{This Week's Plans} Waiting for Appliance Parts, Casting on a New Shawl, and Gridding Aida

It's amazing how much time can get gobbled up while you're dealing with stupid little things. The compressor in the fridge went out and it was eleven days before the first available service appointment. Now that they've been here and determined what's wrong it will be almost four weeks until they come back to fix it. Oh, and while we're waiting I get to watch the porch like a hawk for the UPS guy because the parts come straight to the house in multiple shipments. And I still wouldn't have a fridge except yesterday the boys and I went out and bought a cheap one that we found Craigslist. At least I didn't have big plans for the week, except for a shopping trip with my daughter that will take place before I have to start watching for the parts. 

While we're waiting, I have things to do. 

To Do This Week:

Grid fabric for Riolis SAL
Cast on new Shawl
Make some progress on the Emerald City SAL
Sew reusable shopping bags

Back to....Something or Other

One of my biggest challenges has always been bouncing back from vacation -- or just a few days of unexpected chaos -- to our usual daily schedule. I'm very good at losing track of what I was working on before life got crazy. Sometimes it's still there starting at me when things settle down, but if it was in the bottom of a project bag, the odds of my remembering it were slim. 

The daily project tracker in my planner has been a life saver. Everything I've started since January of 2018 and not yet finished is there on the list. I may need to come up with a rule about when it's okay to stop moving things over to the new month, because I'm never going to be one of those women who finishes everything, but I'm finishing most things. 

This Week's List --

knit a skein of yarn into the Skoosh shawl
finish gridding the fabric for Beacon at Daybreak
 finish gridding the fabric for All is Calm
zigzag the edges of projects that need it

Plans for the Week

I've got my week all planned. The pattern for the Sock Madness qualifier round has been released and there's no colorwork or beads and you get to cast on with whatever stretchy method you prefer...so I'm optimistic. 

I've also got ideas for new projects that I can't wait to share with you.

This Week's Goals

Last week I made myself work on the entire list of current projects. This week, I'm going to play with the three that are the most fun. 

I Worked on Them All!

Last week's goal was to pull out all of my active projects and work for at least an hour on each one. I managed that, and now I've got one fewer project in my rotation. 

I'm still not enthused about the green socks or A Little Girl's Fancy. They're both too fiddly for me to deal with right now. I think I'll focus on the hedgehogs and All is Calm and worry about those later.

Those winter storm warnings are still popping up on my phone even though it's well above freezing and there's not a flake of snow to be seen. Makes me really glad I'm not trying to plan anything around all of this!

This Week's Projects

This week, I'm pulling out all of my active projects and putting in at least a couple of hours of stitching or knitting on each of them. Keeping that progress tracker in my planner last year was a HUGE improvement over what I've done in the past. I still flit from project to project, but I've got a physical list of where I was before I got distracted. And there's just a little touch of guilt when I carry something forward for several months without touching it once.

Maybe I should add a tracker for those projects I was planning to start but didn't... Probably not. If I didn't stay motivated enough to even start, this might not be the right time to work on those things. 

Starting New Things

This week, I've got new things I want to start -- a shawl to replace the one I couldn't bring myself to donate, a little sampler to try out a different brand of thread, and this Riolis scene that was part of my new Christmas stash. 

I'm also thinking of some bright red socks for Valentine's Day, but I need to dig out the yarn for those.

On My Needles and Q-Snaps

It looks like I'm spending January finishing things that maybe I could have or should have finished in December. I don't regret any of the last minute projects that I started instead, but it's leaving me with things that don't feel like they should count at 2019 finishes and weren't done to count as 2018 finishes...and that's really a ridiculous thing to worry about. 

The upcoming week is going to be hectic, so I'm not making a list. Maybe I'll finish the blue socks and the orange shawl because those are mindless knitting and I foresee plenty of time for that. 

My Days are Full of Yarn

Sometimes that's less fun than it might sound. I didn't get to the laundromat early enough on Saturday so I had to camp out and wait for a big machine to open up but that meant I made some progress on the new shawl and read a few chapters of the new book in Gigi Pandian's Accidental Alchemist series. And now we've got clean towels and socks. As much as I don't love the laundromat, getting everything washed in one thirty minute session isn't a bad thing. 

I'm still keeping my plans tentative as the bug works its way through the house, but so far so good. I'll get it or I won't and there's nothing coming up in my life that can't be rescheduled if I need to.

To Do This Week

-- set up sewing machine for filming new tutorial
-- wind second skein of yarn for January socks
-- finish Open a New Box Daily
-- make that cheesecake in the pressure cooker

Trying to Avoid the Plague

My plans for the upcoming week are going to be extremely tentative. Hubby is on his third day sick in bed and no one else is showing symptoms yet. Barring an unexpected miracle, this might get much worse before it gets better. 

I got a lot done over the weekend, but if I catch his plague it's definitely going to slow me down.

-- bobbinate floss for Sanctuary
-- start new sampler with the Sullivan's floss
-- cast on a new shawl for mindless knitting

Fifteen More Days Left in 2018

It had looked like I could get a couple of these projects done by the end of the year. The days keep passing and things keep happening and although I could probably get those done before the clock strikes midnight and the calendar turns, it's making less and less sense to try. 

And  then it feels like I'm giving up...

 I'm thinking about just letting the random number generator decide what I'm going to work on each day so that it makes the decisions for me. 

Do you struggle to get stuff done so that you can count it as a finish before the new year starts? Or is it just me? 

What I'm Working On

Last week, I showed you the newly started Krampus cross stitch piece and shawl. Krampus is stitched and propped up on the fireplace. I'm a full skein and several pattern repeats into the shawl. 

Now the question is how much of this I can get finished by December 31...or if I want to start something entirely new....

New Projects for December

I meant to write this post Sunday night, but all of that bin diving at the Goodwill Outlets kept me out late and by the time I got home I just wanted to crawl into bed.

So instead of telling you that I'm going to start a new Christmas cross-stitch project and a new shawl, I'll show you what I accomplished Monday night...

The plan for the week is to keep working on these.

New Starts Before the End of the Year?

I want to start another new shawl....and another pair of plain socks...and maybe this pattern I just purchased and downloaded off of etsy. I absolutely want to stitch it, the question is just whether or not I need to start right this second. 

A few of my stitchy friends are planning to spend 2019 stitching only on WIPs....so they're starting a whole bunch of new things before the first of January. I guess that's the same logic as stocking up on fabric or yarn before deciding to work on projects from stash.

I've decided that I like having multiple projects on my needles and Q-snaps, so I'm starting new projects. But I also like finishing things before the end of the year, so I'm making myself a little bit crazy.

{This Week's List} Getting Through the Holiday

I crossed every item off of last week's list! It was a very short list, but I'm still taking credit for getting it all done. 

I'll work on the shawl and the socks and the stitching this week, but my schedule is going to be crazier than usual and I'm not making a list.

{This Week's List} Stitch Alongs

I did get the floss sorted out for All is Calm. Whoever designed that kit and divided the colors into bundles did an amazing job. It was very easy to figure out which floss was which color and I didn't even have to rely on the DMC conversions and chart. The fabric is almost completely gridded and I'm ready to start stitching on Thursday. 

I got the heel on the Return to Oz socks done.  That project is just fiddly enough to keep me from doing it on auto-pilot.

And there's still no new shawl. I don't know why I'm so resistant to casting one on, but I keep telling myself I'll make a decision about yarn and a pattern and then keep putting it off. Even though I got stuff done, this week's list is a lot like last week's list.

-- figure out where I put the second skein of Salt and Pepper Fabel
-- start a new shawl
-- start stitching All is Calm

This Week's List

I was actually at a point where I could have finished all of my current WIPs before the end of the year and go into 2019 with a clean slate or with brand new projects. It tempted me for a split second, but then reality caught up with me.

There's a hedgehog SAL that started in October and I have the perfect kit for it. Stitching it at the same time as other people will keep me motivated -- along with the fact that the pattern and threads are absolutely amazing. I've made a ridiculous amount of progress over the past week, which I'll show you soon.

I'm starting my own Dimensions kit SAL and don't want to wait until January. And there's another SAL that's perfect for another kit in my stash. On Thursday I spent three and a half hours gridding fabric at the monthly PNW Stitchers meetup and I can't wait to get stitching on it.

This Week's Goals 

-- finish gridding fabric for All is Calm and sort the floss
-- finish the first heel on Return to Oz socks
-- cast on a new shawl

A New Rule at My House

If I'm going to pull floss for an upcoming project and put it in a clear bag, I need to label that bag. Because I was sure that this was the floss for Home is Where the Horror Is (even though these quite obviously aren't the colors for that project) until the first one I needed wasn't there and neither was the second... 

This is the floss for the Grady Twins. The floss for Home is Where the Horror Is is the floss that I thought was for the Grady twins...and I hope that other unlabeled baggie full is for Southwest Mesa.

Goals for the week --

-- put together yarn and patterns for the next few shawls
-- find more colors of yarn that will work for the Frankensocks
-- cast on Finding the Yellow Brick Road socks
-- start stitching the Grady Twins
-- finish the blue and white quilt for Alexia's

This Week's Plans

It's going to be a full week! I've got two stitchy get-togethers I hope to attend. That's going to mean a lot of hours on the road in a minivan without a/c, but it's more than worth it to spend a few hours with my stitching buddies.  

There's stupid stuff, like trying to schedule our water usage around an annual music festival. Over the next couple of days, I've got to decide whether to get the storage tank filled early or wait until after the festival. Worst case scenario we go a day or two without water, which compared to the well issues of the last few years is nothing. If I'm right about how much water is in the tank as of this morning, we'll be fine and the only think I need to stress about is staying off the roads next weekend.

I'm also looking at my planner, trying to decide which projects will carry over into August. A Little Girl's Fancy and Girl With Cosmos definitely will. The striped socks and the barn and Gramma's Hug will probably get finished over the next few days. I don't know about Campside. The shawl is almost finished, but that yarn is getting harder and harder on my fingers.

I will work up the nerve to uncap that tube of glue, thanks to last week's comments. And there's another project I want to take a closer look at. It's hard to decide which plans I want to post about and which I'll keep to myself for now.

Plans for the Week

I didn't get through every item on last week's list, but I made a lot of progress on a lot of things. It looks like I'll finish Midwest Barn this week and probably start the new shawl. I could maybe start thinking about the next new cross stitch project...or see how much I can get done on the other two cross stitch projects.

Most of all, I need to  figure out how much ventilation this glue actually requires. Anyone used E6000?