Christmas stitching

Now that October and Halloween have flown by I'm turning my attention to some Christmas stitching. First off I have a small finish albeit a little late for fall this year. I know the US is yet to celebrate their Thanksgiving but for us Canadians our fall celebrations are complete and thoughts have turned to Christmas. My JBW Pumpkin will have to wait until next year to complete my autumn decor. In the picture you'll see the fabric that I've chosen for my backing on a pinkeep finish.

I've made a start on my November ornie which is a Partridge from Prairie Schooler. Not enough done yet though for a pic. I took it on the road to Toronto with me this past week. I travelled with a coworker to attend a chemistry conference. I'd hoped to get in some stitching during the evenings at the hotel. My coworker had other ideas however. We were only a short walk from the Eaton Centre which is a major shopping mall in downtown TO. So consequently our evenings were spent shopping (window shopping in my case). My stitching didn't even make it out of the bag! The car trip was my first experience with a GPS. I've never felt the need for one since I'm pretty good with directions but my coworker insists she can't go anywhere without hers. Honestly it drove me crazy! Recalculating, recalculating.... as you can see, my driver didn't neccesarily follow the directions given. The GPS was always right but my coworker didn't trust it since some of the street names it used didn't jive with the street signs. So why does she insist she needs it?!

When I got home I was really in the mood for a new start. What to do, what to do? I took a look through some of my freebies and found a lovely pattern by Gigi R found on her blog. I think she's retired her freebies at this point but check back later, they pop up from time to time. This one is a Christmas tree, a picture of which is currently posted on her blog on her Oct. 25th post. I've chosen to do this one as a redwork, using one of the DMC variations. Here's my progress so far:

Sorry, the picture isn't very clear. The battery on my camera is getting low. I love the look of this little tree. I've even got my fabric already chosen since I might try finishing it as a flatfold or if all else fails, a pinkeep. This one looks like it should stitch up pretty quickly. That's if I can sit still long enough to stitch!

The fall season has passed so quickly for me. We've had a full calendar here at our house and I feel like I've neglected blogging of late. I've managed to post a couple of times but there's not been much time for reading blogs and commenting. So please accept my apologies if I haven't stopped by your blogs lately. I'm slowly getting caught up but there is often little time for commenting. Trust that I am reading them and will get back to commenting in the very near future.

Once again, the approaching weekend will see me travelling. This time it's back home to Windsor where we will be celebrating my MIL's 90th birthday. It's a very quick trip since neither my DH nor myself can take much time off work at the moment. We'll head down on the Friday and return on Monday, spending Saturday with my family and Sunday with Bob's. I'm going to try and stitch in the car since there will be no time for it once we've arrived. It all depends how bumpy the road is or whether or not I can keep awake long enough! When I'm a passenger car rides tend to lull me to sleep. Here's hoping you all have a good week filled with lots of stitching.