COUNTING

First, the photos meant for yesterday's post.

Here is my own design of a Quaker Fish for the July installment of the Bride's Tree SAL ... I still have the tail to stitch with the Quaker motifs I have plotted on graph paper and then I'll need to make the back with the theme [Fertility] and my husband's and my monogram. I hope to finish this up completely by Wednesday evening and then start on Workbasket's Quaker Flower for the August installment of the SAL, a Rose symbolizing Affection.

On 32 ct Belfast linen called Aurora, here is my progress thus far on M Design's Winifred Witch ... it doesn't look like much yet But I hope to have it finished in time to hang on my Halloween tree this year.

This is the piece I did for Linda's Round Robin, the last rotation and the one furthest outside my stitching comfort zone. I sincerely hope this is what she had in mind when she said cartoonish animals in bold colors. I had to go through all my old magazines to find this excerpt from a larger piece called Liberty Parade from the July 2005 Stitcher's World.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post:


I just wanted to see how far I have managed to meet my 2010 goals. And I am doing better, at least in some categories, than I had thought.

The blogging every other day goal, well this one seems to be doing pretty well. Even if it doesn't always work out to exactly every other day, I have blogged more than 50% of the days this year.

The stitching from stash and limiting purchases to five charts a year, also doing quite nicely with only three charts purchased and one on order in mid-October. All other purchases this year have been floss, fiber, fabric, or embellishments needed to stitch existing chart stash. This means I will be able to agonize over which item on the wish list gets purchased next month.

The ornament a month goal, concentrating on Christmas and Thanksgiving: Already way over the top and with quite a few in the pipeline as well. I have stitched 11 Christmas ornaments, 5 Thanksgiving ornaments and 2 Halloween ornaments so far this year ... and I have plans to stitch another 6 Christmas ornaments for the Bride's Tree SAL, another 4 Thanksgiving ornaments for my table top tree and 4 more Halloween ornaments from the recent JCS issue. With 18 ornaments already stitched and another 14 in the works, that will make a total of 32 ... almost three times the stated goal. But even if I don't complete another ornament for the remainder of the year, I am well over goal. Furthermore, every single ornament made thus far has been assembled in its final finish ... all are ready to hang on a tree.

The one medium project a month goal, concentrating on Quaker, Christmas and Halloween charts. Well I have stitched ten medium projects so far this year, though they were not necessarily Christmas, Quaker or Halloween projects. For the Town Square SAL, I stitched the Jail, the Saloon and the Train Depot. Then I stitched both charts in the Workbasket Mermaids Singing leaflet. Two of the angels and my own PS Harvest Time piece, stitched for Linda's RR, qualify as medium to large projects And then there was the baptismal stole I stitched for one of my students. And, finally the one legitimate Halloween piece: Shepherd's Bush Be a Witch. That's ten projects from January to October, meeting the goal quite nicely. In addition to all of the above, I have managed to stitch ten assorted smalls: four of which were entries in the round robin, a pin cushion, a scissor keep, a tuckaway pouch, a bookmark, a summery ornament and a piece that I will eventually sew up as a gift bag. I may be slowing down a bit compared with previous years, but I do believe my totals are still respectable.

On the other hand, some of the goals have been a total wash-out: I have done little more than keep up with ornament finishes in the sewing finish department ... so the sewing basket continues to overflow ... and we are talking giant-sized laundry basket, here. My BAP hasn't seen any stitching action since August 11 and that was after another long hiatus as well. Mary's quilt was never assembled, I haven't learned to knit and the future craft room is still a storage dump. But there are still two and a half months left in the year so there is still time to take some action on the remaining goals.