January Smalls 2021

My stitching in 2021 has picked up some from the pace of 2020 so far. I managed to complete two smalls this month and have already picked out a project for next month. 

 I started out the month with an ornament that I've had kitted up for a few years now. It's a Little House Needleworks Design called Saltbox Village. I don't know what got into me but for some strange reason I decided to stitch the entire ornament over one. I was looking to do some small bowl fillers that are winter scenes or that can fit in with my winter decor and this one fit the bill.

The next pic gives you an idea of just how small this sweet piece is.

I think all told it measures 1 3/4" squared. I really love how it turned out!

I started a second ornament, this time a Prairie Schooler, and decided to continue on the same fabric. The piece is large enough that I could do a few more on it.

This Prairie Schooler is from the booklet Button Up and I'm calling it the Snow Angel.

There are a couple more from this book that I want to add to these but I also have a Valentine small to stitch first in February. See you next month!

 

December Smalls

 December was another busy month for smalls in terms of final finishing. I needed a push in the butt to get moving because once again I left things to the last minute and with less ambition and enthusiasm.

My granddaughters ornaments were the first priority specifically their requests, the snake and the rabbit. Here are the results of the final finishes. I've included photos of the backing fabric I used as well.

It was difficult to find a fabric in my stash to back the snake with. The fabric I chose reminded me somewhat of a snake's skin although it's not as clear in this picture as I would have liked.

With those two finished I moved onto finishing their Christmas ornaments. I cheated and pulled two previous stitched ornaments out of my pile and finished them up.

I squeeked out the final finishes on Dec. 14, packaged all their gifts up and mailed them out by Xpress post on Dec. 15. Believe it or not, they arrived at their home in Quebec two days later!! I was shocked. After all we all know how long it's taking to receive mail during the pandemic. 

I wasn't able to see the girls over Christmas but they took and posted a few pictures for me to see them opening their gifts. It looks like the ornaments were a hit as well as their requested pieces.

I also managed to finish off a name tree for my friend Trish and I finally got around to stitching one for myself after all the others were finished.

The first name tree is designed by Nouveau Encore Designs and my name tree was designed by M Designs who unfortunately is no longer designing.

I also finished the stitching on two small ornament finishes of a design called Twinkles by Stitcharoo Gifts. I spotted this little ornie on either a Facebook or Instagram post by another stitcher. I thought it would be a sweet and quick little finish.

I have stitched in on two different fabric linens. One is a pink-blue colour and the second is a light green with brighter colours for the floss.

As you can see, I have almost completed the final finishing on the first one. These will be put aside for next year's gifts for my granddaughters so I'm already ahead of the game!

I don't know how but I managed to squeek out all my finishes on time!

January Smalls

I'm off to a good start on my smalls for 2020. I have two small finishes this month. These are both Prairie Schooler ornaments from the leaflet Winter Wind. 

Although they're a little more time consuming than some ornaments I have always loved the look of the PS ornies and I would love to stitch a couple more in the future. I will either finish these as small pillows or I have often finished them with felt backgrounds very much like Vonna's finishes. If you're not familiar with Vonna, she is an amazing finisher and all you need to do is follow my link under her name. She has graciously shared all her finish techniques free for anyone who wants to learn.

I'm working on two large projects at the moment which can be seen in my previous post. These are taking up much of my stitching time but I'll try to squeeze in a small here and there. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to. See you next month! 

November Smalls

With Christmas just around the corner I pulled out my Christmas stitching and got started with a few ornaments. None of the final finishing is complete yet. I'll do them all at once when the time comes. 
I started with the ornaments for my granddaughters. These two ornaments are part of a collection by The Little Stitcher called the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 1 and Part 2. They can be purchased separately or as one booklet and can be found on her Etsy shop. 

 The Day of Snow and Ice

The Day of Folly

These ornament designs are so sweet and took very little time to stitch up. I've picked my backing fabrics and will finish them both as tree ornaments.

Two by Two Deer is designed by The Prairie Schooler and is an oldie but a goodie! The chart can be found in the Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornament issue from 1998. I've been meaning to stitch this one for quite awhile. It's about time I got around to it!! 

Those are my three Smalls finishes for this month. I hope to have a couple more next month but often time runs out as we get closer to the holidays. I really only need to stitch one more gift so keep your fingers crossed! See you next month.

December WIPocalyse and Smalls SAL

December.... a busy month at the best of times and not enough time for me to post twice this month. Consequently you get a combined WIPocalypse and Smalls SAL post. 

 Blackwater Hollow had very little attention paid to it this month. I suddenly realized how little time I had left for Christmas stitching and put this one aside. Sadly I don't expect to have it complete by year's end as I had hoped, not unless I have a stitching marathon which is highly unlikely. Our family have not had their Christmas gift exchange and dinner yet. My sons and families are only arriving on New Year's Day for our celebrations.

I did manage to get three small finishes completed in time for the Christmas season. Only two of them received final finishing as they are gifts for my granddaughters.
First up is A Festive Noel by Tina Woltman of Early Workings.

This is the third small involving a fruit basket which I finished this year. I have since purchased a couple more which I hope to complete in the next month or two. I love this design and can't wait to see it finished up as a small pinkeep.

The next two designs are by Prairie Schooler from their Evergreen leaflet. My granddaughters each picked out the design of their choice. Summer wanted the reindeer and Oceanne picked out the Peace design.

I found the backing fabric for these in my village fabric shop just last week. I love it and thought it was perfect to finish off these small stitches. I know the girls are going to love them!

I also started a larger work on a Christmas theme. I took a fancy to one of the new releases by Plum Street Sampler called Pomegranate Santa. As you can see, I haven't gotten very far on it yet.

Since our family wasn't joining us for Christmas dinner, we were invited to the neighbour's home for dinner with their family. All in all we were 14 and enjoyed a lovely turkey buffet dinner. I just had to show you a pic of the dessert we all enjoyed. It's a chocolate mousse cake! Yup, those are Kit Kat bars all around the outside!

Christmas Eve between church services, Bob and I took a drive up to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to see the Canadian Heritage light show. It was the perfect evening to see this as it was fairly mild. The show had been running since early December and would finish on Christmas Day so we definitely made it a point to get there to see it.

The light show was fantastic and pictured the adventures of a snowman, fox, and grizzly bear. It started with a countdown on a clock and ended with a tribute to Canada's upcoming 150th birthday in 2017. In anticipation of that event there will be a huge fireworks display on the hill on New Year's Eve. I wish I could be there but I don't think I'll make it since I'm picking up my granddaughters that day out of town.

I'll leave you with a pic of sweet Clarisse, enjoying my little twig tree on which I display all my stitched ornaments. She loves hanging out by the tree whether it's this one or the larger one downstairs. Happy New Year everyone and I'll see you then!

July Smalls

So I'm a little behind on my July Smalls post. It's just been busy, busy, busy! 

I stitched two small finishes this month. One was given as a gift and the other is a cute little bee... a perfect summer stitch.

This is a design by Prairie Schooler from one of their mini-cards. I finished it off and added it to a small bee skep. I think it's a little large for the bee skep but I couldn't find a bigger one so it will have to do.
The next stitch is by Pineberry Lane and I finished it off as a pin pillow for my friend Cathy's birthday. The back is trimmed with a gorgeous primitive velvet.

As I mentioned in my last post, I also received some lovely smalls for my birthday from my stitching friends. My birthday took place in May but since we were all getting together in July that's when we decided to celebrate. Two of us had May birthdays, one in June and another in August.
Here are some of the lovely gifts I received.

I was thrilled with everything. From my friend Nan I received the most gorgeous scissors with a matching tape measure. Theresa gave me the strawberry on the left which can be worn around the neck along with some silk threads and a Plum Street Sampler kit. They all know how much I love anything with deer in it! 
The strawberry in the middle was stitched by my dear friend Pat. It was her first finish of this type and I think she did an awesome job!
The strawberry on the right was made by Cathy and it's gorgeous. Cathy is a bee keeper and she also brought cinnamon honey for all.

These ladies are an amazing and very creative group. I am so blessed to call them my friends. They are my source of inspiration and they help me whenever I run into a problem with my finishing. Thank you all so much. I love you all dearly!

June Smalls

My smalls post is short and sweet this month. I've recently stitched three smalls but I can only show you one of them because the other two are for gifts and I don't want to spoil the fun. 

A lot of my time stitching is spent in our outdoor solarium or gazebo. In it I'm surrounded by the flowers in our yard and as I stitch I've been watching the bees stopping by at our planters. This little stitch by Prairie Schooler was inspired by my buzzing friends!

There is no name for this piece. It's from one of the PS mini cards. I simply call it Queen Bee. This is the first time I've stitched on black linen. It's a 32 ct and I found it time consuming. I've only stitched on black Aida in the past and that was bad enough! I have an idea for a finish on this and will share a pic when it's complete.

Continuing on the bee theme I've started another small by Blackbird Designs called Her Majesty - Pincushion. It's found in the Honeybee Hill leaflet. I might just stitch Honeybee Hill as well since I have a shaker box that it would look lovely on top of. 

See you next month!
 

November Small SAL and WIPocalypse

The full moon (WIPocalypse) and Smalls SAL both fall on the same date this month for reporting so this will be a combined report. I'll start off with the smalls.

It's been a few years since I have stitched any ornaments for my granddaughters so I decided that I should get back to that this year.
They're getting older and are more interested in my stitching now. I decided to do 2 ornaments taken from the Prairie Schooler Evergreen leaflet.

The girls were here this past weekend for a visit so I gave them to them to take home so they could put them on their tree before Christmas rather than wait until they saw me during the Christmas holiday. They loved them and have already picked out which ornies they want me to stitch next year!

My next small finish was a new design by Lori Ripley of Homespun Prims. It's called A White Christmas and I plan on making it into a pin pillow.

In addition to stitching the above designs, I finished off two designs that I had stitched sometime during the past 2 years. I found these sweet little tins in my friend's gift shop. They actually had chalkboards in the center for writing a message but as soon as I saw them I knew they would work for a cross stitch finish.

This is Little Women Christmas by The Sampler Girl. I finished this for a birthday gift for a stitching friend. Unfortunately I don't think these designs are available any longer.

 
 This is So This Is Christmas, designed by Jenny Hoffman of Country Rustic Primitives.

When I saw how easily these finishes came together, I headed back to my friend's shop and bought the remainder of her tins. I plan on doing several more of these.

For WIPocalypse this month I have concentrated on two designs......Plum Street Samplers Autumn Fraktur and Kathy Barrick And Heaven and Nature Sing. Here are some updated progress pics.

 

And Heaven and Nature Sing is part of a SAL which I'm doing with some of the stitchers from the Facebook group Prim Stitchers Society. This piece is done in Needlepoint Silks. I chose to use up some Vikki Clayton silks that I had in my stash. It didn't take me long to figure out that I was going to run out of the dark brown silk. So what I have done is to stitch in one direction with a slightly lighter brown silk and then go back over it with the darker brown. It's working out pretty well so far and I should have just enough silk to finish this off but it will be close! I will be using red beads instead of stitches for some of the area within the wreath around the deer's neck.

That's pretty much it as far as stitching is concerned for this month. As the holiday season creeps nearer and nearer there will be less time for stitching. I will probably just work on some more small finishes until the new year.

We were treated to a rare sight this past week. Our area is on the flight path for the migration of the Snow Goose so we often see them flying over or at a distance in a farmer's field. This year though they decided to settle in a pond at a gravel pit just up the highway from us. They were there several days in a row so I managed to get some great pics.

It was a real treat to get so close to these beautiful birds as they make their way south for the winter. I look forward to seeing them on the return trip again in the spring.

Last weekend my son and granddaughters dropped by so that we could celebrate the youngest's birthday. Summer will be 9 on the 27th. I was supposed to drive to their home (a 3 hr drive) but as some of you may know I have been ill off and on since late September. A cold and sinus infection lowered my immunity and then things progressed into viral pneumonia and bronchitis. I'm slowly recovering but I'm trying to avoid crowds right now so I don't pick up anything else. So Jeff and the girls landed in Saturday night and we had a very short but sweet visit.

 

I will take this time to wish all of my friends and family in the U.S. a very Happy Thanksgiving!! We Canadians celebrated ours in October but I know I always looked forward to watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade on T.V. I know there were several times when we played sick as kids so that we could stay home from school and watch it!  Enjoy your day my friends!!