Revising the List of Shame (Goals for 2009)

I set my goals really high with the previous List of Shame. This upcoming year has a brand new sparkling list of goals. I am getting rid of the old list.

My New Goals with estimated amount of completion time

1. Finish TW's Autumn Fairy (3 months)
2. Finish Dragon Dreams' Fairy Tale Sampler (1 month)
3. Finish Mirabilia's Christmas Fairy (1 month)
4. Finish TW's Princess and the Dragon (2 months)
5. Start St. Basil's Cathedral by Dimples Designs
6. Start Snapdragon by Kustom Crafts
7. Start a Dimples Designs' insect
8. Start a Dracolair chart
9. Start Japanese Octagonal Box
10. Work on Olde World Map

Revisiting the List of Shame

Several years ago I created a list of goals that I intended to finish in one year. Last year I revisited the list and discovered that very few goals had been accomplished. Lets revisit the list and see what I accomplished this year. A new list of goals will be created on Jan. 1st.

1. Finish Olde World Map- hahaha
2. Finish Ouroborus by Dracolair- finished 2007
3. Finish Rose Tree in Bloom by Teresa Wentzler- another hahaha
4. Finish Red Dragon Bookmark by Dracolair
5. Finish Christmas Labyrinth- finished 2007
6. Finish Mini Mandala 1C by Chatelaine
7. Finish Wisdom from the Legends of the Dragons
8. Start and Finish other two Mini Mandalas (1a and 1b) by Chatelaine- Do two different mini mandalas count?
9. Start and Finish Mystery Sampler III by Chatelaine- finished 2007
10. Start and Finish Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine
11. At least 3 Christmas Ornies
12. At least 3 freebies- Finished one (2007), Finished two in 2008
13. Start wedding gift for best friend (married two years ago)- finished
14. Start wedding gift for brother (married last summer)- finished but it became a Christmas gift
15. Start Fantasy Sampler by Dragon Dreams- Started Dec. 2008
16. Start The Guardian by Teresa Wentzler
17. Start Tricky Treat Cats
18. Start and Finish Griffon Bookmark by Dracolair

This is what I did this year
1. You are Never Too Old for a Teddy Bear by Dragon Dreams- WIP started June 2006? Finished Jan. 2008
2. The Dreaming by Dinky Dyes- WIP started Fall 2006, Finished Feb. 2008
3. Fish Tonight- Valerie Pfeiffer/Heritage Stitchcraft.- Started sometime in late 2005 or early 2006. Finished Feb. 2008-
4. Mystery Mini Mandala 1- Chatelaine- Start April 16, 2008 finished June 29, 2008
4. Needle Guardian- Teresa Wentzler- Started July 3 2008 finished July 19, 2009
5. Cockatoos Two by Britter Cup Designs- Started July 20 2008 and Finished August 2008
6. I love Penguins by Britter Cup Designs- Started and Finished August 2008
7. The Purr-fect Bookmark by Dinky Dyes- Started and Finished August 2008
8. Spyder by The Cross-Eyed Cricket- Started and Finished August 2008
9. Quaker Hedgehog by The Workbasket- Started and Finished August 2008
10. Mini Mystery Mandala II by Chatelaine- Started Sept 2008 and Finished Oct 18, 2008
11. Armadillo needlepoint- Started and Finished Oct 18, 2008
12. Dragons by the Fire- Black Swan- Started Feb. 2007 and Finished Dec. 16, 2008 - The BIG finish of the year!
13. Halloween Fairy by Mirablia- started Nov. 2007, Finished Jan. 2008


In a nutshell. While I completed 13 projects (possibly 14 or 15 depending on the stitching I can do before the end of the year), I only completed 3.66 of the goals I set. I knocked off another sixth of my goals. So 7/18 of my goals have been completed. I suck! I am totally revamping my goal list this year. It will be much more reasonable. Of course I will continue to monitor my progress of the original goal list because I am a masochist.

Snow in Texas!

Due to a freaky storm we had snow in East Central Texas during the day...one inch! I have never seen snow here. Ice once a year but not snow. It was a winter wonderland. Normally our snowmen consist of these balls of ferns that grow in the tree but not yesterday. Poor Genghis the Aloe plant. We were not expecting this weather so he was not brought in the house before the freak storm. Notice how the dachshund sinks into the snow and it touches his chest. Poor weiner dog! He had never been in snow before. However, it was nice dry fluffy snow. The sidewalks and roads were to warm for the snow and ice to stick so we had all the fun of snow without the dangers of it (at least on the ground).

Happy Halloween

Happy Hallowein(er)!

Pictures Galore

I can never get the pictures in blog to line up
right grrrr.

Explanation of Pictures: I have Princess and the Dragon before and a third of the way through the TWOctober stitch along the Wagon BB. I am really enjoying this stitch. I also posted a picture of Hastur that was taken while he was sleeping in this morning. The creature does not rise from bed until 11 am or noon if he can. I toil away on my dissertation while he lounges about. The last picture is I love Penguins by Brittercup designs. I stitched it for my DH. He luvs penguins! I am almost done with the Chatelaine Mini Mystery Mandala II. I would post pictures but it is a gift for someone.

Two finishes

I have had two finishes within the past month, Mini Mystery Mandala 01 by Chatelaine and Needle Guardian by Teresa Wentzler. I made a few changes to the Mini Mystery. I changed out on the of the blue flosses for a lighter one and left off the most outer row of the border. For the Needle Guardian I used the cotton version of the Dinky Dyes instead of the silk. It was a very colorful and fun skein of overdyed floss to work with.

Needle Guardian took me over two weeks to stitch instead of just a few days. It is not that big of a project. I have been drowning in work related activities. For the past two weeks I have been working 12-14 hour days without any real breaks, even during lunch I had errands or meetings to attend (I lost 4 pounds-this is a good thing). Getting a Ph.D. can really suck sometimes. I have two weeks off from the workshop scene and we start again for two more weeks of torture. Excuse me while I go scream in frustration. End of whine.

I have finally started my best friends wedding gift. I discovered last night while rooting around in my stash that I had all the necessary speciality fibers to complete it. I also discovered something about my stitching habits in the process. The great discovery is that there is no reason for when I decide to stitch something...I just get obsessed over a project and I have to do it. Normally this happens when I have an open pair of scroll bars. I have resisted working on this project for well over a year now and all of a sudden I have to do it. I don't know what changed but the good news is that by the end of August I will finally have a wedding gift to send to my best friend...three and half years late... Oh the project is Cockatoo's Two of the Feather Friends collection by Britter Cup designs. http://brittercupdesigns.com/featherfriends.html Not a difficult project by any means but I just had to get my stitching mojo in gear and focus it on that particular project.

Pictures Galore

I am too lazy to come up with much of a written entry today...so you get lots of pictures. Yippeeeeee...pictures. I must include the obligatory pictures of the adorable dachshund.

Picture list: The Dreaming by Dinky Dyes with changed floss and fabric colors. Mystery Mini Mandala 01 by Chatelaine. It is stitched on black fabric. I changed one of the floss colors from DMC 831 to 830 (or vice versa- I went with the lighter blue). I used the DMC conversion list instead of the NPIs. Last is a freebie You Are Never Too Old. Adorable but stitching with that many metallics totally sucked. Never again....

Bribing Myself with Stitching Goodies

I must confess to all of the participants of the 50 Project Challenge that I have broken my promise not to buy any charts with non-gift money. It is for a good cause. See, I love the mini-mystery Mandalas from Chatelaine. They are lovely, small, and affordable. I brought the first one and I have been working on it. Pictures of it should soon appear. The camera is in my DH's backpack. I just need to fish it out of there. I am bribing myself to lose weight with the Chatelaine mini-mysteries as the prize. For every 15 pounds I lose I get to buy the chart. I lost 21 pounds so I could buy the first one. I have from April 1st to July 1st to lose another 15 pounds so I can purchase the 2nd one. I have lost 8 pounds of it and have a little over a month to lose 7 more pounds. Bribing myself works really well and 15 pounds in three months at my weight is a very conservative and realistic weight loss goal. It works especially well in this case because of my great "hunger" to obtain new charts. Given this information please decide my punishment. I am thinking of adding 5 projects to the challenge before I can buy new charts. Is this adequate?

Shameless Plug (again): todays post by Library Overlord was especially funny. http://libraryoverlord.blogspot.com/2008/05/tales-from-dungeon-part-ii.html

The Camera Saga

I promise I have pictures of projects...but they are trapped on the camera. I haven't been able to find the cord to connect the camera to the computer. Today I found it!!! Of course the camera is MIA. Some days I just can't win.

Up date on stitching. I have been working on Chatelaine Mini-Mandala Mystery 1 and I am almost finished with the second part. I have taken some lovely pictures of it...

DMC Scare: I normally don't kit anything up until I am ready to work on it. Hence my stash is full of lovely charts and not much else. Well due to the DMC scare I "flossed" 25 projects. Most of them are TWs since they are hardest ones to convert to Anchor if the worst happens and DMC actually folds in 6 months. This whole DMC floss has been a total nightmare and it made me realize just how vunerable my stash is to the loss of key stitching industry players. On a side note flossed when you kit up a project with only the basic flosses .(I don't know if this is an actual stitching term. I just made it up to describe the lack of completely kitting up a project)

Shameless Plug: check out http://www.libraryoverlord.blogspot.com/ It is a humerous blog about one library workers saga at a large library. He is a gamer, comic book geek, and fanatasy fan. It shows but in an awesome way. Make sure you check out the links in the text.

So how well did I do last year

Below is the list of goal for 2007. Lets take a look at how much I failed to accomplish.

1. Finish Olde World Map
2. Finish Ouroborus by Dracolair
3. Finish Rose Tree in Bloom by Teresa Wentzler
4. Finish Red Dragon Bookmark by Dracolair
5. Finish Christmas Labyrinth
6. Finish Mini Mandala 1C by Chatelaine
7. Finish Wisdom from the Legends of the Dragons
8. Start and Finish other two Mini Mandalas (1a and 1b) by Chatelaine
9. Start and Finish Mystery Sampler III by Chatelaine
10. Start and Finish Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine
11. At least 3 Christmas Ornies
12. At least 3 freebies- Finished one
13. Start wedding gift for best friend (married two years ago)
14. Start wedding gift for brother (married last summer)
15. Start Fantasy Sampler by Dragon Dreams
16. Start The Guardian by Teresa Wentzler
17. Start Tricky Treat Cats
18. Start and Finish Griffon Bookmark by Dracolair

Well, I guess 3.33 out of 18 isn't too bad. Hehehehe.......

I have gone over how fickle I am with projects. So below is what I finished last year.

1. I love birds by Brittercup started and finished March 2007
2. Assisi Dragon Scissor Fob- Finished June 28, 2007
3. Chirstmas Labyrinth- Started April 7, 2007 Finished July 17, 2007
4. Emerald Orchid Bee by Dimples Designs- started July 20, 2007 Finished July 23, 2007
5. Ouroborus by Dracolair- WIP started June 27, 2006 Finished July 28, 2007
6. Mystery Dinky Dyes Contest Piece August 2007
7. Chatelaine Mystery Sampler III- WIP started Jan. 4, 2007 Finished Sept. 4, 2007
8. Sun Dragon by TW- started Oct 1. 2007 Finished Oct. 16, 2007 9. "wheat" posted on My Aunt's Attic - started and completed Dec. 21, 2007