Back to School

First, the obligatory stitching content:

Here is where I am on Frances Burwell. I need to work the double running outline of a big flower and then I'm going to cover all the double running up with satin stitch. This may mean a sharp needle. As I haven't left any DNA on this project thus far, I suppose it's time.

And now the Back-to-School part:

Our local schools went back into session today. The start of the school year always feels like it should be the real start of the year. I have managed to restrain myself from buying notebooks and markers and a pencil box (do people even use pencil boxes any longer?), but it's been a close thing. I want stickers!

The big thing is that I've decided it's the perfect time to give myself a kick in the posterior and restart the year.

My stitching has been drifting all over the place this year. With a couple of notable exceptions, I haven't been passionate about anything I've worked on. Don't get me wrong--I love the things that are in my stash and I want to stitch every single solitary one--but I can't seem to settle on anything. The number of things I've started since January--and that have never seen the light of blog--is a little scary. And I've spent way too many evenings staring at the TV without working on anything--a most  unusual waste of time for me.

Because I tend to make lists, just for the sake of making lists, I started listing things I want to do. Everything falls into one of five categories:

Samplers
Smalls
Seventeenth Century
Stumpwork
Special Stuff (like whitework and goldwork and my lunchtime crewel projects)

I've made the decision I need to get into a routine. Notice I'm not saying "rotation" or assigning projects to specific days of the week, but a simple routine that I can follow without feeling constraints. I don't do well with rules, even the ones I make for myself.

So, the plan at the moment is to use my weeknights after work for a project that is ready to go when I plop into the wing chair after the dinner dishes are out of the way.  It can be anything in one of those categories that is ready to go when I am.

When I have a long expanse of time--like Saturday afternoons while the laundry is churning--I'll do thing like all the cutting and pressing and sorting of bits as needed to assemble the smalls I stitch, then don't get around to finish-finishing.   I found that worked really well on the Virgin Queen's Stitching Wallet--I got everything cut out and sorted so all I had to do was pick up a piece and sew on it. This also includes sewing linen to the scroll bars or tracing designs to be worked on later.

I think I am going to reserve Sundays for pieces that need real concentration. That worked well on Eve in the Garden.

Holidays and vacations--anything goes.

And I am going to try blogging more often. If I blog, I stitch. I will not even try to blog daily--last November showed me that won't work with my life as it currently works--but I'll try to blog more often--maybe because I might have more to talk about if I'm stitching more.

I already feel better about getting some things done.

Baby Girl says that I'm overthinking. She is probably right.