Looking at stitching things afresh

Happy New Year to you all, and may it be better than the last!

It is indeed a New Year and, although I've already done a 2013 WIPocalypse list in my last post, I think that I need to look at where I am with my stitching and where I want to go with it this year.  

At the moment I have four WIPs - Carnation, Train of Dreams, Serena and the watering can bouquet, my current travelling piece.  I have deadlines in place for Carnation and Serena, but the other two pieces are as and when.

I also have deadlines for two other pieces that I haven't yet started.  These are the Turkish Challenge and my younger niece's 5th birthday present.  However I have made a little progress on these two this week.  I have decided what I am going to do for the Turkish Challenge - this is "Anenome" by Thea Gouverneur from her book "Flower Portraits in Cross Stitch" which I bought on Ebay over the holiday period for 99p plus postage.  I have also ordered the 36 count white linen for this piece.  In addition, I have made arrangements for my niece to come round in a couple of weeks time to look at fairy charts and then go out for lunch together.

Going back to work on Wednesday, I learned that my colleague, with whom I have worked closely for over 6 years, got engaged on Christmas morning.  They haven't set a date yet but I'm thinking that a little something would be appropriate, so that's something else to bear in mind.

The festive season has thrown me all out of kilter and I'm still not back on schedule.  I also have a busy week coming up, which is not going to help me get myself straight.

This week I managed to do my usual three blocks on Carnation with a good overlap into the next block.  Next week will see me into row 6 of this page, so over the halfway point.  By my calculations, there are 16 weeks worth of 3 blocks a week left to do, and according to my diary, this means that I should finish page 3 by the end of April, about 4 weeks before the second anniversary of this piece.  However, whether that happens will depend on how things go with the Turkish Challenge and my niece's present.

This morning I also managed to complete one more block on Train of Dreams (top left) and move into the next block.  The weather was so dull and grey that it was quite hard going on such a small count fabric.

No progress was made on Serena or on the watering can bouquet.  On the bright side, it is Patchwork Group this coming week so I hope to get some if not all of the backstitch done on the bouquet piece during the week.

That is where I am, so where do I want to be?  Ideally I would like to hit all my deadlines as planned, or as near as damn it.  Through working on Serena, I want to become more confident with special stitches, metallic threads and beading - this will help me to move forward onto other projects that use them - Chatelaine, Joan Elliott etc.  If I can finish page 3 of Carnation to schedule, page 4 is only a partial page, so I would like to finish that this year and move on to page 5 if possible.

I will be participating in the 2013 WIPocalypse and intend to continue participating in the International Hermit and Stitching Weekends.  And somewhere in and around all these stitching plans, I need to continue working full-time, spending time with my family (especially my nieces, who are growing up so fast) and putting in more effort on my genealogy studies.  Has anyone got any spare time to sell?