A small finish

Well it's taken me long enough but I've finally finished my LHN ornament Winter Sheep. After returning home from work on Saturday I got in the mood to Christmas stitch, dug it out and finished it lickety split! I've just placed the cardinal button on it for now. I had this one in my stash but I've got another slightly bigger cardinal button on order that I will use once it's arrived. So now it's on to Red House in Winter. I'm looking forward to stitching this one.

Although I worked the weekend I managed to get in quite a bit of stitching. It was one of the quietest weekends I've worked in a long time. Everyone's vacationing I guess and staying away from the hospital. So I put in some time on Summer Lineup. I started to put in the french knots for the watermelon seeds but got very frustrated and it didn't take long! Knots are not my forte and there are quite a few of them in this piece between the watermelon seeds and the dots on the ladybugs so I went online and ordered a pack of black Mill Hill Petites. I feel much better now!

At last night's stitching get together I decided to concentrate on Halloween Cove for awhile. I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. Several of the ladies who hadn't been there for some time made an appearance and there was a lot of catching up and ooohing and aaahing over current stitches as well as much enabling going on as we browsed each other's new stash. So this is where I am at this point. I hope to concentrate on this one a bit more now.

Just as I headed out for my weekly stitching I received a phone call that my latest stitch was ready for pickup at the framers. I was so excited to see it and I wasn't disappointed. The frame is really lovely . The pictures just don't do it justice. It's a dark red mahogany and is a perfect match to the red floss in the stitching. I've taken a closeup so you can see the detail in the frame.

One piece of news I have neglected to tell you about since my return from vacation is that I was the winner of a draw on Diane William's (LHN) blog. Diane was giving away a copy of her soon to be released new design The Family Sampler. I was so excited when I read her blog post and found out my name was one of 5 picked. Can you believe it? She had to draw names two more times because winners didn't respond within the posted time. I'll tell you it sure didn't take me long to respond! I LOVE Diane's designs and am really looking forward to seeing this one arrive in my mail. Thank you Diane!

I was just about to finish off my post tonight when my BFF Pam (no blog) dropped by for a visit and showed off her latest finish. I met Pam many years ago when I moved to my village and joined one of her decorative tole painting classes in an effort to meet new friends in the area. Pam and I became fast friends and I have shared my love of stitching with her. She informed me tonight that she always could spot a designer of a piece of tole work by their style and now she is starting to do the same with cross stitch thanks to my enabling, lol! I love her latest finish and asked if I could post a pic on the blog. Here it is - Like Home by La D Da.

Special birthday wishes are headed out to three of my stitching friends. Wish a Happy Birthday to Christin, Beatrice and Kathy who have all celebrated birthdays within this past week. Ladies, I hope you have spent your day doing something you love! Hopefully it included stitching.

Happy stitching everyone.