March Review and April Goals

Hi everyone,

So this was the first month I fell out of the wagon, and it wasn't only on my stitching, unfortunately, I've been failing on my slimming goals too, although I keep going to the gym almost every single day, I stopped loosing weight on the past 2 weeks and I put on some inches last week... and this week doesn't seem that it's going to be better, so I definitely need a new month to get into a new start, and I only posted 2 times throughout March... not good, not good at all.

So what were my goals for March:

Realistic goals:
     - Start/ Complete and Finish my Spring Project for the EmeraldIsle Cross Stitch group Exchange
     - Complete the second page of QS Butterfly
     - Stitch 1.5 columns of pages 3/5[partial page - just 2 lines] of QS Believe

Dreamworld goals:
     - Stitch 50% of pages 3/5
     - Complete pages 3/5

I was only able to complete the 1st goal... and failed miserably on all others as I didn't put a single stitch on QS Believe during March...

This being said my goals for April are:

Stitch Wise - 
Realistic Goals:
       - Complete the 2nd page of QS Butterfly
       - Start January of the Garden Journal Collection (Friendly Stitchers Yahoo group Travelling Pattern) as soon as I receive it.
       - Complete January chart
       - Start the Mail Art Envelope for my Mother, for Mother's day in Portugal (1st Sunday of May)
       - Complete the Mail Art Envelope
       - Finish the Mail Art Envelope

Dreamworld Goals:
       - Stitch 50% of pages 3/5[partial page - just 2 lines] of QS Believe
       - Complete pages 3/5 of Qs Believe

Slimming Wise - 
       - Go to at least 1 class at the gym everyday from Monday to Friday
       - Keep the Food Diary
       - Drink 2L water everyday
       - Not fall into temptation food wise as often.
       - Loose at least 3Kg
       - Go down another 10inches in total.

And because a proper post should have at least 1 piccie, I'm sharing with you my idea for the Mail Art Project, I've used the Joan Elliot "Mum cards" that are on her book and adjusted them for the envelope shape, the lines are just for guidance to know where I'll have to fold it when I'm assembling it.

Thanks for stopping by,
Happy Stitches,
Sara

February Review and March Goals

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all well and enjoying some stitchin time. First of all I want to thank you all for the get well wishes, I'm definitly much better than what I was and I'm almost cough free :)

Another month has ended.... is it just me or with every year the time seems to fly even faster? And with another month ended is time for the balance and I have two celebrate - 2 months, 2 times I reach my realistic goals... not bad (Ok I admit that I'm making then a bit easier, but it works better to my ego and motivation this way) so going back a month these were my goals:

Realistic Goals:

- Finish the Birth Sampler (preferably before the 10th of February to have time to frame it before visiting my brother and his family)- Stitch 600 stitches on QS Believe
Dreamworld goals:- Complete the partial page on QS Believe- Stitch 100 stitches on QS Bookend Kitties

As I said I was able to complete bith realistic goals:

Finish the birth sampler:

After - Lickle Teddy - 11.02.2014 (Finished)

Stitch 600 stitches on QS Believe - I was actually able to stitch 1600+ stitches on it and was relatively close to achieve the dreamworld goal of completing the 2nd page:

Before - 01.02.2014

After - 01.03.2014 [no stitches done today]

01.03.2014 - Close-up

Overall I'm really pleased with my progress throughout the month :)

Now what am I planning to stitch for March:

Realistic goals:
     - Start/ Complete and Finish my Spring Project for the EmeraldIsle Cross Stitch group Exchange
     - Complete the second page of QS Butterfly
     - Stitch 1.5 columns of pages 3/5[partial page - just 2 lines] of QS Believe

Dreamworld goals:
     - Stitch 50% of pages 3/5
     - Complete pages 3/5

Now is just fingers crossed for me to be a good girl during the month, and to keep stitching :)

Thanks for stopping by,
Happy Stitches,
Sara

January Review and Goals for February

Hi everyone,

Today is the 1st of February (gosh is it just me who feels time flied).
So it's time to do the balance for January and list my plans for February.

My realistic goals for January were:
- To complete the bear bars - Done

Before - 01.01.2014

After - Finished on 14.01.2014

And to reach 50% of the Lickle Teddy - A Bit Sleeping - When I stopped stitching yesterday evening I had 68.12% done (that is 5518 stitches out of 8100stitches).
And this is how it was looking, the bright pink of the body is complete, and I just have to finish the date and weight to finish the light purple. One interesting thing to notice is that both the name and date use the same thread, but the name looks totally different because of the bling gutterman thread added :)

Before - Licke Teddy - 01.01.2014

After - Lickle Teddy - 31.01.2014

I wasn't able to reach any of my dreamworld goals but to be honest I never believed I would be able to achieve them, I'm happy to have them there just to try and achieve a bit more as I did this month.

Now as for my February Goals:

Realistic Goals:
- Finish the Birth Sampler (preferably before the 10th of February to have time to frame it before visiting my brother and his family)
- Stitch 600 stitches on QS Believe

Dreamworld goals:
- Complete the partial page on QS Believe
- Stitch 100 stitches on QS Bookend Kitties

Lets see if I'll be as good as I was this month :)

Thanks for stopping by
Happy Stitches
Sara

Monthly goals

Ok so after thinking of this for the past few days I thought that it might be easier for me if instead of a set rotation per month, I set the goals I want to acheive, and then I'll rotate between the projects I want to work on, that way if one project needs a bit more love for a while I can give it to him without feeling guilty for stealing time from another project eheheh. I'll be splitting my goals into two cathegories, the realistic and the dreamworld, so that in the event that I can reach my goals with plenty of time still to go, I can make some indent on the goals planned for the next month :)

So this month I want:

Realistic goals:
- Finish the teddy bear bars (the 2 vertical bars on the picture) - this means frog the inside colour of the bear heads at the bottom  and re-stitch them with the top colour and stitch the missing bear head that is going on the middle.

The before - as of 08.01.2014

- Reach 50% of the Lickle Teddy Sleeping - adjusted to be a Birth Sampler

Lickle Teddy Sleeping as of 08.01.2014
1527 of 6651 stitches done
19%

Dreamworld goal:
- Finish the Lickle Teddy Bear Sleeping
- Stitch 100 stitches on QS Believe

I'll leave you now with the reason why I'm stitching less...my Mojito :)
 I have to keep looking for the threads and make sure they are hidden to avoid this:

Moji stealing my scissor and thread

And of course... chewing the thread...

Thanks for stopping by
Happy Stitches,
Sara

My TUSAL and JULY goals

I had to start with the picture since the title says it all :D

As per my July goals this month I'm thinking of keeping them short and long, instead of trying to jump between them all so here they are:

1 - Complete page 1 of SK Treasures, only 3 1/5 columns to go (less than half)

2 - Catch up with the Tree of Stitches SAL, I'm need to stitch 6? more different stitches

3 - Finish DMC Jasmin (I decided that I have to have at least one finish per month and won't start anything else until I finished at least one project)

And for now these are my goals, if I finished them before the end of the month, I'll add one or two more :)

End of month balance

As I was hoping I managed to stitch the 300 stitches I wanted on Jasmine, so one more goal completed which makes a total of 6 out of the 7 goals I set up for myself... I must confess I got really surprised since I wasn't expecting to be able to finish that many. Also I already started page 2 of QS Believe :) which will be part of my June goals for sure.

So before I jump to my goal list for June here is a picture of my progress on Jasmine with the 300 stitches done, I decided to do the background, so I can avoid stitching the flowers and leafs out of place (as it happened before, and let me tell you that frogging is really awful for me)

Now as for my goals for June:

1 - Complete goal 5 from last month (the missing row at QS Believe)

2 - Stitch 1,5 or 2 more rows on QS Believe (depending on how fast I complete a row)

3 - Complete the 2nd corner of the table cloth

4 - Complete the 1st page on Dragon Fae 1 (only one row to go)

5 - Finish the background of page 2 on Jasmin (and maybe start some flowers)

6 - Stitch the 1st row of page 16 and 22 of Touch of Spring

*so I-m going for less one goal... will I be able to stitch all?? will see next month right

Happy Stitches everyone