A Couple of Small Finishes and Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I stitched this with a sal FB group.  It's a freebie from The Primitive Hare.  I used Variegated Cranberry floss from Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe and stitched it on a piece of 32 count lambswool linen by Wichelt:

The Primitive Hare

I stitched this little guy from Heart in Hand's leaflet Monthly Miniatures I for an exchange block for one of my stitching groups.  Our themes for this year are cross stitch designers.  I used the called-for floss except for the purple ear muffs.  I can't remember the overdye I used but I didn't have the called-for floss and just made do.  It's also stitched on Wichelt's lambswool 32 count linen.

We don't have snow but a cold front came through and our temps dropped like a rock.  It was in the low 70's yesterday and today when I first got on the computer, it was down to 39 degrees.  Brrrr!!!  You really feel it when it drops that fast!  I even broke down and wore a jacket today when I went out to walk in the mall.

I hope everyone in the path of the big winter storm is safe and warm.

Happy stitching!

Valentine Contest at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe

Nancy at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is having a Valentine's Day contest.  Click here to read the details:  Valentine Contest at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe

Good luck and..........

Happy stitching!

A Couple of Smalls

I participate in a couple of ornament sal group blogs, one for Christmas and another for Halloween.  There's a theme for each month's ornaments and it's fun to see what others choose to stitch.

My Christmas choice (music theme) is from the PS 12 Days of Christmas leaflet.

I chose to stitch a bat from an old tantes zolder freebie for the "winged things" theme for the Halloween sal.

I hope to start a birth "sampler" for our first grandbaby who will be born in March.  I ordered some NPI silks and hope to start once they arrive.  I also want to stitch either a "welcome" or "home sweet home" designs for DD and DSIL because they just moved into their new house.  (They've had a LOT of changes in a short amount of time, wedding, a baby on the way, new house, and DSIL changed jobs.) 

January Calendar Girl is almost finished but now I'm rethinking how I want to stitch the eyes and mouth on each of them (cross stitches, French knots, or beads...I'm leaning towards beads if I can find the right colors and size).  I may just leave that part undone and continue stitching the other "girls" until I decide.I have an exchange block I need to stitch and I'm still mulling over what HIH (that's this month's theme) design to choose.

Also, I'd like to participate in a "One Day Wonder" sal.  This month's theme is snow.  Since I hurt my back (just a little) yesterday putting away Christmas bins and our DS is leaving to go back to college today, I think I'll declare this a stitching day and work on that one.

Speaking of Christmas bins, here's the progress (from the mess I posted last week):

I just have some greenery to pack in another bin and I'll be done.  (The goal is always to pack away Christmas before it's time to get it out again.  ;-)  )  I'll admit that my PS Christmas Village is still hanging and my snowman tree is still "up" but I leave them up through January.

We had some great health news when we went for DH's "big" post-op appointment on Wednesday.  All his tests indicate that the cancer is gone!  They'll monitor him closely, especially at first, to make sure it doesn't recur.  The surgeon was giving all his patients he saw that day a lottery ticket.  Ours didn't win but we think we won the "lottery" that REALLY counts. 


Happy stitching!

Calendar Girls Back on Track

Well, not exactly.  I started November and didn't get Dec. started but decided instead to try to start January and stitch each month's appropriate month and then get caught up again.  I'm almost finished with January:

Crochet is taking up some of my stitching time.  I dug out my babies' baby afghan (My mom crocheted it for the first baby.  It has a little channel on the edges in which to weave in a ribbon.  Our DD's was pink but I took it out to weave in a blue one for our boys.)  to compare the size with the one I'm working on for our grandbaby (expected to arrive in March) and I've got a few more rows before it will be "finished".  Now I just have to figure out how to finish off that last bit of yarn when I get to the end.  I'm SUCH a beginner at this!

Next, I want to choose a Christmas stocking to stitch for her.  I may have mentioned it before, but my tentative plan is to stitch 2 of the same one, one for our house and one for hers.  We'll see how that goes.  I also have a birth sampler picked out so I need to get that going too.  (Also since DD and DSIL just moved into their first house, I want to do either a welcome or home sweet home piece for them.)

It sounds like all that will keep me busy.

I have a few small sal things to stitch as well and think I've decided what to stitch for them too.

I'd like to stitch a big sampler this year as well and think it will Hannah Lancaster.

I'm plodding along repacking the Christmas decorations.  I piled most of it on my dining room table.  What a mess!  I like to repack it in a certain way and it takes a long time.  I'm making progress though and hope to have it completed by the end of the weekend.

Happy stitching!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

We were determined to stay up until midnight (OUR time this time.  Some years we celebrate the EST New Years.)  We made it and then stumbled off to bed.  ;-)

I have one last 2015 finish, CCN's Silent Night.  I'd started it last Christmas and it was enjoyable to pick up again to stitch during this year's Christmas season.  It's on a mystery fabric I had in my stash...I think it may be a Silkweavers but not sure.  I didn't even take it off the Qsnaps for the picture and it was late at night when I took it so the picture quality isn't very good.  There's also one snowflake that I'm not real happy with so I may frog it and do over.

Yesterday while watching football (GO, BUCKS!!) I worked on the baby afghan and put a few stitches in my official Jan. 1 XS start, LHN's January Calendar Girl.

So.....what do you do when you give a bored man 10 lemons?  (Ala "when you give a mouse a cookie").  He researches how to make homemade limoncello, drives to the next town south of us to buy grain alcohol, zests said lemons, and starts seeping the lemons into the grain alcohol.  (Apparently this project will take a couple of months to complete.)  THEN....he decides that, since he's left with all those lemons sans the peels, that I should make a lemon meringue pie.  Naturally!  lol! (Luckily, we had a couple of other lemons with their peels so I had enough zest to use for the pie.)   I used up a couple of them...now have to figure out what to do with the rest.  I may have him juice the rest and freeze it in quantities that I use for recipes.  (If you ask him, in quantities that I use for pie.)  Thank goodness he goes back to work on Monday!!

I also had the ingredients here for a pumpkin pie so I made one of those too.  (Our son doesn't return to college until mid-January so he and his friends will help us eat them.

Speaking of food, I put together the ham bone bean soup mix that came with the ham.  It was excellent!  I also put together a cabbage casserole that is traditional in our house for New Year's Day.  We have enough leftovers that there will be no KP for me today.  What WILL I do?!  Probably spend some quality time stitching or crocheting after I do a nominal amount of decluttering/vacuuming.

Happy stitching!

Christmas wrap up and Happy New Year

Christmas was a little different this year (because of DH's "medical adventure") but nice.  DH continues to do well and we're hoping he can get back to work next week.  He needs more than the doc's verbal ok to him (a specific form) and, because of the holidays, it's taking a while to get that.  We're both looking forward to getting back to "normal" (whatever that is).  lol!

Our Christmas dinner:

Now I'm back to my daily walks  (really need them after ingesting all the holiday calories) and enjoying more time to stitch and crochet.  I'm hoping to finish CCN's Silent Night which I started last year.  I was the model stitcher for this one and knew the minute I saw the graph for it that I was going to be stitching it again for me to keep.

I'm also making progress on the baby afghan and deciding which birth sampler (probably La D Da's Gabrielle Rose) and Christmas stocking (maybe one of the Shepherd's Bush ones)  I want to do for our new grandbaby coming next March.

I'm behind on my LHN Calendar Girls and plan to start either December or January for my Jan. 1 start.  I'm also behind on my Halloween and Christmas ornament stitching but will get going again on those too.  Oh!!!  I also want to start a sampler and may even start 2....Red House Sampler by The Sampler Company and a repro, Hannah Lancaster.  That should keep me busy!

Happy stitching!

Merry Christmas!

My husband had surgery Dec. 1 and ever since then, the time has just flown by!  I've always respected nurses but now so even more after I've been doing dressing changes, etc. at home.  He's doing well...and even has baked some Christmas cookies for me.

I've scaled back a bit on Christmas prep but here are some of the things I've done:

Living room tree.  The crochet angel on top and the tree skirt were made by my late maternal grandma.  I usually cram more ornaments on it but downsized a little this year.  On the mantel you can see one of the pictures I display of our kids when they were little.  I enjoy getting those pictures out every year.

Snowman tree in the foyer

Dining room tree.  Included on this tree are some little ornaments the kids made when they were in school and also some photo ornaments they made.  The kids laugh at me every year when I unpack these because often tears are shed.  (They grew up so fast!) The angel is one that was made by my sister-in-law for our first baby.  I put it on the post of the crib as a guardian angel for all our babies and now like to use it as a tree topper. Years ago, I made a latch hook tree skirt that I use for this one.  The dog thinks it's for him and likes to rearrange it whenever I'm not looking.

I also have tabletop trees in one of the bathrooms (decorated with sea shells we collected from a nearby beach) and the computer room (music theme).  I have a ceramic tree that my mother made on a table in the foyer too.

I stuffed our poor dog into a Santa outfit that was just slightly too small for him.   I'll send it to my sister so her dog can be humiliated by wearing it next year.

Grandma also crocheted lots of snowflakes.  Since we almost never have snow here in SE TX, I like to put them on the glass doors that lead to our backyard and the lake.  This is not a great picture, but you get the idea.

Here's the haphazard display on my jelly cupboard.  I love that little wall quilt.  One year I cross stitched a bunch of bookmarks for a woman who made this quilt for me in exchange.  It's one of my favorite things to take out for Christmas.  Also more pictures of the kids when they were small and some stitched ornaments on the wire tree.  The snowman tree is to the left of the cupboard so I put some more snowmen here too.

The mantel:

I finished my youngest child's stocking late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve that year.  lol!  Newman is the dog.

We've been busy baking cookies....2 kinds of biscotti, date nut pinwheels, spritz trees, rustic nut bars, pizzelles, and tomorrow I'll finish off with some raspberry thumbprint cookies.  I'll be making Louie's pie (what my late MIL called a rich vanilla cream pie topped with a layer of golden raisins soaked in rum, banana slices, slivered almonds, and meringue.  The other pie I like to make is Crimson Pie with a filling of cranberries, oranges, and blueberries.  DH will also make some more sugared pecans.

We had a Cookies and Carols celebration at church last Sunday where all the singing groups and the bell choir performed and everyone there sang carols together.  Every family who came brought their favorite Christmas cookies, candy, or other treats.  The tables looked so festive with all the treats!  There were even a couple of trifles.

I sing in the choir and also a little faith band and got to sing a verse (solo) of Mary's Boy Child with the faith band and a solo part with the choir in Not That Far from Bethlehem.  It was so much fun to sing and also listen to the other groups.

I've not been stitching as much but I've been working on a baby afghan for our grandchild who's due to be born next March.  I'm a very beginner at crochet but the baby motivated me to try to make an afghan.

Here's something I'm excited about...(it doesn't take much).  We tried planting a potted poinsettia in a flower bed after last Christmas thinking it probably would die.  It seemed to like it there and we thought we'd enjoy the foliage.  Recently I noticed it changing colors.  Cool!

My stitching has taken a back seat but I'm hoping to work a little more on Nikki's (Country Cottage Needlework's) Silent Night.  I was the model stitcher for that one and want to stitch it for myself too.

Only 2 of our 4 children will get to be here for Christmas but I'm very thankful for Skype and Facetime.


Merry Christmas and.....

Happy stitching!