About 3 years ago I designated Tuesday night as “UFO night” – originally I had a numerical list of all my unfinished stitching projects. I got serious and numbered tiddlywink discs with the same list of numbers – on Tuesday night each week I drew a number out of the ‘barrel’, and whatever project had that number, that was the one I had to stitch on that night. I figure this was the only way I could force myself to stitch those UFO’s I’d come to detest. Well, it worked OK for a while, and I managed to even finish a couple of UFO’s that way, but I’ve pretty much fallen off the UFO wagon over the last 2 years since moving to Aussie.
Last night I decided to reinstate the tradition – but instead of drawing a number out of the barrel, I opted instead to actually choose which UFO I wanted to work on. In this case I picked out my old canvaswork piece called “Dena” by Orna Willis. No sooner had I pinned the canvas to the frame, and clamped it into the floor stand, and started reading the chart, than I remembered why this became a UFO in the first place … loads and loads of ‘weaving’ of threads … yuck!! Anyway, I figured I couldn’t back out now … I was already sat in my recliner ready to stitch – I just had to bite the bullet and get on with it! In actual fact, I eventually got into a rhythm, and finished one band, and got part-way through another one. I figure I’m going to continue stitching this one for another night or two – it would be lovely to get this one finished and out of the way before I start my Christmas SAL next week. And I seem to be on a roll stitching-wise, so I might as well strike while the iron’s hot, so to speak!
And what better weather to sit and stitch to … driving home tonight the sky was lit up amazingly by lightning – and on the last street before reaching home it started pelting the car with hail, and you couldn’t see two feet in front of you thanks to the torrential downpour! I only have a few paces to walk between my carpark and the building, and in such a short space of time I managed to get a thorough drenching – unbelievable! Mind you, it seems to have eased off now, and is undoubtedly terrorising some other part of Melbourne with its energy.
One other great thing happened tonight – I recently rejoined Ebay just to find a copy of the 2004 JCS Ornament issue … well today I actually won my first ever bid from a UK supplier, so hopefully my copy will soon be winging it’s way across the oceans. After seeing The Sweetheart Tree’s ornament in another blog, I really really wanted to stitch it … I had no choice but to track it down and buy it! LOL. And hopefully I’ll soon be completing another exchange for the 2005 JCS issue … plus today is officially my Friday – tomorrow is the weekend for me – the day just doesn’t get any better than this! 🙂
Feather Stitching 
Hi Anne, thanks for stopping by my blog 🙂 Glad I could enable you with Summer into Autumn 😉
I love your idea for working on UFOs (I was just reading about it in the comments of Danielle’s blog as well) – I don’t have many things outstanding, but I have some large projects that are being neglected and I’m going to give your idea some serious consideration.
I wish I could be as disiplined as you…Wasn’t the lightening and thunder great… I am glad I wasn’t ACTUALLY in it as I am not very brave – respectful yes – brave – no… Hope you have a good weekend…Something nice planned I hope…
Hey there Anne 🙂
Good luck to you-I will be pulling for you and cheering you on in your UFO challenge 🙂
GO GIRL!
The piece you posted is AWESOME!
Uh-oh, is it my fault that you had to buy last year’s JCS ornament issue? 😀 I hope that you’ll enjoy it for more than just the Sweetheart Tree bellpull. I think that there are a lot of ornaments in there to satisfy a range of palates. Enjoy!
What a SUPER idea to get those UFOs re-started! I have been in a couple of MSN groups, where there have been various methods employed to encourage the members to finish their UFOs, but all fizzled out after a while. Having so many makes it awfully hard to decide which one to work on, so ‘drawing straws’ (so to speak) on the designated night is a great idea too!