Still no stitching...

Well, after such a stunningly beautiful 33 degrees Celsius day in Melbourne yesterday, today the heavens have opened and it's bucketing with rain ... which strange as it seems, I'm really enjoying ... Didn't get to sleep until 4am after work, as I was creating a new 'stitching diary' for 2006 in Microsoft Word - that's the only problem I have with shift work, I find it harder to get to sleep as the shifts get on. The first night finishing at 1am I'm shattered, and fall asleep almost immediately ... but a few days later I'm acclimatising to the change in times, and find it harder to wind down. I still woke up at 8am though (yikes!!) but refused to get up, and managed to doze off again for another couple of hours ... so, no stitching today.

My diary is just a one-page sheet per month, that has a calendar down the left-hand side of the page, with reminders on certain days for BB things, like posting UFO reports, posting of ornament deadlines etc - then on the right-hand side I've got separate little sections for SAL's for the month, my rotation completions, and any general stitching plans (BB forums etc), plus a general 'to-do' list, like "organise supplies for next month's SAL". Hopefully it will be a worthwhile project to keep me organised, as I find when I come home from work my brain goes into non-functioning mode! LOL. If nothing else, it was fun to create it :)

From the comments I've been receiving about hardanger projects, I'm seriously contemplating adding a hardanger slot into my rotation once Dolphins Domain is finished (if not sooner) - I have loads of projects that include hardanger, and it'd be nice to learn a bit more. I have to admit, Jenna, I saw the Janice Love books at Spotlight a few weeks back, and was seriously tempted to buy them again ... but I've got the basic and advanced ones by Nordic Needle, plus another soft-cover hardanger book by Jill Carter, so hopefully I'll muddle my way through with the help of them. I originally bought the Janice Love ones because everyone seemed to think they were the 'ultimate' hardanger reference books - I never managed to read them before they were 'stolen', although what I did read looked really good!

Got some good news at work yesterday ... we're allowed to wear casual clothes from 12 Dec to 15 Jan - if you thought they were thunderclaps last night all round the world, it was just the sound of my heavy feet happy dancing! ;)

Anyway, nearly time to go to work again - just enough time to post this:

Today's Stitching Blogger's Question was suggested by AngelSan and is:

"Do you have any rules in the way you stitch? (ie Do you start in the middle? Do you determine which blocks to stitch first? Do you always start from the top or the bottom? Do you have special paths to prevent wasting thread?)"

Hmmm, pretty much 99% of the time I start in the middle ... mainly because I'm hopeless at counting and don't trust myself to start elsewhere - that being said, though, there are certain projects that I prefer to stitch from the top down, such as band samplers. I've also just started stitching Mirabilia's Winter Queen, and for the first time have started stitching from the top, which is unusual for me! As far as choosing which blocks to stitch first, again it depends on the design - I usually just finish one area first, moving from one colour to another. I always stitch my stitches the same way, and prefer to start from the left and stitch to the right /// and return \\\ for the top stitch, with my needle coming up from the bottom of the stitch - but if the block demands it, I'll stitch from right to left, with my needle coming up at the top of the stitch (that's probably as clear as mud!!).