So, I decided to be less intentional about the knitting. I do want to complete Astrid by the Fall, so I scheduled that in a bit. I also decided that I'd try to make time to stitch during my off days, upstairs in the nice, natural sunlight. (Usually no crafting happens then...only cleaning, errands, catching up on sleep, personal maintenance, paperwork, etc.) To that end, I splurged on a Pandan box that I'd been coveting for at least a year to keep a project in upstairs. I also hoped to do the finishing on something the last week of each month, and I'd have a travel project. Beading would just have to happen whenever (sadly, currently minus the "whe").

My list of projects to be completed was

• Easter Fairy by Mirabilia
• Magical Night
• Autumn Jewels
• Bumblebee Stumpwork
• Sapphire
• Pansy scissors fob (yes, finally, Erin!!)

Here's a sample of the checkoff chart I came up with


And how's it looking after a few weeks?


Yeah...I think I'll get back to warping that space-time continuum. Or maybe give up altogether and just go with the monthly themes!!

JiffNotes for the non-stitchy

SAL = stitch-along: a group of people who are stitching the same piece at the same time (sometimes, even, at the same pace) WIP = work in progress FO = finished object. Or, Frosted Orange, but in this context...finished object. UFO = unfinished object rotation = working on a series of projects, one by one, in a set order, over and over until they are finished. How you determine when it's time to move on to the next one varies from person to person (time spent per piece, calendar division, goal completed, whim, etc.)