Answer #3 - Rotation

I have gotten this question multiple times so no specific credit to be given on this one.

How do you do your rotation?

Over the last year, I've finally gotten my rotation "tweaked" to perfection - for me at least.  ;-)

I pick one project to be my main focus.  My current focus project is La Belle Dame Sans Merci.  The reason that I have a focus piece is so that I actually get a finish!  As you can tell by my list below, I tend to do LARGE projects!  La Belle... has 40 pages to the pattern!  Okay, the 8th page/row and the entire bottom row aren't full pages but still.

Then I have all my other WIPs:

PTP Floral Arrangement - HAED
Rapunzel (Dawe) - HAED
The Sistine Chapel - HAED
God Speed - HAED
Floral Finesse - The Heart's Content
Heirloom Nativity Sampler - The Victoria Sampler - I have everything ready, just need to put the fabric in the scroll frame

Normally, I would have 8 projects listed in my rotation, but I put an ornament on my 8th scroll frame and I work on it while watching football (American, specifically the Seattle Seahawks) games.

Since La Belle... is my focus piece, I work on it every other time I rotate.  My most recent switches were:

La Belle...
God Speed
La Belle...
The Sistine Chapel

The way I choose what to work on between bouts of La Belle... involves an app.  Yes, there is an app for that!  I have an iPad, and the app I use is called Random Master.  I made a list in the app of all my WIPs except La Belle because I know when I will be working on that one. When I finish a round with La Belle..., I have the app select a random item from my remaining WIPs.  The app keeps track of what it has been selected previously and won't select the same ones again until all of the others have had a turn.  That's great because it gives me some randomness in my rotation but still makes sure that ALL of the items get worked on equally!

Now regarding how much time I spend on each project.  All of the HAEDs get worked on until I finish a page.  If there is a page that is smaller than a full page, I will sometimes do that at the same time.  For instance, on La Belle... the pattern is 8 pages wide but the 8th page in each row is only 33 stitches wide.  Normal pages are 77-80 stitches.  When I got to page 7 on the top row, I also stitched page 8 as part of my "page".

For my non-HAED projects, it can be a bit different how much I choose to do.  For Heirloom Nativity, I will probably do as many bands of the pattern I can until I need to roll the fabric in the frame.  That seemed to work well when I was doing the Heirloom Christmas Sampler.  When I'm working on Floral Finesse, it will probably also be a case of finish one page and move on.  I do know that the first 3 pages will be an exception.  They are all quite small and all use the same color key, so I'll do them as a single session.