November WIPocalypse and a Find

November's overcast weather has encouraged me to stay indoors and stitch more. At the beginning of the month I started stitching on some Christmas name trees which will be finished as ornaments and gifted. You can see them on my previous post. When I'd finished with them I felt the urge to start on a new, larger Christmas piece. However, after browsing through my stash, I'd narrowed things down to 3 or 4 charts but I couldn't make up my mind. In the meantime I picked up my recent Halloween stitch by The Primitive Needle, Annie Hyssop's Harvest Moon. Here's where I am at this point.

With Halloween done and over with I just wasn't feeling it for this piece so I dug through my charts and decided to go with Plum Street Samplers Yuletide Welcome. I spent the morning stitching the windows for the house and once again my mood changed. The piece was larger than I wanted to work on at this time and I was looking for something with more of the reds and greens. I knew exactly what I was needing to start......Heartstring Samplery Sing We Then Merrily. 

I love working on this one and put it down only recently to start another Christmas ornament for a friend. I can't stay away from it for long though and I plan to pick it up again tomorrow. That's it on the stitching front for this month.

Saturday I made a trip into Ottawa to attend our church bazaar. I wasn't looking for anything in particular and was actually browsing through the books when I noticed something. That thing was what appeared to be a set of transfer ware plates. My friend Gwen was just pricing them. I picked one up to have a look and on the reverse was a stamp from Colonial Pottery in the UK and the words Togo which I now know is the pattern name. I looked up and Gwen had priced them at $5 for the four. "Sold!", I said. 

Now I have admired transfer ware in the past but never had any of pieces of my own. Most comes in a blue, red or brown colour but these plates are a teal green. 

I Googled Colonial Pottery when I returned home and found out that Togo referred to this particular pattern and that it was circa 1890! I couldn't believe my luck. Not only did I purchase some beautiful transfer ware but a pattern that is quite old and quite rare.
With the exception of one plate, they are in very good shape with some minimal ware on the gold plated edging. The fourth plate has a small chip but it is on the reverse of the plate. It also has a small spot which appears darker and looks almost like a tiny burn mark. It is such a small area though that it is difficult to notice and not something I am worried about. I was just thrilled with my purchase! I love the roses on it. Perhaps someday I'll stumble across more of this particular pattern.

Today I spent the afternoon putting together an outdoor winter planter. I did this for the first time last winter and I had hung on to some of my materials such as the birch logs and pine cones. I picked up some greenery at the local grocer and set about to tackle this again. When I'd finished it looked like something was missing. I wasn't happy with some of the cedar and pine which just weren't draping the way I wanted them to.

 I hopped into the car and went searching for some incense cedar which I had spotted earlier but neglected to buy. I also found some boxwood and added a bundle of it to my purchase. The incense cedar was perfect! It drapes so nicely and smells wonderful. I added a bit of the boxwood to the back of the arrangement, watered everything and pulled the planter out of the garage and settled it in front of the house. As I was doing this the snow began to fall and before I knew it I was in the middle of a snow squall! Things settled down a bit later but the snow fell softly for a couple of hours. Here's a pic of my arrangement in the morning light.

See you all next month and happy stitching!