Hey, y’all…Happy New Year!

2022 was quite a year, both in challenges and blessings, but one thing is quite clear to me as we roll into 2023: I let chaos into my house. Actually, I kind of invited it in…gave it breakfast…dragged its suitcase in the house…unpacked its bags…and invited it to stay forever. Yikes! I’m now working on clearing clutter and organizing everything back into a home…and it’s painfully obvious to me that my needlework WIPs (Works In Progress) are out of control.

I spent some time this weekend shooting a Floss Tube video that catalogues all of the WIPs in this house. It’s a bit scary because every time I thought I was done gathering up the WIPs that were tucked into various spaces in the house, I’d find MORE. It ended up with a storage ottoman full of them, plus 3 more boxes. Argh!!! Want to see them? Check out my Floss Tube video.

So one of the things I’m challenging myself with this year is getting thru as many of these WIPs as possible. In order to be as organized as possible as I dive into this chaos, I’ve made up a simple Excel spreadsheet that shows me everything I have.

The final count: 81 WIPs. Holy crap on a cracker! Some more detailed stats are as follows: 39 of these projects are smalls, which means I can get them completed relatively quickly. 27 are medium sized. 15 are large projects that will take some significant time to get through.

So…how many of these will I get through in 2023? I can’t even begin to guess. I would love it if I could reduce them by half. That would make me happy. Since so many of them are smalls, I think I have a relatively good chance of doing that if I stay focused. And yes, I do plan to work on more than one at a time. Probably a small and a medium at the same time. Most of the large projects will have to wait until next year…with a few exceptions.

How will this play out? Well, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out. I’ve already started working on my first small: this tiny sampler. I bought the kit while visiting Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia in 2019 and I started it the following year during Stitch Maynia…then tossed it into the storage ottoman and forgot all about it. It’s time to gitter done. 🙂

I hope you’ll follow along with me and enjoy the process. Happy New Year!