Ends and Beginnings

 Happy New Year!

This is going to be a red-letter year for me. I will be retiring. And this means that I will finally have daylight hours for stitching every day and not just on week-ends and holidays and vacations--time to create and stitch and do all the things that working full-time interferes with.

I've been online looking at all the projects people completed last year. I have piles of UFO's and WIP's instead, with not many completed projects to show for the time I've spent stitching. Now, there is no way at all that I can make a dent in those piles before I retire, but I can focus on them--so that is how I plan to start the new year.

I also want to work on some of my more challenging projects, and get some finishing done.

I am not making resolutions about this. I am not making lists, or setting up a rotation, or making rules like I have to finish five things before I can start something new. And I will likely start a few new things before I retire, and I know I have two big new projects that will be underway before the next New Year rolls around.

But I plan to start the year with UFO's and WIP's.

Today I did the gold and silver thread on the second of the Golden Accessories:

Just one more to stitch before I can start putting these together. I just have to wrap my head around plaited braid. My head doesn't want to wrap around plaited braid. It wants the stitcher who originally came up with this stitch to spend eternity in a very hot place. I've been watching videos and practicing, but there's a step that I keep forgetting to do which keeps the braid from plaiting. I am going to work on it again tomorrow and see if I can get it to stay in my head just long enough to finish the last piece of this set. Or I may sit in the corner and rock and drool.

After this, I went back to Emie's Etui and worked the bargello variation. That was much easier.

After this, there is another double running band, then a satin stitch band, then another cross-over-one band, and then this piece will be finished.

But first, I need to plait that braid.