But I have stitching to show today! I have a happy dance!

Originally I wasn’t going to show this yet, but the person that this is for knows that I am terrible about keeping secrets and she will be receiving it from me on Wednesday anyway.

Drum roll please…

Behold! I present the gift that I made for my little goddaughter, Megan Renee. This is a Lizzie*Kate design simply entitled “Baby Sampler.” This pattern has two versions of the baby sampler: One is long and contains the baby’s name and his/her birthdate and the other is square and just contains space for the name.

I was originally going to stitch the long one, but since I wanted to include the baby’s first and middle name and there was only room for the first name I had to get creative. (I just had to include the middle name! She is my namesake after all…) In the end I decided to do the square one, stitch it over one, and make it into a two-sided ornament. I substituted the word “baby” in the spot where the name was supposed to go and put Megan’s first and middle names and birthdate on the back. I then made it into a whipstitch ornament and added beads along the sides. I love the way it turned out and I know Dawn (and Megan) will too!

So… I stitched most of the evening and will have a happy dance sometime this weekend. It is my super-secret project for a certain someone so I won’t be able to show it for a while, but let me assure you this project is very precious.

I have to work tomorrow, but after that I will be on vacation until December 3. And guess where I am going for Thanksgiving?

To Dawn’s to see Baby Megan Renee! (And the rest of the family too, of course!)

I have a million things to do before I leave on Tuesday, but I am still going to try to fulfill my NaBloPoMo commitment… even if I have to enable mobile blogging so I can blog from the road.

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future generations as family heirlooms?

Although I would love for any of my BAPs to become family heirlooms, I think of all the pieces that I have stitched the ones that I would most like to become heirlooms are the birth samplers that I stitched for my niece and nephew.

Did you receive any stitching-related gifts for the holidays?

Yes I did. As per yesterday’s post, I received stitched goodies from Dawn yesterday. Thanks Dawn!

As anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows, I am very, very close to finishing “Above the Clouds.” So close, in fact that I thought with a little concentrated effort I could finish Confetti by the end of November. That was my goal and I have tried very diligently to meet it. However, after almost 20 hours I was tired of Confetti and wanted very badly to change projects.

At that point I decided to start working on Outi’s belated birthday exchange piece. It was a good distraction from Confetti and I thought I was on a roll: I would finish Outi’s present in no time flat, get back to Confetti, and voilà! my November goals would be met and all would be well.

Unfortunately, things were not to be that way…

I was about one-third of the way into Outi’s exchange piece when I discovered a huge mistake. Because it was one of those boo-boos that couldn’t be fudged, I ended up having to frog out almost half of what I had stitched. As you can well imagine, by the time I was finished frogging I was so frustrated that I knew that it had to be put away for a while. (I am still going to try and get it to you by Christmas Outi!)

I keep saying that I am so close to finishing “Above the Clouds,” (and I am!) but it is a TW and as a result, needs full attention and unbroken concentration to really make any progress.

However, by Thursday afternoon I thought was ready. So with my tummy full of turkey I sat down and attempted to make some more progress on Confetti. Within fifteen minutes my desire for that after-Thanksgiving-dinner nap had taken over and Confetti was put away for the day.

The next day I tried yet again to make some progress, but I was restless and couldn’t find my stitching groove. After about an hour I gave up and began to wonder if I was in danger of temporarily losing my stitching mojo.

Disappointed at my lack of progress on Confetti, it was then that I started fondling my stash. I wrapped my DMC 100s, rearranged my bobbin boxes with the help of the kittens, and began flipping through my JCS Ornament issues.

I thought perhaps I needed a happy dance: Something simple and fast that would make me feel like I had accomplished something. Soon I was inspired. I found a scrap of fabric and within minutes I had started “Spool Ornament” by Sue Hillis from this year’s ornie issue.

After the errands were done and before the snow started falling on Saturday, my needles were flying. By the time I was ready for bed that evening “Spool Ornament” was (mostly) finished and I knew that I hadn’t lost my mojo, I was just sick of the things I was “supposed” to be working on.

Yes, I would still like to finish “Above the Clouds” before the end of the year, but I have decided that if I don’t it is no big deal. I will finish it when I am ready.