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04 January 2010

The Year of Stitching Freebily . . .

officially began this morning.I started one of Pam Kellogg's Millenium Cats on a tea towel. I started the January cat, Midnight. This was a series she did that I printed off in 1999, September 16th to be exact. I don't know if there are photos of them out there, but I did one or two on a RR one time, and I had the charts, and I wanted to do them. I think they'll be cute in our kitchen, as purely decorative objects. And, at $5.99 for the tea towels, plus the cost of floss, it was hard to resist them.

I know I've said this before, but my major focus in 2010 will be to stop collecting all these freebies and stitch them. I have several binders full of free charts, plus stacks of paper and those stored on my computer. Such fabulous charts being given away for free! I keep telling myself to sit and stitch them, but there is always a reason I don't do it. So, this year, I'm breaking out of my comfort zone, and focusing my new starts as charts that were not offered for sale. I've toyed a lot with the idea of how to define a "freebie", since some of the charts I have were originally offered as free charts, but were then sold, and I bought them once sold. Was that how I wanted to go? Could I stitch those and still call them freebies? I've decided for me, the answer is no. The charts I will work on will be ones that were "free", meaning I didn't pay out of pocket for the chart when I got them. This leaves me with all those binders of freebies, plus the freebies my LNS kitted up that I just never stitched, plus the free kits that come with British magazines (I could spend a year on just those.)

I am allowing myself a few exceptions:

Circle of Life, by Pollyanna Pickering, because that's a fair entry.

Kingdom of the Ice Dragon, by Dragon Dreams, my January 1st start.

Any UFO or WIP. I have so many of those. Summer Ball and Sleepy Hollow are major projects and deserve to be finished.

Anything for the wedding. It's not that I don't think that there are good enough free charts available for our wedding sampler or the ring pillow, but I found what I want, I haven't found a better free alternative, and I can't wait to find one. I don't want to get in a situation where it's our wedding day and I don't have the things done because I procrastinated.

Charts for the SALs I'm in. That's kinda obvious. I signed up for these SALs and I need to keep going.

I think this gives me good variety for the year.


I worked on Summer Ball for a couple hours last night. It's a tedious stitch, especially on their faces. Someone on 123 finished it in a hundred days; she is my hero. For some weird reason, the girl in the center of the picture reminds me of the actress who played Becky Sharp in the version of Vanity Fair they used to show on A&E. Maybe because the other girls look vaguely annoyed with her? That should probably not be a good thing, but I really loved that miniseries, and I have always liked Becky. It probably means I have spent too much time on this project that I think things like that, but, oh well. HTB asked me how long I had been working on it. I told him since 2006. I think he thinks I'll never get it finished . . . He may be right, but I'll give it the old college try.

8 comments:

Meari said...

Good luck with your freebie goal!

Clare-Aimetu said...

Good luck with all your goals - you are certainly going to have a busy 2010

Blu said...

Good luck with your goal. And have fun!

Julie M said...

Good luck with all your goals. I set one last year and totally failed to accomplish it. Not gonna make that mistake again. This year, no goals.

Daffycat said...

Sounds like an awesome plan! I can't wait to see your progress!

LOL I sat and filled a binder with loose freebies on Saturday. OMG if I had to print out every chart I have...I couldn't afford the ink & paper & space!

Bette said...

I like your idea of only stitching freebies. There are a lot of cute ones out there.

aprilmecheelesdulllife said...

I have a lot of Freebies too. I think I will also try to at least get several done this year. Thank you for mentioning the freebies.

Nic said...

Good luck with your goals.

I've just had a clear out of my freebie files - if I have them electronically, I'm passing on the printed versions and will only print out when I'm ready to stitch - I've got too many and hardly ever get round to stitching them.

Perhaps it's a project for another year - this year is the Year of the UFO...

I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped--Frederick Perls