The past few months at work have been stressful.  And for some reason, even though I find stitching at the end of a long day once the kids are in bed to be extremely relaxing, when I’m stressed I find it hard to pick up the project and get started.  I wonder why this is…  If I do manage to pick it up it helps me to relax, but it can be hard to find the motivation to get started.

Having said that, I did finish a piece last week called Faith Hope Love by Joyful Expressions.  I started it about a year ago when a friend had an online fundraising auction.  At the time I thought it would be a great piece to donate to something like that in the future and I wanted to have it on hand.  I stitched about half of it and then got sucked into other projects.  A few weeks ago, our church announced that they were going to have a fundraising auction and needed donations in two weeks time. Even then I procrastinated about a week before picking up the piece to begin frantically stitching away.  I was able to finish it just under the wire, though the lettering took me a bit longer than I’d planned.  I think it looks nice all framed up, and though I don’t imagine it will bring much money, I hope it finds a home where it will make someone smile.

Faith Hope Love by Joyful Expressions

One thing that drew me to this piece originally was the colors! Aren’t they fabulous?

Now that I’ve finished the piece, I get the fun of starting a new one to replace it in my rotation.  I love this stage of a project… considering the choices and starting on a lovely brand new piece of fabric, full of possibilities!  I have a number of options in mind and will mull them over in the next few days.