Ready to conquer the world

... or at least my goals list for this month. For whatever reason, I was in a really productive mood yesterday and got a stitching bag ready for the week with all of the projects (four in total) I want to make progress on. Unfortunately, half of these are gifts for people who may see this blog, so I can't share progress pictures, but I'm excited about them nevertheless.

All ready to go

I am happy to report that I have finished all of the stitching for my CFS ornament exchange gift. I just need to actually finish it into an ornament, which means I need to actually figure out how I want to finish it. I'm pretty sure it will be a flat ornament as it was intended to be, but the finishing instructions that came with the chart don't make much sense to me so I'll probably be looking around for some other, more-easily followed directions. I wish I could post a picture, but we'll just have to wait until it's actually been given to the recipient.

Nursery Rhymes is making slow but steady progress. I'm not as far along as I would like, but I needed to get that ornament done. I'm still hoping for having it done and framed in time for Christmas, which means I need to get it in gear. At least the sections I've been working on have very few fractional stitches, which is a blessing. I hope to be halfway done by the end of the month (which will be nice considering all of my other goals).

October Goals

Before listing my stitching goals for October, let's review my progress on my September goals.

September Goals
1. Complete ~50% of Nursery Rhymes (gift)
2. Complete and frame another small baby gift (currently about 1/3 done)
3. Start Band Sampler from Sampler Quaterly (post Christmas gift)
4. Start Tribal Elephant from White Willow (gift, waiting on chart to come in at LNS)
5. Start Christmas ornament for the Cross Stitch Forum Ornament Exchange

Progress
1. Not quite, though I should be nearing 50% in the next week or so.
2. Definitely not. For whatever reason, I just didn't want to work on this.
3. Nope!
4. Yes! I started this design and made a good amount of progress.
5. Also yes! I technically started this morning, the last day of September, but it still counts.

So all in all, a mediocre month goal wise. But I got a lot done on Nursery Rhymes, which is the main focus. I also may have overestimated my stitching speed/time. I will probably try to scale back a bit for October's goals.

October Goals
1. 100% complete and ready to be framed (I'm pushing myself on this one)
2. Finish ornament for Cross Stitch Forum ornament exchange and ship
3. Start/finish small to send with Stashmas gift (another exchange on the Cross Stitch forum)
4. Start/finish/send ornament for another gift
5. Stashmas shopping!
6. Start a gift for my husband
7. Finish other baby gift and frame
8. Start band sampler

Okay, so I said I would scale back for October. I lied.

September Goals

Something you may not know about me: I am very analytical. I can analyze just about anything to death: people, books, movies, numbers (when they let me), etc. I like statistics and percentages and what not (big surprise coming from a mathematics major). Anyway, all of that means that I like to plan and record progress. This is why I keep a book log and a stitching journal.

All of which is to say that I have decided to become more deliberate in what I stitch and when. Many stitchers use a rotation of some sort, whether it's working a week on each project, a day, a set number of hours, or devoting certain times to certain types of projects. Because I have a million a few gift projects going on right now (or needing to be going on), a rotation won't exactly work at the moment. Instead, I've mapped out the next few months in terms of goals, based on deadlines and stuff for each project. I'll try to post my monthly goals at the beginning of each month and then recap at the end of the month to see how I did. Nothing fancy*, just something to appease my brain.

Without further delay, here are my goals for the rest of September. Note: Percentages will be approximate. I don't have time to count actual stitches.

1. Complete ~50% of Nursery Rhymes (gift)
2. Complete and frame another small baby gift (currently about 1/3 done)
3. Start Band Sampler from Sampler Quaterly (post Christmas gift)
4. Start Tribal Elephant from White Willow (gift, waiting on chart to come in at LNS)
5. Start Christmas ornament for the Cross Stitch Forum Ornament Exchange

If I can get all of that done, I should be in pretty good shape as I head towards the holiday season (assuming that the giraffes in Giraffe Silhouette don't start a stampede and demand attention). I don't have that many Christmas gifts that I'm making this year, but I have enough that I need to get started now.

Do you organize your stitching or just stitch whatever you feel like? How do you keep up with what you're working on?

*Okay, well I did make an Excel workbook to track my current WIPs, projects to start next, and projects to start someday, complete with chart/fabric info and notes. Also, technically I've set weekly goals, but that's a bit much for the blog.