First FO of 2012

I have found it difficult to find a balance with my stitching.  I get overwhelmed easily but I think I have finally manged a rotation that I can stick to.  If I only have one or two projects on the go then I drive myself nuts thinking about all the other ones I would rather be stitching but if I have alot on the go then I get antsy when I don't actually have a FO for a long time.

So heres what I have worked out.  I get to work on a project for three days before I put it away and work on the next one.  This gives me enough time to make a decent amount of progress on said project but be able to put it away when I am still enjoying working on it.  This allows me to remember how much I enjoyed it and not feel like I don't want to work on it next time it comes up in the rotation.  I will only allow myself to have at most 7 project on my WIP list at any given time.  When a project is finished I will not add a new start in it's place but will then just wittle down the WIP's until one or two remains and then I will start a whole bunch until my total is back to 7.

For the new year this means I carried over 3 WIP's.  Perfect Pets, Art Nouvea Lady and my 2 doors (I count it as one on my list).  It also means four new starts so this makes me very happy.

So far the rotation is doing well and I havn't skipped any days and have stuck to my schedule.  This also means that I have my first FO of 2012.  I have been working on my Doors for the last three days and Door 3 is now complete:

As you can see I celebrated the important moment with a bowl of ice cream covered with chocolate sauce, yummy.

I finished this early yesterday afternoon so last night I stayed up (way to late) and got started on Door 4.  Hopefully I will get it done when it comes up in the rotation again.

 

My daughter has put in a special request to please have her stitching update be on my blog too so allow a mother her moment:-)  My daughter has tried cross stitch before but never gotten further than a few stitches on a design.  The next time she feels in the mood to stitch it always has to be a new design and not the one she started.  So once again this past weekend she got the idea to stitch.  She chose her design and two colours and this is how she wanted to show off her work:

We just don't speak about the fact that it has been lying on the lounge table untouched for two days.  She insisted on putting her age and number into the picture so let me just mention that she didn't spell her name wrong.  It is Silke...  It is a German name and as best I can describe it is you pronounce the S as a Z and you don't say the e like in "see" but rather like in "the" so sort of like Zilker.

Today I get to start my first new project of 2012.  I am excited but also a bit worried.  It is one of Joan Elliott designs and it used Kreinik thread (of course).  Okay this is going to be a bit of a rant about customer service so please either skip or just bear with me.

I live in a small town where nothing but the basics are.  We do have one or two "hobby" shops but one is beading and the one I do go to is a mix between wool, beads, cross stitch and natural herbal medicines.  So the only thing I can get here is the normal DMC threads and anything else I need to order online.  There is a shop (I won't mention names) that is specifically cross stitch and unfortunately it would be a two day drive to get to them.  Two years ago I went onto their site and decided to try them out.  I phoned and the lady who owns the shop as you can't order directly off the website.  She was extremely friendly and we ended up just chattining and she said she would email me pics of some mill hill christmas kits that she has in stock.  So gave her my email addie and then waited, and waited, and waited.  I never did get an email and I decided to just leave it and not make a fuss.  Then a few months ago I came across Joan Elliott when a friend gave me a bunch of magazines and I just knew that I had to make all of her flower fairies, the elements collection and since then, the Medieval ladies, never mind the bunch of her other stuff I have on my list.  I did a search for mill hill beads to see if I can get them in SA and low and behold the only place was the same shop I had gotten such wonderful telephone service but nothing else.  And suprisingly she also has the Kreinik threads too.  It was my birthday coming up and I knew that I would get a bit of cash to spend, so I decided to stock up on as much beads and kreinik that I had cash for.  So this order would of been worth a bit of money.  Okay so I phone them again (but don't mention the lack of email from the previous time) and we have another wonderful chat and she tells me to email all that I need and she will then email me back with prices and whether they have it all in stock or not.  Okay so I send of my list and once again wait, and wait and wait.  I really wanted these items so a week later I phoned the shop and get told that they do not have a list of what stock they have in the shop so they have to check everything individually and she is working on it right now and it will be emailed to me by the end of the day.  To this day I never did receive the email and it is so frustrating and probably more expensive in the long run because everytime I see beads been sold I grab a bunch of beads just in case they will work right for the designs.  And now I find out that the kreinik used in the design I am going to start today has no substitution in DMC and so I will just have to figure it out.  Now my frustration isn't with the beautiful designs but rather with the shop that just can't be bothered.  It would of been a win win situation.  I would of given them alot of money for their product and I would of had exactly the right things for stitching right from the start instead of winging it and hoping that all will still look pretty in the end instead of a dog breakfast of mish mash when I am done.