2 WIPS No More and College Football

I must confess that I'm a serial starter so my wip pile gets pretty high.  I'm trying to whittle it down a bit by sneaking in a wip to finish every once in a while.  I'm in a fall mood and picked up these 2 that I started last fall:

CEC Nutkins mitten

I can see in my mind's eye a bunch of these CEC mittens stitched and "finished" into mitten-shaped pillow ornaments.  I'm slowly stitching mittens.  We'll see if the master plan ever materializes.  I made a couple of changes in this one...I used seed beads instead of French knots for the eyes and, since there wasn't much contrast between the fabric and the floss, I outlined the mitten with backstitching.

CEC "Leaves" (can you see a theme here?)

I'd seen a picture of this one (stitched) online and knew it was CEC but it took a while for me to figure out that it's from leaflet 142 Winter Circle.  I fondly call this guy "Leaf Man" and am thinking it would be cute "framed" in a grapevine wreath.

I'm so close to finishing Live, Laugh, Love sampler but have been thinking of what initials and date to use.  It's a prominent part of the design and I thought my initials and the current year don't quite match the mood.  I may use my grandma or great grandma's initails and birth date.  I'm still thinking about it.

I also started a fall Prairie Schooler design but haven't taken a picture of it yet.

We had a treat last weekend.  Our friends offered UT(exas) tickets to us again this year...the ones on the 50 yard-line 2 rows up from the field.  Of course, we took them up on it!  They were inducting various athletes into the UT Athletic Hall of Fame so there were lots of extra people on the sidelines.  We looked down at one point and there was Matthew McConaughey (a UT graduate and a big UT football fan) on the sidelines no more than 10-15 feet away from us.  He was very gracious posing for pictures for whoever wanted them...and there were a lot of people who wanted them.  UT failed to win the game but we had a great time anyway.

We forgot to take selfies until after the game when we were hot/sweaty.  Note the lovely "hat hair".

Happy stitching!