So far, I’m doing very well on my stitching since I picked it back up in early October. I’ve made great progress on a few projects, I’ve finished a couple little projects, learned how to bead and how to do several specialty stitches… so yeah, I’m very pleased.

Of course, the big looming issue is that I do have quite a few projects that are in UFO land (Unfinished Object, for the non-stitchers who read). Many of them are large projects that will take me literally hundreds of hours to finish.

I’ve already become active again on the discussion boards I used to frequent a few years ago… one of them specifically for UFO’s has died off to almost no people posting. Other boards, though, are strong and active.

I’ve also joined a few SAL’s (Stitch-a-Longs) to push projects that I currently have along, and between that and the forums (and the blog here), I think I’ll have a good community to get stuff done.

So the SALs I’ve either joined or will shortly start stitching for are:

Christmas Design SAL being hosted by Yoyo.

For this one, I’m going to continue on my Cats on a Staircase stocking, which I really, REALLY want to get finished for Christmas next year – partially so I can justify starting some of my other holiday patterns.

Cross Stitch SAL on Facebook (not visible unless you’re logged in to Facebook)

This SAL has a monthly stitching weekend where people post their beginning and ending progress of whatever they feel like working on. They also encourage weekly update photos (although I haven’t been doing that). It’s a good random SAL that I can adapt to whichever project I’m focusing on in my current rotation. This month’s SAL is Dec. 26-31st. I guess they’re dragging it through the week due to the holidays.

The Totally Useless SAL hosted by Yoyo

About 6 weeks ago I posted a picture of a jar with a bunch of threads and DMC labels. That would be this – it’s just a keep jar of all of the stray threads as I work through projects. The funny thing is that in my house, it actually is a useful thing – as it forced me to get a container to toss threads in so the cats don’t get to them.

I’ve Started so I’ll Finish… Eventually

If there ever were a SAL for me to join, it’s this one. Basically a cheerleader-format community blog for those projects that have stalled. I’m in very good Teresa Wentzler-lover company over there. For now, I’ve selected Egyptian Sampler and Floral Bellpull as my two UFO projects to push through on this.

Teresa Wentzler SAL – Facebook

This one I’m running, although so far it’s just me and a friend of mine. It’s exactly what it says on the tin – pick a TW project, join up and stitch with us.

I’ve also placed my name in for a round robin for 2010. I haven’t decided which of my projects will go into that one yet, but I still have a few weeks to decide. Maybe I should make a poll on it and see what others think…

Onto non-stitching stuff… it was a fairly uneventful weekend. We had our first sticking snowfall – about an inch fell on the ground for us. It’s stayed cold, so it’s not going anywhere soon. I’ve heard rumors of both rain and snow for midweek, so that will be the deciding factor, I suppose.

I managed to get a good chunk of my holiday cards done yesterday. I still have cards to address, but I’d say all but the personal family and a few close friends’ cards are done and in the mail. I’ll get the rest done by Saturday. The most important thing to me was to make sure that the international cards went out early this week to give them time to arrive at their destinations.

We haven’t bought our tree yet – that’s in the plan for later this week. As always, we’ll get a real tree. The cats are going to eat it one way or the other, so I’d rather they nibble on a real one than a fake one. Plus they smell so nice in the house. So this weekend will be decorating time.

Erich just IMed me that there’s going to be a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America this Sunday virtually all afternoon – including the uncut versions of some of the episodes (hooray!). I’m already so happy with how BBCA has grabbed back control of Doctor Who airings here in the States. SciFi (or SyFy… whatever the hell it’s calling itself these days) was so awful to it with the delay in broadcasts. BBCA is broadcasting the final 10th Doctor 2-parters only one DAY after the airings in the UK later this month (as opposed to the 4 or more month delays on SciFi).

So I guess this Sunday will be “Whomas” at our house. Hooray!

Okay, back to work. More later!