2012 Stitching Thoughts

I was going to post this yesterday, but yesterday didn’t go as I thought it would.  It started out as any other day — get up at 3 a.m. to watch the Quadrantids meteor shower, go back to bed at 4 a.m., get up at 7 a.m., fall down steps from kitchen to family room, nearly faint from the pain of falling down, while trying to not freak M out too much when I yelled for him….yeah, not so much what I had planned.  Spent as much time as possible getting up and down all day so I wouldn’t get too stiff.  Was shaky all day and very thankful that the worst injury seemed to be to my pride.  Don’t know exactly what damage I did but when I finally came to a rest I was sitting on my butt with my left leg bent out to the side of me.  I heard a loud pop when I fell and was scared to death to move afterward, thus my yelling for M, who was still upstairs sleeping.  In the end, I hurt my right palm, left wrist, left knee, left ankle, and my neck and shoulders were stiff.  This morning I’m stiff, but not feeling anything like I was worried I would be feeling.  I’m moving sort of slow and walking around like an old lady, but I’m up and about, and not going to miss going to my Thursday evening stitchin or to Vegas next week.

Now, for the original reason behind this post:

As shown by my ort jars for 2011, I had several months where I barely touched any of my stitching.  Even then, I stitched more in 2011 than I did in 2010.  I’m hoping, now that I’m no longer working, that I can at least double the amount of stitching in 2012!

For the past couple of weeks while unpacking my stash, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to accomplish in 2012.  It’s been fun reading what other stitchers are hoping to accomplish and nice to know I’ll be in good company whether or not I succeed.  I think I do better with goals, or rather putting down what I’d like to see happen, on “paper.”  Sometimes I get caught up in the crowd mentality and forget what I wanted to do if I don’t have some sort of written plan to bring me back to earth!

So, for 2012 I plan on:

• Get back to blogging more frequently.  I stitch more when I blog.  I am a horrible photographer, but I enjoy sharing my stitching just like everyone else!
• Get back to rotating my stitching and tracking my time.  I know a lot of people think this is too much work but when I was doing it before I felt such a sense of accomplishment and I seemed to stitch more, just like when I blog more.
• Stick to my WIPocalypes goals and keep my page updated.
• Post to the Theme-a-licious challenge as often as my rotation works into it.
• Post my monthly TUSAL.
• Participate in at least 6 Fair and Square exchanges.
• Finish out all 6 received Fair and Square exchanges.  I plan on taking advantage of the great finishing tutorials in bloggy land.
• Stitch 3 Santa ornaments for my Santa display.
• Take at least 1 stitching related class.
• Finish logging my charts into my spreadsheet.
• Start organizing my freebies.
• Organize my magazine designs.

When I read back over my list I feel like I’ve set an extremely overloaded year for myself and am so tempted to “downsize” that list.

What I don’t plan on doing….depriving myself.  I don’t handle deprivation well.  Just see how I respond when you try to take chocolate away from me — and it never fails that just as soon as I say “I’m not going to buy anymore stash until I stitch ____ number of pieces” someone publishes something I can’t live without. I’m just going to take it month by month. Or maybe, newsletter by newsletter 😉

I have non-stitching goals this year too!  But those, I’m keeping to myself.

I picked up Peacock Tapestry Tuesday and immediately remembered why it became a UFO instead of a WIP.

Back in 1999, when I first started it, gridding was something new to the stitching world.  I didn’t grid before I started it and while I love stitching on it, the backstitching is what got me.  I have requested a copy of the backstitching chart.  I tried to backstitch it Tuesday, but gave up.  Yesterday I started stitching on it, but decided the smart thing for me to do is to grid it.  So, that’s where I’m at.  I’m 5+ hours into it this rotation.  I’ll finishe the gridding during this time, and get some more stitching done, too.  Next time I pick it up I should have the backstitching chart and I’ll go back to that before adding more stitches.

I’m trying to decide whether or not to take it with me tonight if I don’t finish up the 10 hours by then, or to take Hannah Beeby again, since she’s so “easy.”