Ciao Bella!

I must admit, I'm excited to be back at Italian Vista. This is the piece that I first picked up when I started stitching again after a year's plus hiatus, so it's always nice to go back to it!

In keeping with tradition, here is a reminder of where Italian Vista was when I last worked on it:

Italian Vista - Start of Rotation Week - Last Touched 8/25/12

And here is the progress today:

As of 9/23/12

We've reached the left and right edges of the page that I'm on with the progress I made tonight. I'll be interested to see where I go with this piece this week. See, this portion of the chart is the second of three pages, started in the middle. There is so much nature in this with the trees, the water, the sky and the mountains that it doesn't have an easily readable "set" way to go like something like European Bistro has with the distinct parts of the picture. Nature flows into nature flows into houses flows into nature, so I kind of just go where the needle takes me!

Thanks to everyone for your comments about the rotation. This really does work for me. A little background, my last big project that I finished was my son's Christmas stocking that I wanted done before his first Christmas in 2010 (you can see it here). Two kids, working full time, pregnant the first half of the year, mom of two and training to be promoted to manager of the department at work the second half (my son was born in May), stitching time was hard to come by. At the time, I was also of the philosophy that you do one project at a time and don't rotate so that you don't get yourself distracted by other pieces...oh, how silly that was!

Because I made myself this goal, as November and December rolled around, the only thing I did in my spare time was stitch. I stitched during lunch at work. I stitched constantly at home. It became a looming deadline and "work" rather than my fun hobby. Don't get me wrong, I loved the stocking and was thrilled to finish it less than a week before Christmas, but when I was done, my stitching mojo was completely gone. I tried to start a few ornaments in Christmas Countdown, but that failed miserably. I didn't pick up another needle until July of this year. That was over 18 months that I didn't touch a needle and thread.

I didn't want the burnout to start again, and at the time I was itching to start stitching again, I had kits for Italian Vista, European Bistro and Christmas Countdown in my collection. I wanted to work on Vista and Bistro immediately, but couldn't decide between which. I finally started Italian Vista, and was still a little hesitant about rotating, but quickly succumed to the urge and started the rotation. Throw in Flames of Desire for my friend and Beauty and the Beast for my daughter, plus the random WOCS project here and there, and the rotation became necessary! It helps keep me organized, and prevents me from getting bored with a piece. It's exciting to go back to pieces I haven't worked on in awhile, too!

There are lots of rotation methods out there...some people count number of hours (too specific/hard to keep track of for me and my schedule), some people do longer weeklong rotations (2-3 weeks or longer - I still fear burnout)), some people just go where the mood takes them. One week, Sunday to Saturday, has worked really well for me and I haven't lost my stitching mojo yet!

This week is going to be very busy for me with a Girl Scout service unit meeting one evening, PTA another evening, and my 10-year college reunion next weekend, plus deadlines at work. I may not get much stitching done, but we'll see what happens!

Until next time!
~Katy