Can you believe January is already over and February is here? Yesterday Vince and I were complaining about the cold and the snow and I said . . just think in less than 10 months, we get to start winter all over again! I love snow but I love snow that is gone after about three days. We've had snow for 10 days now. The sun comes out and even though in those 10 days, we've had ONE day when the temp got above freezing . . all the way up to 33 degrees. We're getting down to single digits most nights. And when the sun comes out, snow starts to melt and then the temps drop below freezing and we wake up to more ice and slick surfaces. The good news is that one day early next week, our high is going to be in the 50's (I think).
OK . . back to the stitching report.
Starts & Finishes:
1. On January 1, I started the Blessing Sampler which was Christmas in my Heart 1843. I finished it on January 22. I have ordered the frame and it should be here the second week of February.
2. On January 22, I started Wynter and I finished him yesterday, January 31. I added a couple more snowflakes to make him just a bit taller because I'm hoping he will fit in the little arched frame I bought at Hobby Lobby this week. I left off his name on the left side because, as I had mentioned, other snowmen I make won't have names so he doesn't really need one either.
Purchases:
I think I've done great with purchases in January. Several times, I saw a chart on flosstubes, pulled it up on the computer and decided against it. I have to remind myself that I have so many charts I want to stitch so why buy more?
I did buy a couple of things and I'm good with what I bought.
Purchase #1 was the Quilted Anniversary chart from Colour and Cotton which included floss and linen.
Even though samplers will probably always be my first love, I think I'm becoming more of a seasonal stitcher. I want to stitch Valentine's then Spring and Easter. I will probably stitch patriotic at least through July 4 but I saw this Valentine's Day chart and the display piece and I ordered both of those. It's Love Notes and I got the PDF and ordered the display through Paisleys & Polka Dots.
Do I expect to have this finished by Valentine's Day? Doubtful but I will have it finished for next year.
I also ordered 6 skeins of three different green flosses from Colour & Cotton. I want to get started on Dasher & Dancer and I want the perfect shade of green. I'm still not sure I've found the perfect shade but I will use one of those three greens!
I did order one more chart but it isn't here and I don't think it's even on the shop's website. It has been shipped so I will count it in the February purchases.
That's it for the purchases.
Goals Set and Achieved:
My stitching goal is at least 400 stitches per day. I stuck with that
and met that goal. The only day I didn't record at least 400 stitches was on January 1. I had my settings in Markup so that my day ended at 2 a.m. because I'm often up stitching til that time and it seemed to me that my day shouldn't end until I went to bed but after the little mixup with stitching numbers on 1/1, I changed my settings back to where my day ends at midnight. What happened was I started stitching at midnight but Vince was still up for a while and I got 218 stitches made before 2 a.m. and then it switched over to January 2. I didn't get any more stitching time on January 1 until after midnight that night and I had already switched the tracker to go to the next day at midight. You can see that I made 758 stitches on January 2 so at least 200 of those were made in the early morning hours of January 1. So, I'm counting that as having made my goal.
Changes to Goal:
I am going to allow myself up to two days each month to get some things fully finished. I cannot stitch 400 stitches each day AND find time to sew things into pillows or get pieces laced and framed. If I don't have anything I want to get fully finished, I'll just stitch those two days but from now forward, my goal will be to stitch at least 400 stitches per day except for two days for finishing, if needed.
I had intended to work on WIPS every month but I didn't do that in January. I could have set Wynter aside and spent a few days working on a WIP just to say I did it but I didn't have any WIPS I could get finished and not working on Wynter meant he would have been another WIP to carry into February so at least I didn't add any WIPS yet this year.
