A Time of Transition

The last three months have gone by in a whirlwind. Smidget is three months old and last Friday I put in my two weeks notice at my job. Now that the decision has finally been made, I'm anxious to make the transition. It'll be a weird one - I've been working full or part time outside the home since I was 18.  I have four more days to work this year and then I get to be a full time mom. I'll be looking into some part time work from home opportunities and working to adjust our life to a reduced income.

Its really odd that this all comes at a time when I'm already thinking about goals for the upcoming year. 2018 will be a brand new start for us in so many ways. Its time to finish up a few old projects and get them out of the way for new and exciting things.

So far on 100 days of Stitching, I've managed to get a little cross stitch in on 6 out of 9 days for a whopping total of 694 stitches. A lot of these were back stitches which go much faster that regular, but I'm still pleased. I've only every counted stitches before in a round-up general sense but I like doing it as it gives me a small sense of accomplishment every day. I'm using one of my cross stitch groups advent calendars as inspiration. Each day they post a new small goal for stitching.

There's also a quilt that I finished several months ago but never got around to showing off. I plan to gift this to someone at church who has her first granddaughter so it was now or never.

I hope to have all the water bottle carriers finished by the end of the year and sent out to the necessary people and then I have a few project bags I want to start and finish, as well as a lot of arrow head covers for some friends. With the Smidget currently napping, I'm going to go spend a little time in my sewing room. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!

100 Days of Stitching

It took me three days to find the twenty minutes that I needed to finish this afghan, but finish it I did and here is the final photo. You might be asking, how is this photo any different from the previous one I shared? The answer is that this one was taken two weeks later and has two more rounds on the border. Oh, and I think I vacuumed the living room floor before I took this picture. Realistically, I would have liked a few more rounds on the border but this project has been dragging on for 14 months and I was just ready to have it done. If I really want to, I can add more rounds in the future. Say, if I get bored or run out of other projects or something (ha ha ha.)

Since I've finished this, I've also churned out a Christmas present for my favorite cousin, a navy blue hat and scarf (which I sadly forgot to take pictures of before gifting), and worked on my JAYGo motif blanket.

Its the end of the year, which brings up ideas and plans and goals for the coming year. I've given some thought to how I would like the New Year to go. I usually get super organized, make some sort of lofty crafty goals and lists, and forget all about them a month or two into them. I've managed to break the BUY ALL THE THINGS for cross stitch habit thanks to Stitch from Stash 2017. I haven't purchased anything cross stitch related since June. I happily managed to skate past the amazing Black Friday sales on yarn and fabric without purchasing a single item. I have enough craft supplies to last me years and I'd like use up a lot of my stash and finish a few projects before I go pick up more dust-collecting supplies.

What is really interesting me right now is 100daysofHAED, which was spawned on Facebook after a poll in a cross stitch group showed that the thing that most people wished they had was more time to craft. The challenge is to stitch on your projects every day for 100 days, no matter how much or how little you manage to do. I'm thinking about pulling out some of my old projects and seeing if I can get one done in 100 days of stitching just a little bit every day. Although they aren't HAED, I would love to see them done. These are three of my oldest projects.

If I start tomorrow, then 100 days will finish on March 20, about the time that Smidget is six months old.

What are your plans for New Year's Crafting?