Busier than I Expected...

Wow! I thought that time would free up once the department's holiday party passed but I forgot about all the little things like finding gifts for the co-workers in my office, the holiday dinner for support staff and the christmas open house that a co-worker throws every year. These are more manageable parties for me to attend since they are low-key and no one really expects me to bring a significant other. So between my yoga class and holiday stuff, the week is busier than I expected. I had grand notions about cleaning and organizing my apartment...about finally finishing the christmas tree portion on the *Sweet Dreams* stocking and sharing a picture...about finally putting some songs on the iPod shuffle I bought months ago. But none of that has happened in the past week.


I think I realized that cleaning and organizing my apartment is a much bigger task than I originally thought. Not that it's disastrous or anything. I don't want to give people the impression that I live in the ultimate pigsty or anything. It's relatively organized and I can find things but it needs a good dusting and vacuuming for one. I also need to get the closets cleaned out for a hefty trip to Goodwill. It's amazing how fast things accumulate! I have lots of old and outdated clothes to get rid of plus knick knacks I thought I'd put up in my new apartment. But now that my new apartment is two years old, it's time to admit that my junk may end up being another person's treasure. It just needs to be put out there! Oh, and don't even get me started on the office...does anyone have *caution* tape?! So I'll put the goal to have the apartment cleaned, de-cluttered and organized at the end of January.

I am hoping to have a blog-worthy picture of *Sweet Dreams* by next week, especially as my Sugar Maple Fabric for Fairy Moon is in the mail. Yay! I really hope that this color works. The other color I had, whereas beautiful, was a little too light and the clouds and beading would get lost in the fabric. So, I'm eager to get started on that as well as what to stitch for my scissor fob exchange. I decided to join a stitching exchange group, Hooked on Exchanging, and the deadline to make, finish and ship a scissor fob to your assigned person is the end of January. I'm excited! A little nervous but excited! I've never made a scissor fob let alone finished one. But I know I can do it...I have the resources and everything! So I'm hoping that this will start a friendship with a lot of stiching bloggers and maybe do 4 exchanges in 2008. If I can do 4 exchanges and 4 projects next year, I'll be ecstatic!

Sweet Dreams...

My current cross stitch project right now is the *Sweet Dreams Stocking* by Dimensions. I figured it might be a cute and fun project to work on over the holidays to try and help get me out of my *scroog-ette* mood. Plus, I am having color coordination problems with the project I REALLY want to be working on so I have to work on something in the meantime while I wait for new fabric to arrive. The suspense is killing me and I am hoping that the new fabric is the right pick!

This project has been challenging to say the least. There is loads going on...just look at it...there are at least 50 different colors in this chart and the chart isn't the easiest to read. I've been working on it just about one and a half weeks so far so there isn't a lot to share. Just a lot of sporadic brown and green since I'm trying to work on that tree there in the picture. Once you can start to tell what's transforming, I'll post a *Work in Progress (WIP)* picture.

Holiday Fairies!

So in the last three months or so, I've been trying to stitch in my free time. I have lots of projects queued up although I have no idea when I'll actually get around to doing them. But I find it relaxing and a little exciting to see a piece of material transform in front of my eyes and know that it's me that's causing the transformation. I recently finished two Miribilia fairies. One is Halloween Fairy stitched up as kited so nothing fancy there....

The second one is Christmas Fairy...obviously...as she's holding a little green christmas tree. This one was a lot of fun to work on. I decided to splurge and I bought a piece of Sugar Maple Opalescent Bewitched fabric which gives it this little shimmer and makes her appear more festive. You cant really tell in this picture though...

It's a lot of fun seeing them displayed in my living room for the holidays!