Starting to get back in the swing of things

I actually sat down last night and stitched for 2 hours. I was so proud of myself.

I seem to have misplaced a lot of charts that I bought at CATS. I think they were in one of our tote bags, but can't remember where I put the tote bag. I think it got misplaced during the Christmas cleaning. But, in looking for them, I found an old UFO, and pulled that out. It was the Stoney Creek Christmas stocking from 2005 that I started for my boyfriend. After we broke up, I put it away because I was not functioning very well--these things happen after the person you want to spend the rest of your life with tells you things like he never thinks you will get a good job, or have good credit--and looking at anything having to do with that whole thing nauseated me. But, 18 months later, I could pull it out and realize that what he said isn't true, and I can work on finishing this piece. And I think it's going easier for me than it did before because I have New Birth of Spring under my belt. After working with that hand-drawn chart, this chart is a pleasure, and it's much smaller to work with.

I promise, on Monday, I will post pics of everything I am working on, so as to not be a blogging deadbeat.

But, another good thing came out of my searching--no, not the charts that I was looking for. I found a bunch of stuff to work on for Guilt-free January and most of them use supplies I can get at Michael's.

I pulled out:

Raise the Roof Dry Turkey, stitched all in DMC on 28 count. All I need from LNS is an olive button. (who wants to bet my LNS will not have an olive button. Anyone, anyone?) It looks like a fairly quick simple stitch.

Dragon Dreams Lost Dragon Sampler--I mostly kitted this up last fall, but need to get one skein of DMC 906. I think this would make a good entry in the fantasy class at the fair and it's whimsical. If I ever get to the point where I have a real office, I want to have whimsical things hung on the wall. I work better surrounded by fun things--my cubicle has fun pictures of the cats amd a box I bought at Michael's on clearance, and my pumpkin-footed JBW cube, so I think that would work well.

I have TIAG's Simple Gifts as well. I just need to get the rest of the floss, and I should be ready to start. I bought the fabric at Everything Cross Stitch last winter; Mom and I drove down to Fredericksburg, Virginia, the day before Super Bowl Sunday, just to get out. It was a nice day, and that is a wonderful shop. You have to love a shop where the owner says, "Would you like me to pull the floss for you while you shop?" Well, YEAH. Woo hoo. That had been a time when I was flush with cash, we have to be more reasonable now.


Also, Village , by Per Segno per Filo. This is such a pretty little design. It's not something I typically would choose, but wouldn't this make such a gorgeous wallhanging?

I also pulled out two charts to actually be guilt-free starts that I haven't bought anything for yet. I have Cedar Hill's "The Cat Feeder", which is so cute. It's a little cat waiting patiently by the bird feeder. The cat looks like my Flicky, and he probably would sit by the birdfeeder, not knowing quite what to do, but knowing he ought to be there.

Also, "Happy Everything" from Stoney Creek, Snow Happens. This looks like a pretty quick stitch. It should be a good break.

I think one of my stitching resolutions this year is going to be to only buy floss when I know I don't have it in my stash. I have a lot of just random floss in bags and I have NO idea why I bought it. I found a bag last night. Just random floss. I am pretty sure it's for a SC. They have a very specific set of colors that they use, and this was rife with those colors. They were in a bag with a kit, so I have my suspicions of what I bought it for, but I can't be sure. I hate that. Of courseI wouldn't have this problem if I went totally on the wagon and stitched only what was kitted up. But that's not fun . . .