WIPs and UFOs - A General Accounting

One of the commenters on the It's a Matter of Perspective post mentioned the large number of WIPs and UFOs I seem to have. You have only to look at the Goals, Crazy January Challenge and the UFOs sidebars to get an idea of the number. I never really thought of it that way, though, until I took on the Crazy January Challenge this year, starting 15 projects in January. The idea was that all would be completed in the course of 2011. There was the risk, of course, that I'd just end up with a much longer list of UFOs and WIPs.

But that fate seems to have been averted. Here it is August and there are only three pieces left on the list. Admittedly, all of them are fairly large projects but one of the three is already more than half completed. Once I have completed Tracery Dragons, I will start on Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie. I have it all kitted up and the called for floss is a fiber new to me. That adds interest and loads of incentive since I am a veritable fiber junkie. I am hoping to start on that sometime in September. For all its size, it should be a breeze after Tracery Dragons. That would leave the last CJC piece on target for mid-October stitching, appropriately enough, since that last piece is Adelaide Allesandre's Zucca: a lovely tracery sort of pumpkin. That last will be a re-start rather than a continuation of January's work since I really don't like the way the original choices of fiber and fabric are working.

And there is only one 2010 WIP left on my monthly goals list, Workbasket's Quaker Sampler. The other two pieces on the monthly goals list are actually UFOs from even earlier that I am determined to finish this year: The Jacobean Elegance afghan as a Christmas gift for my mother, the Fertile Circles Needlebook and Beach Find Pansies panels for my own amusement since they are in fact my own designs. And, with the exception of three Hooked on Exchanging pieces, the only non CJC 2011 start has been the class piece from the Stitcher's Hideaway, The Sturbridge Box. And, I am making steady progress on that piece.

I plan to work only one more major new start into my stitching program for 2011, above and beyond what I have already mentioned. And that will be Teresa Wentzler's Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking which should carry me right into 2012. There will, of course, be a few more smalls along the way. I need those just for the variety and for a change of pace from all the BAPs.

I plan to devise my own 2012 Crazy January Challenge, using the class pieces from CATS and from the various Stitcher's Hideaways I have attended, resuming the stitching on each project in turn for the first ten days in January 2012. Then, I'll work them into my stitching rotation the same way I did with this year's CJC. The idea will be that I won't start a truly new project from my chart stash of small and medium pieces until I complete something from my UFO list. That way, I should end 2012 with 10 fewer UFOs and only one or two WIPs carrying over into 2013.