November WIPocalypse and morning visitors

 

So Halloween has flown by already and the start of the Christmas season is in full force. We had a lovely fall evening for our trick or treaters and several of our neighbourhood kids dropped by. Loved these little fairies! I wish I'd taken a pic of their wings. They were awesome! As of today there is still about 6 more weeks of autumn but winter is definitely creeping around the corner!

It won't be long before this year has drawn to a close. I'm pretty much stitching as much as I did last year but I've varied from my original choices as I knew I would. My stitching tends to go with my moods. Also new releases often easily sway me into veering away from my first choices. This month I stuck to stitching charts that have been hiding in my stash for a bit.

Two of those charts were finished in the past week. The first is a freebie design from The Primitive Hare called Witch's Kitchen and can be seen on my previous post here.
The second finish is my first of the Fancey Blackett series by Pineberry Lane called Fancey Blackett's Brooms. It's also my first stitch on 40 ct fabric.

 

I loved stitching this one and it won't be the last Fancey Blackett that I stitch!

The rest of the past month was spent putting in more time on my Blackbird Design, House on Acorn Hill. I've spent a lot of time making colour substitutions on this one because the dye lots of floss for my leaves were just too similar. I wanted more variation and I'm happy with the looks of things so far.

  Just the border remains to be stitched and this will be finished too. Mind you, that border is full of acorns and will take me awhile yet!

 Now my mind has turned to choosing some Christmas designs for smalls and one larger project. Nothing decided yet.

Next week I'm taking a girls' jaunt and meeting up with some of the stitchers and bloggers that I have been chatting with for some time now. I'm so excited! We are meeting up at the From Our Hands show in Peninsula, Ohio.  Two of the designers participating in the show include Stacy Nash and Lori Brechlin (Not Forgotten Farm). Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives is also attending and will be rooming down the hall from me. There are also several other blogging and F/B friends attending that I'm so anxious to meet! It should be awesome!!  I'll try and get some great pics to share with you upon my return.

The title of this post refers to some morning visitors who landed in at our place. Literally! Bob went out to change the seed in our feeder and suddenly they were flying in from all directions. Here's a few pics I snapped in the process.

This is the first that we've seen of the female cardinal since spring. In past years she always arrived with her mate around sundown to visit the feeder. This summer he came alone and we wondered if something had happened to her. This morning she was back with hubby in tow.

 

 The next visitor was a bit of a surprise. We've had woodpeckers visit us before but always the Downeys. For the first time we had the Hairy Woodpeckers visit. I first saw the female on the far side of the suet. I mentioned to my husband that this woodpecker was quite a bit larger and didn't look like it needed any food. 

 

Then I clued in when the male arrived that these were indeed Hairy woodpeckers. They average about 3-4 inches more in size than the Downeys.

 

 

Next Mr. Robin arrived. I think he should be travelling a little further south at this point!

I'm not sure but I think this little fellow is a Nuthatch. 
See you all soon!