A New Year's Start

Happy New Year!  I'm calling this my New Year's start, but I actually started a couple of days early.  I was unable to resist the stitchy goodness of my newest project.  So with 3 days of stitching under my belt, here's Coraggio as of this afternoon:

I'm enjoying it so far, but of course, the threads that are on back order are all over the place!  Hopefully, they will arrive before I run out of alphabet or the top band.  If not, I may be in big trouble.  And I still haven't decided what to do about the one unavailable color yet.

I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish stitching-wise this year.  I haven't firmed up everything yet, but I know I want to finish my Giraffa sampler this year.  I want to finish Coraggio, too.  Beyond that, the only certain goal I've set for myself is to try and finish at least one Christmas project each month.  There were just too many that didn't get done in 2012.  One month isn't enough time to make a real dent in the pile of unfinished or unstarted projects.  So I figure if I do at least one each month, I should be able to make real progress on the backlog.  This month, I intend to do the finishing on this piece designed by Maureen Appleton of The Heart's Content:

I couldn't even tell you how long this poor ornament has sat around in this unfinished stage.  Sigh.  The other thing I certainly want to continue working on is my Cabinet of Curiosities projects.  I am 2 (no, it's 3 now) months behind on my reading.  Only one project has been stitched, and none have been finished.  Gotta do something about that, too.  Oh, speaking of the cabinet, check out one of Mom's Christmas gifts to me:

Nice, huh?  I'm confident they will all be put to good use when I finally get around to stitching the panels for my cabinet.  Now I'm off to see if the wooden frame is available yet, and how much it's gonna set me back.  Hubby and I are probably due for a serious conversation here in the near future.  ; )

Hope you have a happy, crafty week everyone!