December SFS

I can't believe that this is my final SFS post for 2014. How quickly a year seems to pass by anymore! It's been a wonderful first year and I have very much enjoyed being a part of this group. Thank you Mel for all the hard work you have put into making this work. I very much appreciate all your efforts!

This month I have been working on a new start, Plum Street Samplers Promised Lamb. It's a lovely Christmas design that was a gift last year. I know that I won't have it finished in time to display this year but I look forward to having it grace my walls next year.
Here's where I am at this point in time.

I've also finished the stitching on three more ornaments. Two of them can be seen here on my last post. I will post a pic of the third one on my final Small SAL post at the end of the month.

I ordered 2 patterns this month. One is for my Smalls SAL which you will see on the next post. Cost - $7.50. The other is a new release by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle & Thread called Heap on the Wood. Cost - $13.00. So my total for this month is within the $25.00 limit.

I wanted to show you a pic of some needlepoint that I spotted at a friend's home last week. My husband directs 2 community choirs and following the concert of one we were invited back to the home of one of the choir members, Dan. Dan lives in a lovely Victorian style home and collects antiques. I found this beautiful piece hanging on the wall in the powder room.  The frame is gorgeous! Click on the pic for a better view.

 
Dan loves antique needlework and has several other pieces throughout his home.

Christmas preparations leave very little time for stitching during the month of December. I decorated my home 2 weeks ago with the exception of the 2 trees which went up this week. Here's a pic of my twig tree on which I display cross stitched ornaments along with a few other small ones. The 2 porcelain cat ornaments were a Christmas gift last year from a dear friend. They're unusual and soooo cute!

Here are a few more pics of Christmas decor.

 I love bottle brush trees because they remind me of Christmas as a child. My grandmother had one or two but she also had several of the bottle brush wreaths which I have been unable to find.

 
All that remains now is to put out my Nativity scene. It didn't get put away in its usual spot last year and I just found it yesterday.

Now I'm off to finish wrapping gifts and to get started at some Christmas baking. I'd like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy the season!!
 

 

Final WIPocalypse post for 2013

It's here! Whether we're ready or not, the full moon has arrived once more and it's time for the final WIPocalypse report of 2013. I had a look back at what I set out to do this year and I'm pretty pleased with my progress. So far I have 35 designs completed and I know that I'll have one more ornament completed by this weekend which makes a total of 36 finishes for 2013. I know that I didn't complete several of my choices on my first list but that's always a rough draft for me. My tastes and feelings change as the year passes and I don't always feel like stitching some of my original picks.  This year I stitched more large pieces as compared to last year so I'm very happy with the finished pieces.

Here's where I am with this past month's progress:

These two ornaments are designed by The Sunflower House and the second one is meant to be the backing for the first. However I have decided to finish each as a separate ornament.

I finished Plum Street Sampler's Mary's Sampler II which was a Christmas gift SAL from Paulette.

My ornie commitment for November was Little House Needleworks Peppermint Twist.

I have one other ornament finish which is also a Little House Needleworks design. I will post that on the last Wednesday of this month since it is for my ornament SAL.

In addition I started two other new ornaments.

First up The Primitive Hare Santa's Welcome - Ho, Ho, Ho
This one is being stitched over one so that it won't end up being too big.

The second ornament is Country Garden Stitchery Box Ornament III. I only have 4 more rows of stitches on this one and I know it will be complete before year's end. It stitches up very quickly despite its looks. There will also be some beading added to this one.

Last but certainly not least is my Torah Stitch By Stitch project. My portion of this project is nearing completion. The bottom border is nearly complete which only leaves one remaining side border. I will also be extending the border on the left to reach the edge of the bottom border.

Certainly it has been both a successful month of stitching and a successful year's worth! If you want to see all of my completions for this past year, just click on the title 2013 Finishes at the head of my blog.

Christmas is fast approaching now and I'm just about ready. Tomorrow I'll do a bit of baking, Sunday after church we are picking up the necessary food supplies for the meal and Monday is the final choir practice for Christmas Eve. I finished wrapping my gifts this morning and my cards are all out. 
I am very grateful to my son Daniel for all his help with decorating the house. Due to my hip issues I'm not able to get up and down on my stepladder to decorate the tree so he spent last Friday with me and we got the job done.

Here are some pictures of the results.

Lots of freezing rain is expected here this weekend so I plan on staying indoors, snug as a bug. I'll be back with another post of some of our recent Christmas festivities. Until then stay safe and stay warm!

Close to a finish

This past week I finally decided to take a break from stitching ornaments and give some quality time to my BBD 'Tis The Season. I'd really like to have this one completed by Christmas and after this past week I know that I'll make my deadline.

Seeing this picture I notice that one of the gold leaves of holly may have to be restitched along its stem. The colour variation is such that it's just not showing up in the stitching well at this point. The suggested colour didn't show up at all so I substituted with Belle Soie Butterscotch which seems to be a little darker and I'm happier with the results. 
There's very little remaining to be stitched on this one and theoretically it should be done within the next couple of days. However life is getting busier as Christmas Day approaches so the happy dance might have to wait for several days.

Since 'Tis is a little too large to take along on day trips I've started another ornament by Gazette 94 called Bon Noel. Here's my progress so far.

That tree will soon have a kitty reaching up into it, trying to dislodge the ornaments. It's particularly fitting for our family as you'll hear later in this post.

I've managed to get all my decorating done minus putting up the tree which will take place on the weekend. My son Daniel celebrates his 28th birthday on Saturday and always comes to our place on that day to help me with the tree. My hubby's birthday is tomorrow and because of his busy schedule with numerous Christmas concerts I always hold a joint celebration for Daniel and him which will probably take place towards the weekend. I did get my twig tree put up this week though which holds all my ornaments for now. Eventually these ornaments will end up on the big tree as I add to my collection.

I made one big mistake this year though in adding some new birds to this tree. There are three of them in red, green and a tan colour and they each have long tail feathers. Guess who has taken a fancy to them?
If you guessed Clarisse, you'd be absolutely right! In the next pic you can see the green bird on the tree which was recently moved up higher where she can't reach it as easily.

I returned home Sunday to find several ornaments on the floor and the bird sitting rather cockeyed on the tree. The tail feathers seemed a bit damp too!  Speaking of damp, I've been bringing out the water bottle and each time she attempts to get near the tree I give her a little squirt. Sometimes she stands her ground and just squints at the bottle but other times she slinks away and hides until she thinks I'm not around anymore. As of today I think she has finally given up in her pursuit!
This is unlike my son Chris and his girlfriend's cats which are Maine Coon kitties. This is their first Christmas and Chris recently posted a score on Facebook which read Kittens - 10, Tree - 0! Apparently they don't care if they get wet so the water bottle isn't very effective with them.
Here's a pic of the two of them sitting in their fridge. They like to jump in every time someone opens the door.

I'll leave you with a picture of my grandchildren taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus. My son just sent this to me. Love it! 
I hope you are all enjoying your preparations for this very special season and Happy Hanukkah wishes to all of my readers belonging to the Jewish faith.  May you be blessed with health and happiness!

Christmas decorating and an awesome giveaway

Slowly but surely I'm getting around to decorating our home for Christmas. Now that the boys are no longer here to help out, I tend to do things in stages over the course of a few days. Our tree is not up yet and won't be until later next week but I have found some favourites to come out of their year long storage boxes.

 This collection of snowmen sits on one end of my mantel in our rec room. Two  of the three were gifts from a friend.

I found this primitive angel several years ago. I can't remember where I found her but she has been a favourite ever since. 

This festively adorned couple are new additions this year. They are gracing the other end of our mantel. I originally picked up just the one bear on the left. Then I spotted its mate and she just looked so lonesome sitting by herself and I couldn't leave without the two of them. I know my granddaughters will adore them!

I'm changing things up this year with a lot of our decor. Much of it has been around since the kids were young and is getting a little outdated. I'm giving a lot of it to my sons now especially to Jeff since he doesn't have a lot of decorations for the girls. The picture below was taken on my visit to their place last weekend.

 Here is the birthday girl showing off her Christmas tree. All of the ornaments on that tree have been around since their father was a baby. I bought them for our first tree after I was married. Jeff was thrilled when I offered them to him and the girls are now picking out their favourites. The girls decorated the tree themselves which is obvious if you had seen the whole thing. Most of the ornaments are located on the bottom third of the tree!

I tried to get some decent pictures but it was one of those times when the girls were being silly and just not cooperating. I only managed to get a couple of halfway decent shots. Here's one of Oceanne. I just can't believe how much taller she seems to have got since the summer! She seems to be all legs.

You can see the results of their silliness in the next photo. They like to dress up as princesses but thought that it would be fun to dress up Dad this time. Jeff's friend Pasquale seems to get a kick out of his new look!

I'm frantically trying to get those ornaments done for the girls. All of the stitching is now complete and I'm at the beading stage. I hope to get started on that this evening. Christmas concerts have kept my DH and me rather busy so there hasn't been a heck of a lot of stitching time. Plus I seem to have a lingering headache ever since my dental work on Wednesday. They were drilling into my jaw for the implant and the freezing didn't take 100% which has result in this persistent headache. It's slowly receding and I hope to be back to my old self by weekend's end.

I spent all day today completing my Christmas wrapping. I prefer to get it all done in one day otherwise there is wrapping paper lying all over the place. That leaves my Christmas cards and baking remaining. Oh yeah and the tree. That should be up by week's end as we then celebrate my middle son's birthday as well as my hubby's. Bob's is on Monday and Dan's is on Thursday so we usually have a joint celebration involving chocolate cake of some sort. The two of them are chocoholics!

Now I'm off to try and get in a few stitches. Before I go, I wanted to let you know about the awesome giveaway that Nancy is having over at The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe.  She's having a fabulous giveaway of her own hand dyed floss. Definitely worth your while. I promise some stitchy pics next week