I've just finished two big cross-stitch projects (really must take pictures some time!) - Sam's birth sampler and afghan rug. When I went looking for what to do next I ran into the problem of all my cross-stitch bits being packed into three different boxes (seriously, yes, there is that much) and as always happens, the most useful bits were the least accessible.

In my explorations I encountered a few UFOs... the dreaded unfinished object that I'm sure haunts many of us.

One was a teddy bear dressed as a pirate riding a seahorse. It's meant for my nephew and it was started over three years ago. Another was a kit of three brightly coloured frogs in see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil poses.

I have plans for two more big projects (alphabet samplers, one for Sam and one for a special friend's baby) but need to wait on some fabric to arrive before I can start.

The plan was that I'd finish some UFOs to keep me busy while I wait (I know there's a picture of sea shells and a footprints poem around somewhere as well, probably others)... Unfortunately, I rapidly found out exactly WHY the two I'd located were UFOs.

The frogs have lots of tiny little areas of colour. I feel like I'm constantly changing threads and can't get a good rhythm going. Every time I feel like I'm getting somewhere it's time to change the sodding colour again! I don't usually find kits all that satisfying - I prefer to work from charts with my own threads (I've got three boxes!) and fabric (I prefer evenweave to aida cloth) - and the constant starting and stopping did my head in and became an instant deal-breaker. I still haven't finished even one frog and my resolve to finish it lasted less than half an hour.

The teddy bear for my nephew - it's a black and white chart and seems somehow blurry to look at. I should try getting it enlarged with a photocopier, but that's hard when I'm not at work and don't really have access to one. Haven't picked it up again yet.

What did I end up doing? I started a whole new project from a book of cross-stitch blocks that I'd been dying to use for ages... different blocks that you put together to form your own design that have actually been designed to be stitched on different fabric colours... I'm now working on a lovely "sunlight in the garden" themed design with lots of bright yellows and soft greens on a beautiful pale green evenweave fabric I've had lying around for years... Plans also underway for things to use the large piece of yellow evenweave that's been lurking for just as long... Wonder what will happen to those alphabet samplers?

Anyway, enough of my babble. Tell me about your unfinished objects and what generally makes a project likely to end up as a UFO for you. For me, it's teeny tiny little areas of colour with lots of changes, lots and lots of half cross-stitch, black and white charts that are hard to read because they are blurry or just too small or way too much back stitch as in a written verse or some such thing. I find that unless I have a real burning desire and purpose for the thing I'm working on, they are the deal-breakers. I like to do designs that can be broken up into small sections which can be completed before moving on to the next. These blocks are great, and the alphabet samplers will be fantastic to do - I can see each letter as a mini-project and it seems a lot less daunting than a design of a similar size that's just one thing.

BW